The Beatles legend Paul McCartney's 'deep' choice as 'greatest song ever written'
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Sir Paul McCartney has paid a touching tribute to Brian Wilson, labelling one of his songs as "the greatest ever written", in the wake of the Beach Boys icon's death at the age of 82.
On Wednesday, the world learned of the sad passing of Wilson through an Instagram post from his family, which stated: "We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love and Mercy."
As tributes flooded in from around the world for the visionary artist who crafted hits such as I Get Around, Good Vibrations, and God Only Knows, Paul McCartney joined in honouring Brian's indelible impact on the music scene.
In a poignant Instagram post, McCartney shared his admiration: "Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special. The notes he heard in his head and passed to us were simple and brilliant at the same time."
Adding a personal touch, Paul reflected on his relationship with the music legend: "I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while. How we will continue without Brian Wilson, 'God Only Knows.", reports the Mirror US.
McCartney, renowned for his own legacy in music with The Beatles, has not shied away from expressing his high regard for the talent of the Beach Boys frontman, reciprocated by Brian's open appreciation for The Beatles' work.
Back in 2000, Paul McCartney had the privilege of ushering Brian Wilson into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, saying at the time, "In the '60s, particularly, he wrote some music that when I played it, it made me cry and I don't quite know why. It wasn't necessarily the words or the music, it's just something so deep in it, that there's only certain pieces of music that can do this to me."
He continued, praising Wilson with, "I think it's a sign of great genius to be able to do that with a bunch of music and a bunch of notes. And this man, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, that's for sure."
The iconic 'Let It Be' artist has often expressed his adoration for The Beach Boys' classic hit 'God Only Knows', previously hailing it as the "greatest song ever written" during the nineties. Paul echoed this sentiment in 2003 within the pages of Charles Granata's tome 'Wouldn't it Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds'.
On Radio 1, in an earnest chat back in 2007, McCartney disclosed, "God Only Knows is one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it. It's really just a love song, but it's brilliantly done. It shows the genius of Brian."
Born in Inglewood, southern California, in 1942, Brian Wilson captured hearts worldwide through his exceptional songwriting prowess. Their band, which came to be known as The Beach Boys, burst onto the scene with their inaugural track 'Surfin'' released in 1961.
His career flourished as he took on multiple roles within the band, including songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist. Some of his most memorable hits include I Get Around, Don't Worry Baby, Good Vibrations and Wouldn't It Be Nice.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Brian Wilson was a musical genius. Are there any left?
By all accounts, Brian Wilson was a genius. His fellow greats Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney both used the word in their tributes to the creative force behind the Beach Boys, who died this week aged 82. So did John Cale, Mick Fleetwood and Elton John. And so did Wilson's bandmates, who wrote in a joint statement: 'The world mourns a genius today.' You may imagine Wilson gradually accrued such a vaunted standing. Artistic legacy is largely dependent on the longevity of mass appeal, and the fact that the Beach Boys' opus Pet Sounds remains one of the most celebrated and beloved records of all time almost 60 years since its release is proof enough of his incredible talent. Wilson's claim to genius status began with a 1966 PR campaign masterminded by the ex-Beatles publicist Derek Taylor. Fortunately, Wilson's output justified it, and after spreading like wildfire through the British music press the 'Brian Wilson is a genius' rhetoric quickly caught on, 'especially with the UK public', says Wilson's biographer, David Leaf. It has been the consensus ever since. Do we just imagine musical geniuses are anointed in retrospect because we no longer have any? It is extremely difficult to argue that any artist of the last 30 years has reached the trailblazing standard of Wilson, Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. The remaining members of those acts are all over 80 (with the sole exception of Ronnie Wood at 78); Stevie Wonder is 75, Brian Eno is 77, Ralf Hütter, the surviving founder of Kraftwerk, is 78. The most recent claimants to the musical genius title are generally considered to have been Michael Jackson and Prince, both of whom died relatively young. Soon, the very idea of a living legend will be a thing of the past. In pop music, which reveres the new, genius is synonymous with innovation. Obviously, it is no coincidence that all of our unique and innovative musical minds were of a similar generation, starting work in the 1970s – at the very latest – when all the new drum, guitar and keyboard sounds and most resonant, memorable melodies were there for the taking. Such was the virgin territory before them, the Beach Boys even had the opportunity to sonically codify California, one of the most culturally significant places on the planet. 