Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for <a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch "https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch"">"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

<a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch "https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch"">"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

An ocean of ink has been spilled about how the Beach Boys went experimental in the mid-1960s. But there's a strong case to be made that they were avant-garde from the jump.

Think of their synthesis upon arrival: Surf music by non-surfers; Chuck Berry guitar stylings fused with the vocal harmonies of the Four Freshmen; Brian Wilson's continuation of the studio lineage of Phil Spector; their reflection and galvanization of a burgeoning youth culture, bringing the Pacific to landlocked kids the world over.

And as per their psychedelic-era masterpieces — the luxurious, confessional Pet Sounds and the universe-sized, eventually terminated Smile — Wilson has engendered a widespread, and correct, comparison to Mozart.

What began as a family band singing Christmas carols ended up lasting six decades. The Beach Boys' music encompasses such disparate themes as muscle cars, transcendental meditation, environmental collapse, "the church of the American Indian," and fantastical island getaways.

And all that just scratches the surface of this culture-shifting, endlessly relitigated, gorgeously weird band, an American phenomenon with no real analog. With roughly half a dozen divergent personalities (depending on the lineup), three of them bound by DNA, all of them geniuses in their own way, their catalog was bound to contain almost as many oddities and curiosities as simply great songs.

For their singular efforts, the Beach Boys are about to get their own GRAMMY celebration. On Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," a two-hour tribute special featuring a lineup of heavy hitters, including John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, Weezer, and many more, will re-air on CBS. The special is also available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+. 

Naturally, this special homes in on the hits, from "Surfin' U.S.A." to "California Girls" to "Good Vibrations" and beyond. But if you'd like to go deeper, here are 10 memorably zonked deep cuts in their long voyage. (Note: this list focuses less on late-period collaborations and era-specific genre crossovers than core albums from their first two decades.)

"Chug-A-Lug" (Surfin' Safari, 1962)

The Beach Boys introduced themselves not just with a "Let's go surfin' now/ Everybody's learnin' how," but with a "Here a mug, there a mug, everybody chug-a-lug." So begins "Chug-a-Lug," the fourth song from their debut album, Surfin' Safari, wedged between "Ten Little Indians" and "Little Girl (You're My Miss America)."

Co-written by Gary Usher — the man responsible for their early "car songs"  — the message of "Chug-a-Lug" is simple: we, the Beach Boys, are drinking a lot of root beer. In the verses, the three Wilsons — Brian, Carl and Dennis — yak about girls and cars at the root-beer stand; then-guitarist David Marks and an unknown "Larry," "Louie," and "Guy" join in on the fun. ("Gary" is concievably Usher.)

But talk of being "glued to the radio," "ordering fries," "chas[ing] that chick," et al are peripheral to the thesis. The bouncing-off-the-walls rhythm evokes not merely nursing a soft drink with your friends, but madly guzzling it. "Give me some root beer," Love intones.

"Lonely Sea" (Surfin' USA, 1963)

It takes about five seconds of listening to the Beach Boys' earliest music to perceive a wounded heart in the center — and its owner is Brian Wilson. 

You hear it in his keening "Everybody's gone surfin'!" in "Surfin' USA." Ditto "Catch a Wave," when he pleads in falsetto, "But don't you treat it like a toy." And the sparse, spectral "Lonely Sea" seems to contain that fragile essence in microcosm.

"It never stops for you or me," Wilson sings, casting the Pacific as a metaphor for universal human angst. "It moves along from day to day." From "In My Room" to Pet Sounds and beyond, you can trace the DNA of "Lonely Sea" to every sad, lonely Beach Boys song in its wake — a number calculable only by NASA.

"Amusement Parks U.S.A." (Summer Days [And Summer Nights!!], 1965)

Starting around 1963's Surfer Girl, Wilson upped the ante with each successive Beach Boys album, interweaving their surfing and hot-rod songs with embellishments with harpsichords, harps, cheerleaders, marimbas, and other outside-the-box instruments. 

Some tunes in this pre-Pet Sounds era, from "Be True to Your School" to "The Little Girl I Once Knew," split the difference between the early hits' youthful exuberance and their psychedelic innovations. "Amusement Parks U.S.A." is one such example; while it's essentially about taking your girl to Disney, the whirling calliopes and sound effects render it a mind movie.

