Brian Wilson, musician, songwriter, and producer for the Beach Boys, who created some of the most beautiful pop music in history, has died at the age of 82, The Guardian reported.

In a post shared on Instagram, Wilson's family wrote: "It is with heavy hearts that we announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We have no words at this time. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family mourns. We realize that we share our grief with the world. Love and mercy."

As the Beach Boys' leading creative force, Wilson created a distinctively carefree and melancholic sound that came to define the uncertain utopianism of mid-century California. The Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds — written and produced almost entirely by Wilson — is considered not only the band's masterpiece, but by many the greatest album of all time.

Wilson was born in Inglewood, Southern California, in 1942. Despite being partially deaf in one ear, he and his brother Carl joined their cousin Mike Love to form the high school band Carl and the Passions, later bringing in his other brother Dennis and his friend Al Jardine to form the Pendletones. They were encouraged by Wilson's father, Murray, with whom the musician had a complicated relationship—he later said that Murray had been physically abusive toward him.

Wilson's first song for the group, which was soon renamed the Beach Boys, was 1961's Surfin', the first in a string of hits written by Wilson, including Surfin' Safari, Surfer Girl, and Surfin' USA, the latter reaching No. 3 on the US charts and cementing their breakthrough.

Wilson became a producer and songwriter for the third album, Surfer Girl, and propelled the band forward at an astonishing pace, releasing 15 albums by the end of the 1960s.

Wilson began using cannabis and LSD, claiming that the latter was helpful to him creatively—he wrote the Beach Boys' iconic song California Girls during his first use and said that acid allowed him to “understand what you are, what you can do [and] what you can't do.” But his drug use, combined with his intense workload, likely exacerbated mental health issues that began when he was a teenager suffering from anxiety.

He heard voices in his head, spent time in psychiatric hospitals in the late 1960s, and isolated himself somewhat from his bandmates. Wilson was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild manic depression. In 2019, he stated: “There were times when (his mental illness) was unbearable, but with the help of doctors and medication, I was able to live a wonderful, healthy, and productive life.”

Amidst the difficulties he was experiencing, the follow-up to Pet Sounds, Smile, was never completed (although it was later adapted into a solo album in 2004, and the original recordings were released as The Smile Sessions in 2011). His bandmates began contributing more to the songwriting, although Wilson's compositions still appeared from time to time as the band emerged from its commercial slump at the end of the decade to record the acclaimed albums Sunflower and Surf's Up.

Following his father's death, the early 1970s were a period of decline for Wilson, as his drug use increased along with his weight, and he once again became isolated. He returned to the Beach Boys for the 1976 album 15 Big Ones, but by the end of the decade he had relapsed into alcoholism, drug abuse, and overeating; he also suffered the death of Dennis, who drowned in 1983. Under the strict supervision of psychologist Eugene Landy, his balance improved during the 1980s and, after finally leaving the Beach Boys, he released his debut solo album in 1988.

Wilson continued to tour and release solo albums from time to time, eventually reuniting with the Beach Boys (now without Carl, who died in 1998) in 2011 for a tour and the album That's Why God Made the Radio.

Wilson has been married twice, first to Marilyn Ravel in 1964, with whom he had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy (who later formed their own vocal group, Wilson Phillips, and had three No. 1 singles in the US). Wilson and Rowell divorced in 1979. In 1995, he married Melinda Kay Ledbetter, whom he had been dating since 1986 and who became his manager. The couple adopted five children together.

In addition to his memoirs from 1991 and 2016, Wilson's story is also told in the biographical film Love & Mercy, starring Paul Dano, released in 2014, and in the documentary Brian Wilson from 2021: The Long Promised Journey. | BGNES