'I guess I just wasn't made for these times,' Wilson once sang. But if he hadn't been operating in those lonely years, would he have been considered a genius at all? What is also quite clear is that musical progress didn't abruptly end half a century ago. There is still as-yet-unheard music to be made – and made it is, all the time. Generic fusions, formal variations and experimental production techniques are not infinite but they are definitely not exhausted, and some have even coalesced into era-defining movements, as 21st-century genres such as grime, trap and hyperpop prove. Some genres – including grime, which can be convincingly traced back to the British producer Wiley and his turn-of-the-millennium experiments; and hyperpop, the brainchild of the London producer AG Cook and his PC Music collective – even have specific originators. Yet they still haven't produced any bona fide musical geniuses. First, the entirely explicable part. The demise of the monoculture – due to technology's fracturing of the media and cultural landscape – means only the most aggressively mainstream and inoffensively palatable acts (Adele, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift) are able to command the same level of fame and musical familiarity as their 1960s counterparts. Meanwhile, invention has remained staunchly at the cultural fringes – and if it does get anywhere near the zeitgeist, the journey is leisurely. Grime took off a full decade after its creation, thanks to Skepta and Stormzy; so did hyperpop, which reached the masses last summer in the guise of Charli xcx's Brat. This is another reason why musical genius is so thin on the ground: the people who do the actual innovating rarely end up in the spotlight themselves. This seems especially so in comparison with the 1960s; it is impossible to separate personal achievement from the decade's goldrush – a manic crusade to push pop and rock to its absolute limits. The famous rivalry between Wilson and the Beatles – healthy competition for the latter, says Leaf, if not so much for the former – accelerated progress and incentivised change. The pressure is also thought to have contributed to the decline in Wilson's mental health later in the decade. But then comes the more mysterious part. What is so astonishing about Wilson is how many different groundbreaking things he did simultaneously. In the studio, 'he was inventing a new way of making popular music,' Leaf says. 'What he called modular recording – recording bits and pieces of a song and then piecing it together.' He also pioneered the idea of one person helming all elements of a recorded song: composition, arrangement, performance, mixing, production. On top of that, he did something lyrically radical. He transformed pop into an 'emotional autobiography,' says Leaf. 'He was determined to put his feelings on to the recording tape and share it with the world,' which at that time was very much not the norm. Many of pop's canonical artists were similar: Dylan didn't just single-handedly make popular music a vessel for poetry, he also infused it with an all-new attitude and emotional palette (cynicism, disgust, rebellion), while conflating his previous folk fare with rock to create an entirely new sound. Dylan's decision to go electric has become emblematic of the musical genius's requirement to shock. Even Pet Sounds, an onslaught of loveliness, disturbed the band's record label with its leaps of progress, says Leaf. Nowadays, pop music is only really controversial where it overlaps with sex and violence; it is practically impossible to sonically surprise the listening public. The prospect of the end of musical innovation is something students and lovers of guitar music have already had to make peace with – at this point, nostalgia is inherent to the genre. 'I'm aware it's impossible to make genuinely new, novel guitar music, and so I tend to lean into anachronism,' was how Owen Williams, frontman of my new favourite old-sounding band, the Tubs, once put it. Just as selling out became a respected career move, explicit derivation is now an artform in itself; in recent years Beyoncé has stayed at the forefront of pop by essentially becoming a kind of musical historian. There is one thing that does feel jarring about the slowed pace of musical progress. Technological advancement has always been woven into sonic novelty – the advent of synths (which Wilson also anticipated), for example, or sampling. Considering technology has accelerated in unimaginable, terrifying ways over the past 20 years, you'd think that might be reflected in the pop zeitgeist. Instead, we have a chart stuffed with tracks that essentially could have been made at any point in the past 50 years. Perhaps the late 20th century – and particularly the 1960s – created a sort of natural selection of music: we found the combinations of notes and rhythms that appealed most to the western human ear and that is what we have continued to rehash. Surely, then, this is a problem artificial intelligence may be able to solve. This is technology determined to get to know us more intimately than we know ourselves. What better way to continue the quest for novel pop perfection that Wilson embarked on 60 years ago? In theory, it could supplant human creativity. In actuality, AI is unlikely to wrest control of pop's soul from humans. That's because musical innovation, and even catchy melodies, have ceded importance to the branding of people. If Swift's gargantuan success is anything to go by – which it probably is – pop's future depends on the carefully honed appeal of an individual human personalities, not what they can do on a keyboard (the musical kind). Swift's approach to her public image and the music business in general is groundbreaking in its own way, even if her music isn't. We will be mourning her as a cultural figure at some point, but a musical genius? That would take some real cognitive dissonance. It seems unlikely we will do so with anyone by the end of this century; we have no currently minted visionaries, although time will tell if anyone retroactively earns the title. What is certain is that as the pop canon continues to splinter into thousands of smaller, personal rosters, we will be losing musicians who mean everything to some people, but not – like Wilson – something to almost everyone.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Brian Wilson was a musical genius: are there any left?
