Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays a heartfelt tribute to the revered artists who have recently passed away and have achieved the ultimate recognition in the music industry — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single. This series takes a deep dive into the chart-topping songs that secured their place in this elite category. In this edition, we honor the legendary Brian Wilson, who left us on June 11 at the age of 82, by exploring the third of the Beach Boys’ trio of Hot 100 chart-toppers: the uniquely iconic “Good Vibrations.”
“Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!”
After months of dedicated effort throughout 1966, Brian Wilson, the visionary lead songwriter and innovative producer of the Beach Boys, finally completed “Good Vibrations,” a song he meticulously crafted. Within the music industry, artists frequently grapple with the challenge of distinguishing between a hit and a flop. Yet, Wilson’s instinct about “Good Vibrations” was remarkably accurate; it ultimately became the Beach Boys’ very first million-selling single, solidifying its place in music history.
The remarkable commercial success of “Good Vibrations” may come as a surprise, especially considering the description by Beach Boy Mike Love, who referred to it as “truly radical.” The track opens with a haunting, drum-less introduction, featuring a soaring lead vocal from Carl Wilson, who passionately sings about the fragrant allure of a woman’s perfume. As the song progresses, “Good Vibrations” bursts into a vibrant soundscape, with an energetic bass line colliding with the jubilant harmonies of the Beach Boys. Adding to the eclectic sound is the distinctive whistling noise produced by an instrument known as the Electro-Theremin, which shrieks in the background, creating a captivating auditory experience.
“Good Vibrations” artfully alternates between these contrasting musical modes, producing a delightful sensation of whiplash as it transitions from one captivating moment to the next. As Mike Love elaborated in his autobiography, Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, co-written with James Hirsch, “Instead of creating a single instrumental backing track during one session, we produced short, seemingly unrelated snippets of music and then expertly pieced them together.” He likened the process to working with a vast jigsaw puzzle, where they recorded tiny fragments, re-recorded certain sections, added bridges or new segments, and repeated the process until everything came together seamlessly.
After extensive tinkering and experimentation, when Wilson finally placed the last piece of the musical puzzle into position, the end result was nothing short of intoxicating. He vividly recalled the exhilarating experience of finalizing the mix, stating, “I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, making the final mix from the 16-track down to mono — it was a feeling of power, it was a rush,” he expressed in an interview with Rolling Stone. This experience left him with a profound sense of exaltation.
During the mid-’60s, the Beach Boys were consistent hitmakers, maintaining a relentless pace by releasing three albums each in 1963, 1964, and 1965. Their work ethic and creativity were evident, yet they faced the unpredictable nature of the music industry.
In 1965, the group achieved their second No. 1 single with “Help Me, Rhonda,” a cheerful anthem from a newly single man eager to move on from his past relationship. Following this success, they released “California Girls,” a dazzling hit that climbed to No. 3 on the charts. However, when the subsequent single “The Little Girl That I Once Knew” failed to resonate with audiences — due to its unconventional structure, which featured a complete stop — Capitol Records opted to release a cover of “Barbara Ann,” originally recorded in 1961 by the Regents. This lively toe-tapper, recorded for the semi-live album Beach Boys’ Party, soared to No. 2 on the charts.
Nevertheless, success in the pop industry is notoriously elusive and fickle. When the group released Pet Sounds in May 1966, it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking it as one of the Beach Boys’ underperforming albums to date. According to member Al Jardine, the band’s label had hoped for more songs that fit the mold of hits, reflecting the pressures they faced in the competitive music landscape.
In hindsight, the inclusion of “Good Vibrations” could have significantly enhanced the album’s appeal. Wilson had actually started composing the song earlier in 1966 while simultaneously working on Pet Sounds, during the creation of tracks like “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” a beautifully introspective ballad, and the adoring “God Only Knows.”
However, Jardine noted that Wilson was not yet ready to present “Good Vibrations” to the record company. “Like everyone else, I had advocated for including ‘Good Vibrations’ on Pet Sounds, but it wasn’t meant to be,” Jardine recalled. “He had the final say as the producer, and we respected his opinion, even though we disagreed. We believed that leaving it off the album was a mistake. As it turned out, we were correct. Had we included ‘Good Vibrations,’ Pet Sounds would have been a landmark album for us.”
Wilson was operating on his own timeline, often stepping away from “Good Vibrations” to work on other songs before returning to it. In August, he shared a version of the song over the phone with Carl Wilson. “Carl thought to himself, ‘How bizarre, how exciting, how strange and new,’” Love recounted.
Wilson had a unique vision for “Good Vibrations,” intending for it to embody “a taste of modern, avant-garde R&B.” This aspiration is surprising, considering that much of the Beach Boys’ music leans towards a more traditional sound. However, there are hints of groove sprinkled throughout their discography — evident in tracks like 1968’s “Bluebirds Over the Mountain” and 1979’s “Love Surrounds Me.” In God Only Knows: The Story of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the California Myth, author David Leaf notes that Wilson initially contemplated selling the song to Warner Brothers for an R&B artist, potentially the soul legend Wilson Pickett. Parts of the composition occasionally reminded Love of a James Brown record, showcasing its diverse influences.
