Despite being one of popular music's most celebrated artists, Brian Wilson has frequently spent long periods away from the music industry. He suffered a mental health crisis exacerbated by his drug use, shortly after the release of 1966's "Pet Sounds," after which he ceded the majority of the creative control of the Beach Boys to his bandmates. From thereon, he only contributed to the group sporadically as a songwriter and largely retreated from the public eye.
Wilson only kick-started his solo career with a debut solo album in 1988, which helped to reinvigorate him as a creative force over the decades that followed. And has been surprisingly prolific in the 21st century. Among reunions with the surviving members of the band that made his name, he also released arguably his most crucial piece of solo work, "Brian Wilson Presents Smile," in 2004, a new recording of material meant for The Beach Boys' abandoned 1967 album "Smile," which was a critical and commercial smash even as it reportedly irritated his former bandmates who suggested that it infringed on their intellectual property rights.
