The Beach Boys

Take Chuck Berry’s early guitar licks, add the youthful innocence of lyrics about girls, cars and surfin’, blend it with perfect four-way harmonies and you get the Beach Boys. Or at least the Beach Boys of Fun, Fun, Fun, Get Around and Surfin’ USA. But from 1965 on, singer and bass player Brian Wilson took the lead and composed the deepest and most hauntingly beautiful pop music there ever was for the albums Pet Sounds and Smile. Two sides to an American monument.