Escaping the shadow of Eugene Landy: The album that gave Brian Wilson his mojo back
If having “mojo” ever sounded like anything, it was Pet Sounds.
The Beach Boys’ 1966 album was a masterclass in studio recording and placed Brian Wilson in the Hall of Fame. He was the figurehead for this ambitious piece and orchestrated the endless layers and textures into order, creating a near-perfect record of ideas.
But doing so was a gruelling process for Wilson, and one that effectively pushed him to the very brink of his own sanity. Such was the demand for perfection that days in the studio were often scrapped if they didn’t achieve what Wilson had in mind, and subsequently, the label ended up spending the equivalent of $500,000 on the record.
But having summited the creative mountain, Wilson was soon confronted with the descent. The band’s 1967 follow-up, Smiley Smile, under-delivered on the band’s promise to top Pet Sounds, and from there on out, they steadily declined.
With that came a string of personal problems for Wilson. In ’75, Wilson met psychologist Eugene Landy in a bid to help control his substance abuse. What instead happened was 15 years of intense control exerted by Landy over Wilson, ultimately spiralling his life into a state of reclusive made. By 1991, when he left him, Wilson was something of a musical ghost, once remembered for his unrivalled greatness and never to be seen the same since.
“The publicity he had was so negative that his musical contributions had been forgotten,” producer Don Was explained of Wilson. Was, was recruited to help Wilson record his ‘95 solo album I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, which was designed to be an emphatic push back against this dwindled reputation.
He continued, “It was not a healthy environment to release a record into. It’s hard enough when a guy is 52 years old. It’s like when you order sushi, they bring you ginger to cleanse your palate between courses. You have to cleanse the public palate if you want them to think about your music with an open mind. … That’s what convinced him to do it.”
The record was a collection of what was almost entirely rerecordings of Wilson’s past songs, dating back to the triumphant Pet Sounds era. It seemed like a relatively simple way for Wilson to return to form, going back to the project that made him so iconic in the first place and rehashing the old ideas. But with that simplicity came a danger, that he would tarnish his career for good and cement his exile from music.
“At first, I thought ‘This is gonna be contrived. The songs were all old hat,” Wilson admitted. But then the album began to take shape, and through his return to the Pet Sounds era, Wilson rediscovered his own artistry again.
He added, “But then I understood the context of it all, so I felt free to talk without worrying about what I was saying. I got a sense of myself — a sense of worth.”
While nothing really came for Wilson after the record, not in terms of a grand return to the top, the record did brilliantly refresh the public and remind them of the true genius essence of Wilson as a songwriter.
