FREE I AM BRIAN WILSON: THE GENIUS BEHIND THE BEACH BOYS PDF Brian Wilson | 320 pages | 11 Oct 2016 | Hodder & Stoughton General Division | 9781444781335 | English | London, United Kingdom I Am Brian Wilson: The genius behind the Beach Boys by Brian Wilson It was created by the Beatles ' former press officer Derek Taylor inwho was then employed as the Beach Boys' publicistalthough there are earlier documented expressions of the statement. Taylor frequently called Wilson "genius" as part of a campaign he initiated to rebrand the group and legitimize Wilson as a serious artist on par with the Beatles and Bob Dylan. With the aid of numerous associates in the music industry, Taylor's promotional efforts were integral to the success of the band's album Pet Sounds in England. However, the hype generated for the group's next album, Smilebore a number of unintended consequences for the band's reputation and internal dynamic. Wilson ultimately scrapped Smile and reduced his involvement with the group. Wilson later said that the "genius" branding intensified the pressures of his career and led him to become "a victim of the recording industry". Brian Wilson was responsible for writing or co-writing the Beach Boys ' string of hits in the s, which inspired a number of Los Angeles music industry figures to refer to him as a genius. In the meantime, the Beatles ' former press agent Derek Taylor had left the UK and moved to California, where he I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys his own public relations company. There could be no more spectacular recommendation. Taylor was quickly assimilated into what was then an expanding coterie of Wilson's worldly-minded friends, musicians, mystics, and business advisers. Brian, in particular, suffered. Van Dyke ParksWilson's lyricist at the time, claimed to have introduced Taylor to Wilson, [19] while biographer David Leaf wrote that it was Bruce Johnston I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys "set up a meeting for Derek with Brian. Taylor recalled that the "genius" promotion originated "because Brian told me that he thought he was better than most other people believed him to be". After becoming aware I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys how highly regarded Wilson was to musician friends such as Van Dyke Parks and singer Danny HuttonTaylor wondered why it was not the mainstream consensus, and began "putting it around, making almost a campaign out of it". The campaign promoted Wilson as an exceptional "genius" among pop artists, an idea that Taylor personally believed in. One of the earliest instances of Taylor announcing that Wilson was a genius was in his article titled "Brian Wilson: Whizzkid Behind the Beach Boys". This is Brian Wilson. He is a Beach Boy. Some say he is more. Some say he is a Beach Boy and a genius. This twenty-three-year-old powerhouse not only sings with the famous group, he writes the words and music then arranges, engineers, and produces the disc Even the packaging and design on the record jacket is controlled by the talented Mr. He has often been called I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys, and it's a burden. Pet Sounds was widely influential and raised the band's prestige as an innovative rock group. In May, Taylor and Bruce Johnston traveled to London and arranged listening parties for the album, inviting prestigious musicians including Lennon and McCartney and rock journalists. These journalists subsequently helped promulgate the idea of Wilson as a "pop genius" and of the album's forward-thinking aesthetic. Throughout the summer ofWilson concentrated on finishing the group's next single, " Good Vibrations ". As quoted in interviews, Wilson declared that the group's next album Smile originally called Dumb Angel would I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds as that was over Summer Days ". When asked where he believed music would go, Wilson responded: "White spiritualsI think that's what we're going to hear. Songs of faith. In MayTaylor announced that Smile had been "scrapped" and the music press subsequently amplified their romantic depictions of I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys. Siegel covered Wilson's struggle to overcome the band's surfing image in the US and credited the collapse of Smile to "an obsessive cycle of creation and destruction that threatened not only his career and his fortune but also his marriage, his friendships, his relationships with the Beach Boys and, some of his closest friends worried, his mind". According to academic Kirk Curnett, Siegel's article was "the most instrumental in establishing Brian as mercurial in the broader senses of that term: as an eccentric and erratic artist perilously pursuing the muse instead of blithely serving the masses". Siegel greatly romanticized Wilson and Smileechoing and fostering the pervasive audience view of Wilson as a tortured genius Depicting Wilson in decline, with the non-release of Smile as the most obvious byproduct of mental and creative psychosis Informer band associate David Anderle commented on Siegel's use of the "genius" descriptor. Jules used all that stuff because it always made him feel like he was more important, because he was the one doing the interview with this genius. Well, it really turned out, because if he wrote it then it would make him look important, that he was part of the posse or part of the secret or part of the thing. I guess we all do that. We all extend the story, don't we? We all extend the moment. It's satisfying. But what a burden for Brian Wilson later said that he had run out of ideas by "in a conventional sense" and was "about ready to die". I am a victim of the recording industry. On December 14,Jann Wenner printed an influential article in Rolling Stone that denounced the "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck" and a "pointless" attempt to compare Wilson with the Beatles. He wrote: "Wilson believed [that he was a genius] and felt obligated to make good of it. It left Wilson in a bind Wilson's bandmates resented that he was singled out as a "genius". He said that Carl was especially bothered by the misconception that the members were "nameless music components in Brian's music machine". By the s, both fans and detractors began to view Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty. Some of the characterizations advanced by industry insiders included "genius musician but an amateur human being", "washed-up", "bloated", "another sad fucking case", and "a loser". According to music historian Luis Sanchez: "The article followed I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys bombast of Siegel's 'Genius with a capital G' line to some bizarre ends. A major tenet of Wilson's "genius" rests on a narrative familiar to the arc of a tragic artist. Carl wrote in It is to pop what the tragic genius of Vincent van Gogh is to modern art: a parable of sensitivity sacrificed to cruel indifference. For decades that lore has echoed through new records and retrospective box sets, countless books and essays, documentaries, TV movies, fictional accounts, The word "genius" always risks estranging its subject from their cultural context. There were many influences on Wilson's signature style Combining clean-cut, boy-next-door appeal with aesthetic forward-thinking was what made Wilson a real anomaly in US pop-culture history. And in that myth was also the seed of his downfall, as creativity and conformity collided. He concluded that the interest in Brian's life comes primarily from a "human-interest angle" concerned with "the popular tendency to fetishise any overlap between genius and madness" rather than a purely musical one, ultimately distorting "both Wilson's story and his significance. Writing in The Rolling Stone Record GuideDave Marsh bemoaned that Wilson became a "Major Artist" through the hype that continued to surround Wilson and the Smile project throughout the s, calling it "an exercise in myth-mongering almost unparalleled in show business". More than I think they to this day know. As a result of the mythology surrounding Wilson, Mike Love is often regarded as Wilson's lifelong antagonist. According to Love, fans of Wilson thought "he was beyond accountability. By now, the myth was too strong, the legend too great. Brian was the tormented genius who suffered to deliver us his music—the forever victim, as his lawyer said. Wilson said: "I didn't think I was a genius. I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius. I think it's exaggerated. It's going an extra 20 yards. He stated: "Despite what he wrote about me, it was Derek Taylor who was the genius. He was a genius writer. From Wikipedia, the free I am Brian Wilson: The Genius Behind the Beach Boys. Promotional campaign for the Beach Boys' leader. I still believe it. Absolutely, Brian Wilson is certainly a genius. It was something I felt had to be established. We haven't been doing much and it was run just at a time when the Beach Boys had something good out. We're all four fans of the Beach Boys. Maybe we voted for them. If that's so, what was there left for me to do? At that time, people who experimented with psychedelics—no matter who they were—were viewed as 'enlightened people', and Brian sought out the enlightened people. He's very nice and sort of different to them.