Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds and Influences of the Beach Boys' Founding Genius (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: surfer moon, cumulative intro, little saint nick, Beach Boys, Four Freshmen, Shut Down (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lambert offers a detailed musical analysis of Wilson as a creative genius, with the Beach Boys as only part of the story. He discusses the various musical influences on Wilson before he began composing for the Beach Boys in 1961 (they quickly became popular); analyzes Wilson's numerous compositions and his albums, an output capped by Pet Sounds (1966); and considers his work with other composers and performers into the 21st century. Including a complete song chronology (ending in 2005), a list of the recording dates of each song, and helpful discography, this is a fascinating-- and extremely technical-- study. Highly Recommended." -- Choice

Product Description

Do you remember the first time you heard "Pet Sounds"? It still takes my breath away, forty years later, but I'll never forget that jaw-dropping moment when Brian Wilson's masterpiece first entered my consciousness. It seemed just so far removed from anything that seemed possible in a rock album, so deep and sensitive and finely crafted that it surely came from a world beyond this one...I've written this book because I had to know more about the remarkable creative spirit behind "Pet Sounds" and the Beach Boys. I wanted to know every detail about Brian Wilson's music before and after his magnum opus. Of course, I knew something about the life he has lived, especially the publicity-grabbing circumstances of his difficult childhood, up-and-down relationships with his brothers and the group that made him famous, battles with substance abuse and depression and legal squabbles. But I was sure that his music alone told a story that was interesting on its own and that was naturally interwoven with his biography. That's the story I've set out to tell in this book...Tracing a line from Brian Wilson's very first musical loves (George Gershwin and the Four Freshmen) through to the Smile and Pet Sounds tours of recent years, Philip Lambert's astonishingly comprehensive book details over 50 years in the musical life of one of America's foremost pop composers. Lambert acknowledges the familiar biographical contexts behind many of Wilson's songs, but sheds new light on the birth and evolution of his musical ideas. A huge number of songs are discussed, including the famous ("Help Me Rhonda," "Good Vibrations," "God Only Knows") and the less well known ("Farmer's Daughter," "Boys Will Be Boys" and more). The end result is a remarkable story of musical growth and ambition, sure to appeal to devoted Beach Boys fans. The book also includes a unique Brian Wilson song chronology, listing every musical endeavour to which Brian is known to have made a musical contribution.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: Continuum; illustrated edition edition (March 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826418775
• ISBN-13: 978-0826418777
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #236,591 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Part of the Story, February 3, 2008

By	James N. Kraut (Coral Springs, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The idea of getting inside Brian Wilson's music was intriguing to me, so I bought this book and ultimately realized I'd already gotten there. I've long known the inner experience of Brian's magic, depth and spirit, but never did find it in Lambert's text. If you appreciate the brilliance of the Beach Boys, you already know it from your own experience of the songs. The musical analysis here is just too cerebral. And it isn't a question of not knowing the language or understanding the concepts. I do have a background in theory, so it wasn't a matter of being able to follow him, but rather the desire to. Throughout the book, structure is always the focal point when Lambert tries to "explain" Brian's songs. Color - i.e., the amazing world of Brian's brilliant and groundbreaking arrangements - is seldom if ever addressed, other than references to the structure of vocal arrangements. The author does a lot of comparing, song to song, pointing out, for example, how many tunes of a particular period have similarly descending bass-lines, and how melodic and chordal patterns show themselves consistently over Brian's career. All true, but somehow ultimately unimportant - to me, anyway. I got much more out of the passages that looked at the tie-in between Brian's emotional life and his music - his discussion of 'Til I Die, for example. Furthermore, I believe that Brian's patterns - chords, melodies and bass lines - share a commonality not because of the composer's desire to create thematic consistency, but simply because he liked those sounds and kept getting drawn back to them. You can hear that all through other composers' work - Mozart, for instance - in little melodic and chordal figures that express themselves repeatedly. After all, writers write to please themselves; they keep what sounds good to them and discard what doesn't. But ultimately, I never got much information that addresses why I love Brian Wilson's music. Most of the biographical material is insightful, well-written and very interesting, although a lot of it isn't appearing here for the first time, which the author acknowledges. But at the end of the day, I enjoyed Lambert much more as a biographer than as a musical analyst.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rock music collections will find it an invaluable exploration., July 7, 2007

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

INSIDE THE MUSIC OF BRIAN WILSON: THE SONGS, SOUNDS, AND INFLUENCES OF THE BEACH BOYS' FOUNDING GENIUS is a pick any Beach Boys fan needs: while Brian Wilson's life has received extensive documentation in other biographies, here the focus is solely on his music, not his life - and what a welcome change that is, for fans of his sound. New stories cover the birth and evolution of Wilson's musical ideas using the history of his songwriting and production to explore his evolution. Rock music collections will find it an invaluable exploration.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For advanced music students, September 2, 2008

By	T. Ciano (tucson az) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am not completely ignorant when it comes to music theory, but I found this book to be too technical for me, overall. It is very thorough...if you are a musician with knowledge of music theory, I can't imagine that a more complete treatment Brian's music will be written. But for the average person with only a little knowledge of music theory I think this book would be too much.

Also, this book relies on giving examples from other songs of the late 50's and early sixties, and if you don't know those songs inside and out you won't know what Mr. Lambert is talking about when he writes, for instance, (comparing "Don't Worry Baby" to "Be My Baby"), "Both are verse-chorus forms in E major with an instrumental break after the second chorus, and both feature four exchanges of half-dialogue between lead and backing vocals in their choruses. Even some of the chorus melodic figures are the same: the scalewise movement on 'be my little baby' sung by the Ronettes, for example, uses exactly the same scale tones and in the same order (but in a different rhythm) as Brian's notes on the initial statement of the phrase 'don't worry, baby'." (pg 135)

OK, now, if that rocks your world, if that is what you are looking for, then buy this book. Also, he extensively uses as examples many other, lesser -known Beach Boy's songs and if you don't know them by heart or have the recording you will be lost. As in: "Recalling tonal relations in 'Finder's Keepers' and 'Drag City' with less direct echoes of 'The Rocking Surfer' and 'Boogie Woodie' plus the just-recorded 'Pom-Pom Play Girl', the verse and chorus of "Don't Worry Baby" move back and forth between E and F-sharp throughout the song"

It's like that. So this book would be perfect for music majors, who also have a complete, thorough knowledge of the structure of Four Freshman songs, Doo-Wop songs,late-50's early 60's Rock-n-Roll and just about the entire catalog of Beach Boys songs.

If that's you, then you'd enjoy this book greatly, and would probably rate it as a 4 or 5 star.

I had a harder time with it technically, so for me, it gave me 3 stars- worth of enjoyment.