Instead of landing at wholesome and innocent like its predecessor, "County Fair," "Amusement Parks U.S.A." sounds like a Tilt-a-Whirl shaking apart, each shaky note and carnival bark adding to the heavy, leaden atmosphere.

Clearly, the psychological pressure was building; within a couple of years, it would burst. No matter how many reboots of their early hits they would go on to attempt, the Beach Boys would never quite return to the carefree universe of "Amusement Parks U.S.A."

"The Times They Are A-Changin'" (Beach Boys' Party!, 1965)

Every canonical masterpiece has its on-ramp or lead-up; what's Pet Sounds'?

Somewhat shockingly, the album immediately preceding Pet Sounds was Beach Boys' Party!, where our heroes recorded cover songs (and two cheekily rendered hits) in an intentionally offhanded, slapdash manner in the studio and layered party noises on top.

The result is a charming curio, and the album did give the world their hit version of "Barbara Ann." But amid doo-wop funnies like "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow," the inclusion of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" — Bob Dylan's Ecclesiastical folk hit about the passing of kings and values and generations — is a wonderfully puzzling one.

Al Jardine, the band's resident folkie, takes this one. "Al's gonna sing a 'test song!" one of the Boys, possibly Love, announces amid a clatter of funny voices.As Jardine warbles the 'test song's thunderously significant lines, the overdubbed revelers fall over themselves giggling.

"Little Pad" (Smiley Smile, 1967)

As forever carved in the annals of rock mythology, the hyper-ambitious, multitudinous Smile (was it a comedy record? A history book? A symphonic ode to the elements?) was never to be. Despite Wilson's 2004 reimagining and the later Smile Sessions boxed set, the world will never know exactly what the album would have ended up as.

Instead, the world got Smiley Smile; despite containing monumental cuts meant for the aborted work, like "Heroes and Villains" and "Good Vibrations," the world ultimately received it as an ersatz Smile. Or, as Carl Wilson famously called it, "a bunt instead of a grand slam."

Between those aforementioned hits are assorted oddities — outgrowths and fragments of the shelved material — including the deliciously stoned "Little Pad," which wanders from laughing fits to blissed-out humming to ukulele-laced daydreams of Hawaii. Like the rest of the album, it may have been at a different scale than Wilson hoped for, but it'll make you smile all the same.

"A Day in the Life of a Tree" (Surf's Up, 1971)

Something of a darker companion piece to its radiant predecessor Sunflower, Surf's Up also drew heavily from the Smile sessions. And despite tunes like the lighthearted "Take a Load Off Your Feet" and wistful "Disney Girls (1957)," it feels freighted with a brooding, defeated atmosphere — as well as a potent environmental and political conscience.

Much of the chatter about the album centers around Brian Wilson's magisterial ode to death, "'Til I Die," and the elliptical, Smile-salvaged masterpiece of a title track. Just as startling, though, is the ecological lament "A Day in the Life of a Tree."

"Feel the wind burn through my skin/ The pain, the air is killing me," Rieley laments over funereal organ and not much else. "Oh Lord, I lay me down/ No life's left to be found/ There's nothing left for me." Dark Beach Boys doesn't get much darker than this.

"Chapel of Love" (15 Big Ones, 1976)

Literal bell sounds ring in the Beach Boys' cover of the R&B-pop classic that the Dixie Cups made famous. Such is the rest of 15 Big Ones, a conscious step back from original material after the wonderful (and unfairly ignored) Holland and Carl and the Passions.

But what could have marked the Beach Boys plugging back into their roots after a decade of freewheeling experimentation — their Let it Be, perhaps — is something else entirely. 15 Big Ones coincided with their infamous "Brian's Back!" campaign, where they heralded the return of their troubled leader from a backseat role.

Instead of sounding like a retreat to an earlier template, though, 15 Big Ones is its own strange organism; even when the material is as happy-go-lucky as can be, the sound and execution are dense and enveloping — even vaguely menacing.

As the hook of "Chapel of Love" rolls on and on, the cumulative effect is less of puppy love than Sleep's doom-metal opus Dopesmoker.