By all accounts, Brian Wilson was a genius. Fellow greats Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney both used the word in their tributes to the creative force behind the Beach Boys, who died this week aged 82. So did John Cale, Mick Fleetwood and Elton John. And so did his bandmates, who wrote in a joint statement that 'the world mourns a genius today'. You may imagine Wilson gradually accrued such a vaunted standing. Artistic legacy is largely dependent on the longevity of mass appeal, and the fact that the Beach Boys' opus Pet Sounds remains one of the most celebrated and beloved records of all time almost 60 years since its release is proof enough of his incredible talent. Wilson's claim to genius status began with a 1966 PR campaign masterminded by ex-Beatles publicist Derek Taylor. Fortunately, Wilson's output justified it, and after spreading like wildfire through the British music press, the 'Brian Wilson is a genius' rhetoric quickly caught on 'especially with the UK public', says Wilson's biographer, David Leaf. It has been the consensus ever since. Do we just imagine musical geniuses are anointed in retrospect because we no longer have any? It is extremely difficult to argue that any artist of the last 30 years has reached the trailblazing standard of Wilson, Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. The remaining members of those acts are all over 80 (with the sole exception of Ronnie Wood at 78); Stevie Wonder is 75, Brian Eno is 77, Ralf Hütter, the surviving founder of Kraftwerk, is 78. The most recent claimants to the musical genius title are generally considered to be Michael Jackson and Prince, both of whom died relatively young. Soon, the very idea of a living legend will be a thing of the past. In pop music, which reveres the new, genius is synonymous with innovation. Obviously, it is no coincidence that all of our unique and innovative musical minds were of a similar generation, starting work in the 1970s – at the very latest – when all the new drum, guitar and keyboard sounds and most resonant, memorable melodies were there for the taking. Such was the virgin territory before them, the Beach Boys even had the opportunity to sonically codify California, one of the most culturally significant places on the planet. 'I guess I just wasn't made for these times,' Wilson once sang. But if he hadn't been operating in those lonely years, would he have even been considered a genius at all? What is also quite clear is that musical progress didn't abruptly end half a century ago. There is still as-yet-unheard music to be made – and made it is, all the time. Generic fusions, formal variations and experimental production techniques are not infinite, but they are definitely not exhausted, and some have even coalesced into era-defining movements, as 21st-century genres such as grime, trap and hyperpop prove. Adele, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift – inoffensively palatable Some genres – including grime, which can be convincingly traced back to the British producer Wiley and his turn-of-the-millennium experiments; and hyperpop, the brainchild of London producer AG Cook and his PC Music collective – even have specific originators. Yet they still haven't produced any bona fide musical geniuses. First: the entirely explicable part. The demise of the monoculture – due to technology's fracturing of the media and cultural landscape – means only the most aggressively mainstream and inoffensively palatable acts (Adele, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift) are able to command the same level of fame and musical familiarity as their 1960s counterparts. Meanwhile, invention has remained staunchly at the cultural fringes – and if it does get anywhere near the zeitgeist, the journey is leisurely. Grime took off a full decade after its creation, thanks to Skepta and Stormzy; so did hyperpop, which reached the masses last summer in the guise of Charli xcx's Brat. This is another reason why musical genius is so thin on the ground: the people who do the actual innovating rarely end up in the spotlight themselves. This seems especially slow in compared with the 1960s; it is impossible to separate personal achievement from the decade's goldrush – a manic crusade to push pop and rock to its absolute limits. The famous rivalry between Wilson and the Beatles – healthy competition for the latter, says Leaf, if not so much for the former – accelerated progress and incentivised change. The pressure is also thought to have contributed to the decline in Wilson's mental health later in the decade. But then comes the more mysterious part. What is so astonishing about Wilson is how many different groundbreaking things he did simultaneously. In the studio, 'he was inventing a new way of making popular music,' Leaf says. 