The artist Brian Wilson named “the greatest musical innovator”
There are only a few rock artists that have shaped the pop landscape like Brian Wilson. Throughout his time with The Beach Boys, Wilson’s knack for knowing the perfect way to layer harmonies and move between different keys turned the rock landscape on its head, making for artists like The Beatles to follow in his footsteps on their future projects. Although Wilson has freely admitted to taking pieces from rock’s past, he still thinks this musician took music further than anyone else.
When Wilson started, though, he gravitated towards the sounds from rock’s Stone Age. Long before The British Invasion began working its way into homes worldwide, artists like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis laid the groundwork for what Wilson would do with The Beach Boys, creating snapshots of what the teenage lifestyle was supposed to be in America.
Taking the vocal talent from The Four Freshmen, Wilson would start making tracks that captured the spirit of teenage angst, all through the backdrop of the California lifestyle. Even though Wilson could have easily played songs about going to the high school dance for the rest of his life, he has his mind set on something bigger down the road.
Once artists like Bob Dylan and The Beatles began to look at the album as an art form, Wilson started to chip at the foundation of what The Beach Boys were supposed to be. With the release of Pet Sounds, the musical maestro introduced new layers of harmony that most had neglected in the rock field, creating different textures that felt like stepping into another world whenever putting on the headphones.
Although Wilson has admitted that The Beatles played a significant role in his development, he singled out Bach as one of the cornerstones in popular music. When talking about the influence of classical music, Wilson considered Bach to be one of the greatest examples of pushing the boundaries with popular music, stating, “I have to tell you that J.S. Bach was easily the greatest musical innovator in the history of the world… I think I would have been a classical composer. But not like Mozart, Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky. I would have been like Bach, using counterpoint, layering things. Of all the composers, he’s the one who makes the most sense to me”.
Considering his intense musical vocabulary, it’s easy to see where Wilson’s approach to music fits within that classical framework. Throughout songs like ‘God Only Knows’, that emphasis on counterpoint turns up in the harmony singing, almost sounding like a choral symphony if it were sung acapella.
The next few years would see Wilson trying to expand that classical itch even further. Throughout songs like ‘Good Vibrations’, the musical mastermind was known to toy with every piece of music that he could, putting everything from a theremin to a lead cello on the final mix of the song.
Even though rock and roll is meant to be the antithesis of proper music, Wilson was one of the few who was proud to wear his classical influence on his sleeve. Rock may be a dirty genre, but it shines brighter than any other song on the charts when it takes cues from the cleaner side of music.