Wilson was renowned for his meticulousness in the studio, a perfectionist who insisted on repeating takes until everything felt right. “He knew exactly how he wanted it, and if it wasn’t executed as envisioned, he would continue until it was,” remarked songwriter Tony Asher in Leaf’s book. Asher, who co-wrote eight songs on Pet Sounds, had an early hand in the lyrics for “Good Vibrations.” “When the guys would make a mistake on just the second take of something challenging, he would lose his temper.”
Despite this, Wilson’s bandmates and fellow musicians were often bewildered by his unconventional recording methods for “Good Vibrations,” as he moved from one studio to another, piecing together bits of a song that they struggled to fully comprehend. “They didn’t quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about,” Wilson acknowledged in a 1976 interview.
To Love, it was unclear whether even Wilson knew what he was doing. “On some days, the musicians would play for an hour; other days, just ten minutes; and sometimes, we’d work all day,” Love reflected. “We had no idea what the final piece was going to sound like,” recalled Hal Blaine, who highlighted that they spent six months on the song, contrasting it with their quick sessions for other hits like “MacArthur Park,” which they recorded in just two takes.
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The story of “Good Vibrations” is filled with conflicting accounts. Wilson told Rolling Stone that the song took “six months to make” and involved hopping between four different studios — Gold Star, Western, Sunset Sound, and Columbia.
In a different interview referenced in Wouldn’t It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Wilson mentioned a fifth studio, RCA Victor, in his list of recording locations and stated that the song took “six weeks, working every day.” Meanwhile, engineer Chuck Britz claimed they “visited at least ten studios around town,” with Western noted for having “the best echo chamber for our vocal work.”
Interestingly, Leaf’s book highlights that “Good Vibrations” signifies the first instance of a cello being employed as a rock instrument, a concept that may have originated from Van Dyke Parks, a versatile talent who collaborated with Wilson during this period. However, Love’s autobiography attributes the cello’s inclusion to a suggestion made by Carl Wilson.
Another intriguing aspect of the song’s creation is the cost associated with it. Love humorously estimated that “Good Vibrations” required twenty-two recording sessions, while Leaf suggests “approximately 15.” The cost of production has been estimated to range from $10,000 to $50,000, translating to about $74,000 to $369,000 in 2016 dollars. Love added, “I doubt Brian had any idea about the cost, nor did he care,” illustrating Wilson’s artistic focus over financial concerns.
Funnily enough, the process of crafting the lyrics for “Good Vibrations” was as spontaneous as the recording sessions were detailed. On the morning when Love was scheduled to record the vocals, he hopped into his car, a yellow Jaguar XKE equipped with a built-in record player, and began freestyling various lines that would eventually appear in the final version of the track.
His pregnant wife Suzanne Belcher sat beside him, jotting down Love’s lyrical gems on a notepad. “We were somewhere on the Hollywood Freeway when I recited the next verse,” he recalled, delivering perhaps the most quintessentially Los Angeles anecdote ever shared.
“I’ll be the first to admit that ‘excitations’ is not really a word,” he humorously noted. “But it rhymed,” showcasing the playful creativity behind the song.
“Good Vibrations” was officially released in October of 1966. Initially, “Cousin Brucie,” the prominent DJ in New York, expressed his disapproval of the track. However, others were more enthusiastic: “Good Vibrations” debuted at No. 38 on the Hot 100 and, by December, ascended to the top spot, displacing the New Vaudeville Band’s “Winchester Cathedral” and reigning at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. The single also topped the charts in the U.K., where the London Sunday Express published an enthusiastic article about the Beach Boys titled “They Found a New Sound at Last!”
As “Good Vibrations” was climbing the charts, Wilson immersed himself in the ambitious project known as Smile, which was intended to be another groundbreaking work. “Pet Sounds marked a significant departure from the usual Beach Boys fare,” noted David Anderle, who managed Van Dyke Parks in 1966, in God Only Knows. “It was a testament to Brian Wilson’s evolution as a major musical composer or creative force, transcending just hit-making. Smile was an extension of Pet Sounds, pushing even further into innovative musical exploration.”
However, Wilson’s mental state began to deteriorate, leading him to hold meetings in his pool due to fears of being surveilled, as per Anderle’s commentary. His substance use escalated, and he ultimately abandoned Smile, later confiding to Rolling Stone that he had become “too preoccupied with obtaining drugs to focus on writing songs.”
Thus, while “Good Vibrations” marked a significant breakthrough in the Beach Boys’ career, it also signified the beginning of the end for their dominance in the music scene. Although they managed to produce some remarkable tracks in the late ’60s and early ’70s — such as “‘Til I Die,” “All I Wanna Do,” and “All This Is That” — they did not achieve another top 10 single until 1976, when they covered Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music,” and did not hit the No. 1 spot again until the 1988 release of “Kokomo,” a track that notably did not feature contributions from Brian Wilson.
Today, “Good Vibrations” remains an enduring classic among the Beach Boys’ repertoire, ranking as their second most popular song on Spotify. Reflecting on the song, Wilson shared, “It fractured me when I heard it; I was happy with it. I said, ‘You couldn’t get a better record than this.’ I set out to create a remarkable record, and I succeeded.”