'What he called modular recording – recording bits and pieces of a song and then piecing it together.' He also pioneered the idea of one person helming all elements of a recorded song: composition, arrangement, performance, mixing, production. On top of that, he did something lyrically radical. He transformed pop into an 'emotional autobiography,' says Leaf. 'He was determined to put his feelings on to the recording tape and share it with the world,' Leaf adds, which was at that time very much not the norm. Many of pop's canonical artists were similar: Dylan didn't just single-handedly make popular music a vessel for poetry, he also infused it with an all new attitude and emotional palette (cynicism, disgust, rebellion), while conflating his previous folk fare with rock to create an entirely new sound. Dylan's decision to go electric has become emblematic of the musical genius's requirement to shock. Even Pet Sounds, an onslaught of loveliness, disturbed the band's record label with its leaps of progress, says Leaf. Pop, sex and violence Nowadays pop music is only really controversial where it overlaps with sex and violence; it is practically impossible to sonically surprise the listening public. The prospect of the end of musical innovation is something students and lovers of guitar music have already had to make peace with – at this point nostalgia is inherent to the genre. 'I'm aware it's impossible to make genuinely new, novel guitar music, and so I tend to lean into anachronism,' is how Owen Williams, frontman of my new favourite old-sounding band, the Tubs, once put it. Just as selling out became a respected career move, explicit derivation is now an artform in itself; in recent years Beyoncé has stayed at the forefront of pop by essentially becoming a kind of musical historian. There is one thing that does feel jarring about the slowed pace of musical progress. Technological advancement has always been woven into sonic novelty – the advent of synths (which Wilson also anticipated), for example, or sampling. Considering technology has accelerated in unimaginable, terrifying ways over the past 20 years, you'd think that might be reflected in the pop zeitgeist. Instead, we have a chart stuffed with tracks that could have essentially been made at any point in the past 50 years. Perhaps the late 20th century – and particularly the 1960s – created a sort of natural selection of music: we found the combinations of notes and rhythms that appealed most to the western human ear and that is what we have continued to rehash. AI to the rescue? Surely, then, this is a problem artificial intelligence may be able to solve. This is technology determined to get to know us more intimately than we know ourselves – what better way to continue the quest for novel pop perfection that Wilson embarked on 60 years ago? In theory, it could supplant human creativity. In actuality, AI is unlikely to wrest control of pop's soul from humans. That's because musical innovation, and even catchy melodies, have ceded importance to the branding of people. If Swift's gargantuan success is anything to go by – which it probably is – pop's future depends on the carefully honed appeal of an individual human personalities, not what they can do on a keyboard (the musical kind). Swift's approach to her public image and the music business in general is groundbreaking in its own way, even if her music isn't. We will be mourning her as a cultural figure at some point, but a musical genius – that would take some real cognitive dissonance. It seems unlikely we will do so with anyone by the end of this century; we have no currently minted visionaries, although time will tell if anyone retroactively earns the title. What is certain is that as the pop canon continues to splinter into thousands of smaller, personal rosters, we will be losing musicians who mean everything to some people, but not – like Wilson – something to almost everyone.
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Laura Anderson gives reason for leaving daughter behind on couples holiday
Love Island star Laura Anderson was 'hurt' about a backlash to her recent luxury holiday with boyfriend Clark, but the devoted single mum is unapologetic about taking time for herself Love Island star Laura Anderson snapped back at trolls last week who cruelly shamed her for going on her first child-free holiday with her sportsman boyfriend – and now a source claims the 36-year-old is feeling 'hurt' about the backlash she has received. Laura had kept fans up to date about her luxury Maldives holiday with her partner, Dundee player Clark Robertson, 31, sharing a series of stunning, loved-up snaps from their exotic getaway. But rather than be happy for her first holiday with the footballer, some fans decided to call out the single mum – who has previously posted her trips with her daughter, as well as sweet videos with her at home – for not bringing 21-month-old Bonnie along. Now, a source claims to OK! that the online backlash has been deeply unpleasan t for the mum-of-one – but she's doing her best not to let it get under her skin. 'Being heavily trolled has been upsetting for Laura, as it would be for anyone. In her eyes, it's bullying behaviour,' they claim. 'Much of it seems to come from women, and that hurts her – she's a strong, single mum and she feels women should be supporting other women not attacking them.' Laura shares her adorable tot Bonnie with her ex, Hollyoaks actor Gary Lucy, who she met during her stint on Celebs Go Dating in 2022. The pair split a year into their relationship before Bonnie was born, with Gary, 43, publicly announcing their break-up just one day after Laura's announcement of her pregnancy. Laura was also criticised by some after revealing that the Maldives break had been gifted to her. One wrote, 'I don't understand society! I mean, I get why companies give free holidays like this to promote. 'But imagine if they allowed people who wouldn't normally experience these types of things and let them promote on social media. Like underpaid nurses, doctors, paramedics, firemen and the people that put out so much into society.' Others, however, were firmly in Laura's corner – pointing out that as an influencer, it was her job to promote companies to her 1.5m Instagram followers. One penned, 'It's called a PR stay. It's her job, she has over 1.5 million followers she is able to promote this to. It's how she earns a living.' Straight-talking Scot Laura swiftly hit back at the nasty online trolls who tried to guilt-trip her about her picture-perfect getaway, posting a video on social media where she more than set the record straight. 'Just to clarify, I do not feel guilty at all for holidaying without my child. Neither should you! Bonnie and I have holidayed together a lot and it's pretty obvious I'm a lone parent and look after her myself. l 100% deserve as many breaks as I see fit,' she said, clearly upset. 'I truly worry about the children of the women judging online and spreading hate. Spend your time reading your child a book instead of trolling me.' She added defiantly, 'I'm also not afraid to say I know l am an unbelievable mother, so your trolling doesn't affect me. It just makes me sad that my daughter is growing up in a world like this. I truly hope you heal.' The source goes on to claim, 'Laura doesn't feel she's done anything wrong – apart from having a good time on holiday with her boyfriend, and sharing her posts, like many of us do. 'She adores her daughter and is absolutely devoted to her. It's horrible for her to read these comments – but she's her own woman, she won't let it stop her living her life or let it destroy her happiness.' And the grass, as they say, is not always greener. Opening up last December, Laura – who was a runner-up on Love Island in 2018, bravely admitted, 'Single working mothers how do you do it? I'm so overwhelmed atm! I don't usually suffer from anxiety but my God I cannot sleep from worry and work is just getting on top of me. I know I'm lucky and I hate being that person who moans but my God there are not enough hours in the day. Trying to keep it together.' Cruel trolls and single mum struggles aside, things are looking good for Laura – who just weeks ago gave fans a sneak peek of her huge new home, with a vast garden and beautiful sea views. And, as for her love story with Clark, the pair seem to be going from strength to strength since going public with their romance last October. Opening up previously about how they first got together, Laura admitted, 'It's not very romantic, he messaged me online, I saw it about three years later and replied and here we are. It's nice, it's chilled, no drama, just simple. A good Scottish boy, I can't complain.' As Laura said in her recent Instagram Story, there will always be someone who is richer or doing better than you in life – 'whatever better is'. Be jealous if that's what you feel, she says, but 'don't judge that person because of it'.