"I Wanna Pick You Up" (The Beach Boys Love You, 1977)

The most divisive album in the Beach Boys' catalog by some margin, The Beach Boys Love You is considered by some to be their final masterpiece and a return to Pet Sounds-style magic; others regard it as a shocking example of outsider art by a rock institution.

The answer may lie somewhere in the middle. While tunes like "I'll Bet He's Nice" and "The Night Was So Young" are as beautiful as anything Wilson ever wrote, there's no accounting for the profound quizzicality of tunes like "Johnny Carson," "Honkin' Down the Highway" and the one-minute Roger McGuinn co-write "Ding Dang."

Honestly, about three-fourths of The Beach Boys Love You could be on this list, but there's arguably no more bizarre moment on the record than "I Wanna Pick You Up."

Therein, a ragged-sounding Dennis Wilson describes caring for an infant (or infantilized romantic interest?), from bathing to feeding to finally, soothing to sleep, leading to the unforgettable final line: "Pat, pat/ Pat, pat, pat her on her butt," with a repetition of the final word for emphasis: Butt.

"Hey, Little Tomboy" (M.I.U. Album, 1978)

Despite being more conventional than "I Wanna Pick You Up," "Hey, Little Tomboy" — a holdover from Wilson's uncompleted, big-band-influenced project Adult/Child — lands in a (somehow) even stranger zone. Here, a stereotypically boyish girl undergoes a transformation into a lipstick-clad, capital-W woman.

As one critic put it, "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140726074318/http://www.globalimageworks.com/clip-brian-wilson-interview-beach-boys-1874_023?id=45092">It's politically incorrect in every way by modern standards, yet its innocence and simplicity are undeniably charming — and just so Brian."

But regarding this highly unorthodox creation, let's [hear it from the architect himself: "It's about a little girl who is sort of a roughneck, and this guy convinces her to become a pretty girl… We're very happy with it."

"When Girls Get Together" (Keepin' the Summer Alive, 1980)

Dr. Love's lifetime inquiry into what makes California girls' psychologies really tick arguably reached its apogee with "When Girls Get Together," a cut from the obscure Keepin' the Summer Alive. The song is less fun in the sun than an austere march, complete with regal horns and tinkling mandolin.

"When girls get together/ They don't waste time on things like weather and stuff," Love announces. "They all just play around and never seem to discuss it enough." But just as he seems to establish that womens' conversations are frivolous, a heel turn: "This must have been going on prehistory/ They may not ever solve the mystery/ But they'll go talk until eternity."

Such are these Loveian koans, which will be carved into the Book of Boys for scholars to parse millennia from now. And such is the dual legacy of America's band: They gave us a songbook in turns blissful and ingenious, and delightfully, inexplicably strange.

The Beach Boys' Sail On Sailor Reframes Two Obscure 1970s Albums. Why Were They Obscure In The First Place?

Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

That's a wrap on "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," an emotional, star-studded toast to America's Band — as the core lineup of the legendary group bore witness from a balcony.

From its heartfelt speeches and remarks to performances by John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, Weezer, and other heavy hitters, "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" served as a towering monument to these leading lights on the occasion of their 60th anniversary.

If you missed the CBS telecast, never fear: the thrilling special is rebroadcasting on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream on demand on Paramount+.

Below are some highlights from the Beach Boys' big night.

Read More: How To Watch "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," Featuring Performances From John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, Weezer & More

Weezer Gave "California Girls" A Shot In The Arm

The Weez was a natural choice for a Beach Boys bash — the GRAMMY winners have worn that influence on their sleeve throughout their career — from the harmony-stuffed Blue Album. to their love letter to the West Coast, the White Album.

And while Fall Out Boy's transmutation of "Do You Wanna Dance" into supercharged pop-punk was a joy, Weezer's version of "California Girls" was satisfying in a different way.

Therein, frontman Rivers Cuomo threaded his chunky power chords into the familiar arrangement masterfully. His head-turning, song-flipping guitar work in the outro was also gracefully executed.

John Legend Sang A Commanding "Sail On Sailor"

The rocking-and-rolling "Sail On Sailor" leads off the Beach Boys' deeply underrated 1973 album Holland. On that cut, the lead vocal isn't taken by an original member, but one of their two South African additions at the time: the brilliant Blondie Chaplin.

