The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, the Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962. The band's early music gained popularity across the United States for its close vocal harmonies and lyrics reflecting a Southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance. By the mid 1960s, Brian Wilson's growing creative ambition and songwriting ability would dominate the group's musical direction. The primarily Wilson-composed Pet Sounds album and "Good Vibrations" single (both released in 1966) featured a complex, intricate and multi-layered sound that was a far cry from the simple surf rock of the Beach Boys' early years.

Starting in 1967, Wilson gradually abdicated control to the rest of the band, assuming a reduced level of input due to mental-health and substance-abuse issues. Though the more democratic incarnation of the Beach Boys recorded a string of albums in various musical styles that garnered international critical and commercial success, the group struggled to reclaim their commercial and critical momentum in America despite once being seen as the primary competitors to the Beatles. Since the 1980s, there has been much legal-wrangling among the group members over royalties, songwriting credits, and use of the band's name. Following Carl Wilson's death in 1998, a number of versions of the band, each fronted by a surviving member of the original quintet (Dennis having died in 1983), continued to tour into the 2000s. In 2012, the surviving Beach Boys put aside their differences, recorded a new album, and embarked on a full-scale reunion tour.

The Beach Boys have often been called "America's Band", and Allmusic has stated that "the band's unerring ability... made them America's first, best rock band." The group has had 36 United States Top 40 hits (the most by an American rock band) and 56 Hot 100 hits, including four number-one singles. Rolling Stone magazine listed The Beach Boys at number 12 on their 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". The core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.