The three remaining members of the band have reunited for a new album and world tour, burying the hatchet between the eccentric Brian Wilson and conservative lead singer Mike Love. Daniel Nester surveys the mythology behind the music:
Wilson, the childlike Icarus, had his artistic wings clipped by the lead singer Mike Love, his cocksure cousin, who wanted to stick with the proven formula of singing about girls and cars, fun and surf. Wilson then withdrew, crestfallen, into a self-imposed exile and battles with personal demons and drugs. Love, meanwhile, led an increasingly ersatz Beach Boys on a long strange trip that culminated in playing the private 2008 Romney "campaign reunion" event in Houston that doubled as a John McCain fundraiser. (McCain had the chance that night to sing his own foreign policy faux pas parody of the Beach Boys’ classic "Barbara Ann"—"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.")
Taken further, you might say that the Beach Boys’ long history of feuds, friendships and lawsuits exemplifies two sides of the American character. On the Brian side we have an uncompromising blue-state idealism, and on the Mike side we have red-state utility and sticking with the formula. If you buy into the Beach Boys’ myth, no analogy seems too highfalutin. We’re talking Jefferson versus Hamilton, Buckley versus Vidal, Gore v. Bush, Occupy Wall Street versus Tea Partiers.
For more in-depth analysis, read Michael Anton's take on the band's abandoned masterpiece Smile. Anton argues it was the album's lyrics that undid the band.
The Dish 