Fifty years ago, Chaplin channeled the stouthearted tune through his punchy midrange; John Legend possesses a similar one. In his hustling, wolfish performance at the piano, the 12-time GRAMMY winner gave this dark-horse Beach Boys classic the gusto it deserves.

Read More: The Beach Boys' Sail On Sailor Reframes Two Obscure 1970s Albums. Why Were They Obscure In The First Place?

Brandi Carlile Stunned With A Capella "In My Room" Verse

Nine-time GRAMMY winner Brandi Carlile is an eminent and versatile creative force; it's easy to imagine her nailing almost any song in the Beach Boys’ catalog — even the weird ones.

That said, this was more or less a night of hits — so Carlile took "In My Room" head on, and the results were spectacular. Even better was when the backing band dropped out for a verse, highlighting the song's proto-Pet Sounds solitude and introspection.

"Now it's dark/And I'm alone, but/I won't be afraid," Carlile sang, only joined by two harmonists. Mostly unadorned, she radiated a sense of inner strength.

Norah Jones Gorgeously Pared Back "The Warmth Of The Sun"

"The Warmth of the Sun" has always been a fan favorite for its radiant vocal interplay, but Norah Jones proved it's just as powerful with one voice front and center. 

Sure, the nine-time GRAMMY winner had harmonists behind her. But while Brian Wilson shared the spotlight with the other Boys in the original tune, she was front and center, teasing out its mellow, jazzy undercurrents.

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St. Vincent & Charlie Puth Plumbed The Atmosphere Of Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys' most famous album by some margin, 1966’s Pet Sounds, was well represented at "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

Beck performed a witty "Sloop John B"; Mumford & Sons drew hymnal energy from "I Know There's An Answer"; LeAnn Rimes drew lonesome power from "Caroline, No."

But two performances in particular captured the singular atmosphere of the album — whimsical, hopeful, melancholic, longing, sophisticated, strangely exotic. One was Charlie Puth's "Wouldn't It Be Nice," which strapped on the album's aesthetic like a rocket and took off.

The other was St. Vincent’s captivating take on "You Still Believe In Me," which highlighted the harpsichord melody to spectral effect.

Near the end, when the three-time GRAMMY winner launched into the "I wanna cry" outro, it was hard to not get chills — the kind the Beach Boys have given us for 60 years.

How Brian Wilson Crafted The Beach Boys' Early Sound: A Symphony Of Inspirations, From Boogie-Woogie To Barbershop

Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for <a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch "https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch"">"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

<a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch "https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch"">"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

Pardon the non-oceanic metaphor, but imagine the Beach Boys' original sound as a pot of stew.

There's a mess of various ingredients, but the taste is unified and comforting. Generally speaking, you don't enjoy this dish — or this band's early hits — on an analytical, academic level; both simply provide a wave of sensation and association. Both just feel good.

Likewise, America's Band’s early sound was singular, a blast of pure feeling. But the veneer of simplicity belies that they drew it from a dizzying number of directions — long before they reached their innovative peak with Pet Sounds and its never-finished follow-up, Smile.

Just unpack "Surfin' USA," generally thought of as simple, straightforward fun: it's a Chuck Berry melody and riff, a surfing lyric and theme, the gleaming harmonies from the Four Freshmen and any number of doo-wop greats. They were all in the public consciousness, but nobody had synthesized them in this particular way until Brian Wilson came along.

To bring up Pet Sounds and Smile again: there's no dearth of reportage, nor musings, on how the Mozart of pop/rock worked his spellbinding magic. But how Wilson managed to craft the Beach Boys' early sound is just as flabbergasting.

For a full-throttle trip through the fruits of that inspiration, look no further "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," a two-hour tribute special featuring a lineup of heavy hitters, including John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, Weezer, and many more. <a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch "https://www.grammy.com/news/grammy-salute-beach-boys-2023-cbs-how-watch"">"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

From the beginning, Wilson connected with the strengths of each member: basso profundo Mike Love's wordplay and swagger; brother Carl's punchy midrange and gleaming guitar; resident folkie Al Jardine's earthiness and likeability; brother Dennis' straightforward attack on the drums, powering the whole operation. (Within a few years of their inception, Dennis would blossom as a lead vocalist and songwriter in his own right.)

How did Wilson and the other Beach Boys absorb the raw ingredients of their sound — surf music, doo-wop, boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues? By having big ears, and bigger imaginations.

Right as he turned double-digits, Wilson began experimenting with various instruments — ukulele, accordion — but the piano was the skeleton key. Brian, Carl and Dennis' infamous-yet-galvanizing father, Murray, was a struggling songwriter who played piano; the family instrument became a tool for Wilson to analyze and dissect what crossed his consciousness on the radio.

"[I] started picking out the melodies of songs that I heard on the radio," Wilson recalled in his 2016 memoir, I Am Brian Wilson, citing tunes by the Chordettes, the Hi-Los, Nat King Cole, and more. Harmony singing soon grabbed his attention. The Four Freshmen were also something of an obsession, particularly for the colors in their harmonies.

"I tried to understand the way their voices were working," he continued. "To take their songs apart like they were clocks and then rebuild them for me and Dennis and Carl." The latter brother connected deeply with Black R&B, like the Penguins and Johnny Otis: "We had never heard anything like it," Wilson wrote. "They were just as sophisticated as the Four Freshmen, but different."

A harbinger of Pet Sounds-era Wilson: Murray would bring tape machines home, and Wilson seized upon their possibilities: not just as a method of getting ideas down, but for overdubbing. In the book, Wilson describes the first "real song" he ever wrote as the still-luminous "Surfer Girl," which drew inspiration from "When You Wish Upon a Star." It's hard to imagine him splicing that DNA without these simple machines.

Dennis, the only surfer in the group, added the ingredient that made everything else pop: his experiences within surf culture. This not only gave the nascent Beach Boys — formerly the Pendletones — a thesis and mission statement. Their embrace of surf culture made the separate components explode into something entirely new.

The rest is history: Wilson rapidly developing into a studio maven far beyond his years, a la Phil Spector; the introduction of avant-garde and classical elements in Pet Sounds and Smile; folk elements undergirding the spectacular Sunflower; Wilson digging into his California roots as an elder statesman on 2008's underrated That Lucky Old Sun.

And none of it would have happened if Wilson hadn't surveyed the ingredients at his disposal, as a very young man— and wove them into a symphony of flavors the world will never forget.

10 Memorable Oddities By The Beach Boys: Songs About Root Beer, Raising Babies & Ecological Collapse

Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

The Beach Boys are arguably still defined by their imperial phase in the 1960s — their string of infectious early hits that dovetailed with the psychedelic era, culminating in masterpieces like "California Girls," all of Pet Sounds, and "Good Vibrations." But that's not the full story.

Indeed, there are pockets of greatness throughout their entire 60-year run. Sure, you've heard "Catch a Wave," but are you hip to "Add Some Music to Your Day," their impossibly lovely gospel song from Sunflower? "Fun, Fun, Fun" is a staple, but have you beheld the head-spinning "Surf's Up," from the aborted Smile album?

Because America's Band's six-decade year voyage — the breadth of it — is about to get its own GRAMMY bash.

Back in April, "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," a two-hour tribute special featuring a lineup of heavy hitters, including John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, Weezer, and many more, aired on CBS. “A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will now re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream on demand on Paramount+.

Ahead of this unforgettable special, take a trip through the Beach Boys' career with this 50-song playlist — full of those indelible early hits, mid-period deep cuts and late-career masterpieces. Listen to the playlist in full on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora.

Playlist powered by GRAMMY U.

Read More: How To Watch "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," Featuring Performances From John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, Weezer & More

10 Memorable Oddities By The Beach Boys: Songs About Root Beer, Raising Babies & Ecological Collapse

Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

When talk turns to the history of American pop vocal groups in the 20th century, the conversation begins — and ends — with the Beach Boys. These California siblings and their high school compadres reinvented modern music, taking listeners on a sonic journey with their melodic harmony-rich hits. More than 60 years on, the group is still considered a touchstone for today’s artists and the pinnacle of pop.  

The Beach Boys formed in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne in 1961. The original lineup featured the three Wilson brothers (Dennis, Brian and Carl), cousin Mike Love and high-school friend Al Jardine. Initially, Murry Wilson (the siblings father) managed the group and helped land their first paying gig: opening for Ike and Tina Turner at the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance in Long Beach on New Year’s Eve 1961. 

It was an auspicious start to the year. That summer, the teenage quintet with a joie de vivre and a love of sun, surf, and sand signed to Capitol Records. The major label deal followed  the success of their first two singles: "Surfin,’" which reached No. 3 on West Coast regional charts and sold 40,000 copies,  and "Surfin’ Safari." The band’s debut full-length, Surfin’ Safari, climbed all the way to No. 32 on the Billboard charts. 

The Beach Boys sophomore release, Surfin’ U.S.A., came out less than six months after their debut and saw Brian Wilson experimenting more with innovative studio techniques like double-tracking vocals. The album hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts — but the band's success and innovation had far from peaked. 

1964's All Summer Long capped a year when the group played more than 100 shows around the world and recorded all or parts of four albums,  largely leaving the beachy parts of their sound behind in favor of new sonic textures and more personal  lyrics. Released in May 1966, Pet Sounds was the high point of this experimentation and cemented  the group as innovators. The intricately arranged concept album peaked at No. 10 in the U.S., but reached second spot in the British charts. The record came to represent the future possibilities of pop and signaled a shift in music-making and studio wizardry. Today, it’s considered one of the most influential albums of the 20th century due to its pioneering production and introspective lyrics. 

Dozens of artists have covered the album’s most well-known song: "God Only Knows," including: Glen Campbell, David Bowie, Olivia Newton-John and Wilson Phillips. Graham Nash cites "God Only Knows" as a significant inspiration to him when first learning the craft of writing songs.  

All told, the Beach Boys released 29 studio albums, 11 live recordings and dozens upon dozens of compilations. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they have been nominated for four GRAMMY Awards. The band have impacted everyone from contemporaries like the Beatles to current indie-folk rockers Fleet Foxes. Beyond commercial success — more than 100 million records sold, four No.1 Billboard hits and more than 33 Platinum and Gold Records (the greatest hits album Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys sold three million copies alone) — there are few genres these California kids have not had an influence on over the past six decades. 

In advance of the re-airing of the television special "A GRAMMY Salute to The Beach Boys" on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS — which features Beck, Brandi Carlile, Fall Out Boy, Norah Jones, John Legend, Michael McDonald, Weezer, Charlie Puth and Mumford & Sons —  GRAMMY.com shines a light on seven artists who count these sweet-singing melody-making trailblazers as essential to their musical education.

Read More: How To Watch "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," Featuring Performances From John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, Weezer & More

The Beatles

Listen to the vocal harmonies in songs like "Paperback Writer" and the complex arrangements, orchestration and time-shifts on "A Day in the Life" and try not to hear the sonic similarities. Pet Sounds came out the year before the GRAMMY-winning Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and early demos and acetates of the album ended up in the hands of the British band. Paul McCartney is also on record saying: "God Only Knows" is the greatest song ever written and he cries every time he hears it.  

George Martin, the "fifth Beatle" and GRAMMY-winning producer who was the studio architect of some of the Fab Four’s biggest albums, heralded Wilson and acknowledged the Beach Boys' influence on Sgt. Pepper’s. "Brian is a living genius of pop music. Like the Beatles, he pushed forward the frontiers of popular music," Martin says in Charles L Granata’s book Brian Wilson And The Making Of Pet Sounds.

Bruce Springsteen 

"There’s no greater world created in rock and roll than the Beach Boys, the level of musicianship, I don’t think anybody’s touched it yet," Bruce Springsteen said in the documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road.

Listen to "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" from 2007s Magic, which sonically could have easily fit on Pet Sounds 40 years earlier. Or put on your headphones and zone out to "Hungry Heart," the Boss’ first top 10 hit and try not to hear the Beach Boys' influence in the arrangement. In the documentary, Springsteen praises Wilson, his friend and musical mentor: "[He] just took you out of where you were and took you to another place."  

The Ramones

Surf-rock influencing punk-rock? You bet. The Ramones were well aware of, and influenced by, the SoCal music movement of the 1960s when they exploded onto the burgeoning punk scene in 1974. 

The Beach Boys were one of the messiahs from the past they worshiped and looked to while crafting some of their most enduring punk rock anthems. "Rockaway Beach" was penned by bassist Dee Dee Ramone to mimic the style of the Beach Boys earliest surf-rock hits, but was sped up to match the punk rockers energy. Many of the Ramones’s song titles and lyrics — just like the California group — clung to the innocence of youth and name-dropped local attractions and experiences that kids growing up in the boroughs understood. 

Take these lines from: “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” : “I’d rather stay here in my room/ Nothin’ out there but sad and gloom/ I don’t want to live in a big old tomb on Grand Street.” Remind you of the pensive “In My Room” perhaps? Or, how about "Oh Oh I Love Her So," from Leave Home? Joey Ramone sings of falling in love by a soda machine and then riding the coaster with his girl down at Coney Island all night long. The song even ends with a surf-rock riff.

Weezer 

Not long after moving from the East Coast to Los Angeles, Weezer’s lead singer and songwriter Rivers Cuomo bought a copy of Pet Sounds. The album would go on to influence the early days of the alternative-rock band and Cuomo’s approach to songwriting, especially on their self-titled debut. 

Weezer once covered the Beach Boys' "Don’t Worry Baby" and, on the GRAMMY-nominated Pacific Daydream (2017) there’s a song called "Beach Boys." In an interview, Cuomo reflected on Wilson’s wide-ranging, everlasting influence: "To me, he’s one of the standout talents of the century or of our culture. I think I’m a pea in comparison. But I certainly emulate him as do countless others." On the forthcoming GRAMMY salute to the Beach Boys, Weezer covers "California Girls."

Fleet Foxes

While his friends were studying algebra, a teenage Robin Pecknold was studying The Beach Boys — specifically how they created their complex stacked harmonies. This musical education began the foundation for his band Fleet Foxes and their approach to harmonizing and making music. In this interview on Brian Wilson’s website, the songwriter refers to the Beach Boys music as his "textbooks." "My parents bought me a four track for my1 5th birthday and I would practice stacking harmonies for hours on end," he recalled.

From the layered harmonies that open "Sun it Rises," the first track on the band’s self-titled 2008 debut, and the intricate orchestration that follows, the Beach Boys comparison is evident. Pecknold acknowledges this influence in the liner notes, writing: "Whenever I hear 'Feel Flows' by the Beach Boys, I’m taken straight to the back of my parents’ car on the way to my grandparents’ place, fourteen with Surf’s Up in my walkman and the Cascade Mountains going by in the window." 

In that same interview posted on Wilson’s website, Peckhold raved about Brian Wilson's influence on him as a young musician. "I remember being so driven as a teenager by how much amazing music Brian made in his early 20s. That he was such a prodigious master of his craft, making Pet Sounds at the astounding age of 23, always pushed me to get as good as I could as a musician, as soon as I could," Peckhold reflected. "But at some point I accepted that haste is no substitute for brilliance, there is only one Brian Wilson." 

And, if this is not proof enough, Fleet Foxes sampled Wilson’s voice from "Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" on the song "Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman" on 2020s GRAMMY-nominated Shore. 

Phoenix

The French synth-rock quartet that formed in 1995 show how the Beach Boys' influence spans not only generations, but borders. This admiration for the California soft-rock sounds of the 1960s and harmonious pop is most apparent on the GRAMMY-winning band’s sixth album: Ti Amo. Just like Pet Sounds, these cerebral musicians mine the depths of human emotions on this record and find the spaces in between to shed light on what we all feel. In this piece, Phoenix discusses how Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys influenced the sunny sounds of this 2017 record that is a love letter to Europe.    

The Sha La Das

Family harmonies? Check. Summer vibes? Check. Led by father Bill Schalda and featuring the sibling sounds of his three sons — Will, Paul and Carmine — this band hail from Staten Island. Growing up, the brothers often sang on the front stoop with Bill providing guidance. Later, they sang backup on the late Charles Bradley’s Victim of Love. 

Listen to the old-soul and do-wop of "Summer Breeze" from the band’s 2018 debut Love in the Wind and you are transported to southern California, circa 1961, and the first time the sunny sounds of the Beach Boys came across the airwaves. 

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