Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson has spent decades living in the towering shadow of his 1960s masterworks with the Beach Boys. During that time, Wilson's mental illness turned him into a virtual recluse, and then a pawn in the manipulations of various would-be caretakers and collaborators. Yet his return to recording and touring without his longtime band, from whom he had become personally estranged, was among rock's most heartwarming stories. Here at last was an opportunity for Wilson to bask in the glow of his past achievements and to create songs that, while hardly the equal of his best works, suggested that he was once again engaged with his audience and the world outside his bedroom.

For his solo debut, Wilson demonstrates that his songwriting muse has not abandoned him completely with the man-out-of-time innocence of "Love and Mercy," "Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long," and "Melt Away" harkening back to his mid-'60s heyday, while the weird mix of paranoia and vampirish anticipation on "Night Time" bespeaks Wilson's troubled life. But dated synth-heavy production makes the album almost unlistenable.

Oddly, it's the Don Was–produced soundtrack to the documentary I Just Wasn't Made for These Times that best represents the post–Beach Boys Wilson. It presents him in a small-combo setting, singing with a frayed openness that is oddly moving. In this setting, "Love and Mercy" and "Melt Away" bloom, while some of his more profound if lesser-known Beach Boys songs ("The Warmth of the Sun," "'Til I Die") are illuminated. There's also a harrowing moment, a 1976 demo of "Still I Dream of It," with a ragged and off-key Wilson pouring out his pain at the piano.

Imagination suffers from many of the same problems as Brian Wilson: personal, sometimes wrenching songs obscured by vapid production and watered down by inappropriate collaborators, including Jimmy Buffett.

Live at the Roxy Theatre is a connoisseur's survey of Wilson's career, focusing not so much on overly familiar Beach Boys hits as relative rarities. Wilson's in high spirits, even though his choirboy voice wobbles in search of notes he once reached effortlessly. But his excellent backing band casts a safety net of harmony and musicianship that does justice to his most ambitious material. The backing ensemble's performances are even more accomplished on Pet Sounds Live; the 1966 masterpiece had never been performed in its entirety until Wilson took it on the road in 2002. But his voice sags beneath the weight of these beautifully demanding ballads.

Orange Crate Art reunites Wilson with Van Dyke Parks, the master arranger and lyricist who was his collaborator on the aborted 1967 Beach Boys album, Smile. Rather than participating in a full-blown union, Wilson is essentially a hired-gun vocalist. But he's in fine voice, his multioctave range stretched by long-lined melodies. Parks' orchestrations evoke California's sun-kissed geography and an era of pop songwriting when melody rather than rhythm was the guiding force. At the core of the album is a longing for a California that doesn't exist, and a sound that couldn't be less fashionable. In its own way, Orange Crate Art is a quirky little song cycle that defies categorization, a hint of what Smile might have been if circumstances had allowed these two mavericks to ever complete it.

Gettin' In Over My Head, Wilson's first studio album in six years, is an agreeable piece of work with cameos from Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. Wilson is still frighteningly detached from the moment, though; it's best to think of this one as a celebrity children's record.

Thirty-eight years after he abandoned Smile, Brian Wilson was nudged back into the studio to re-create the album he once intended to be his masterpiece. And while rock's most famous lost recording could not possibly live up to its own legend, Smile 2004 is a joy on its own terms -- filled with majestic harmonies, lush string and horn arrangements, gorgeous melodies, and Wilson's sly sense of humor. Shaped largely by Darian Sahanaja, the musical director of Wilson's touring band, the album is arranged into three suites built around key compositions: "Heroes and Villains," "Surf's Up," and "Good Vibrations." And while none of these familiar songs is necessarily better sounding than the original version listeners have heard before (Wilson's voice is nowhere near as expressive as it once was and clearly strains in parts), the arrangements are terrific: Smile pieces together bits and pieces of Wilson's humor and genius into a majestic song cycle that's funny, poignant, irreverent, and totally wonderful. (GREG KOT/MILO MILES)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide