Interesting article in The Guardian suggesting that with Brian Wilson’s passing and after the demise of the last members of sixties acts, music will be devoid of geniuses. Is that true? And if not, who are they? I’m struggling to think.
No More Geniuses Any More
by 67 Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/14/brian-wilson-was-a-musical-genius-are-there-any-left
James Dean Bradfield
Synergistic, needs Nicky Wire to compete at genius level
Bradfield’s genius is taking Wire’s (or Edwards’) sprawling lyrics and making coherent songs out of them.
I assume you mean Pop music?
I think that’s the thrust of the article, yes.
Total rubbish. Depends how old you are.
Genius has long been a totally overused term and will
continue to be so
Totally. And as Twang rightly says, entirely subjective, at least as far as creativity and the arts are concerned. Maybe there are proper geniuses in science and maths and stuff, but I’m not clever enough to know for sure.
Another overused meaningless term is “legend”. “Eastenders legend”, “reality TV legend” etc. Ffs!
You’re a national treasure for saying that!
Gary’s a leg end…
It’s entirely subjective. I’m indifferent to Brian Wilson though it’s obviously sad he’s gone, but I think Richard Thompson is a genius. But that’s just me.
Well, I was going to post about how good the new Sparks album is and how good their back catalogue is, certainly of late, so they’ve got my vote.
Richard Thompson, Stevie Wonder, Pail McCartney … I dare say there are plenty who have hit their creative peaks more recently but they’re probably in areas of music which I haven’t explored and am unlikely to now.
Lord Buckethead, maybe?
Is he a musician too? There is no end to the man’s talents.
He’s American, can’t be ennobled.
Just riffing off your typo.
He didn’t even write lyrics, did he? The Wilson-as-genius idea was just a marketing thing, which was pioneered in 1966 by Derek Taylor (then Beach Boys publicist). If you repeat it enough, it becomes true.
Neither did Mozart. Slacker. 😉
Derek Taylor was a genius
Indeed. The 1985 black ball final against Steve Davis, and his solo vocal line on Snooker Loopy
Wilson was a “genius” in composition and production. He wasn’t a words guy. Pet Sounds was his 11th album and he was 24 when it came out
* pretty good singer too
Paul Simon certainly fits the bill to be called a genius.
I imagine there are a few more out there too.
Isn’t it a case of passing the baton to the next generation rather than just saying that genius is dead because it is our generation we are talking about?
I’d say McCartney genuinely had a melodic genius at one time; he also wrote lyrics. A good shout for Paul Simon, too.
Macca for sure, he and Brian Wilson were born within 24 hours of each other. Simon is a genius wordsmith
On the basis that many of the people commonly thought of as geniuses – McCartney, Wilson, Prince – are recognised for their studio work as for their composition, I nominate Pharrell.
There’s a nimbleness, a deft lightness of touch in his approach that merits the moniker. ‘Geniuses’ may graft away behind the scenes, but in public they make it seem effortless.
Frankly, I think it was easier to be inventive, new and exciting in recording popular music in the 50s/60s/70s because the form was largely still being invented and the scope was huge. It was also probably easier to get noticed in a popular music genre that was essentially monocultural.
Burt Bacharach is one of the best but wouldn’t be a pick for genius because he’s not some tortured and troubled soul as one would ideally have, it’s the music that speaks for him. Lana Del Rey has produced a run of excellent albums and Bruce himself has hailed her as the best of the 21st century but when you reach a certain age you tend to think your time was the best time and you are no longer engaged with music in the same way. It’s easy to under value the new. Better to talk about how good the records are, your hero might not even have been so involved as it seems. Genius as a term is not helpful.
The whole thing is just daft. There are still people who are really good at pop music, I’m sure.
Geniuses are people who find cures for diseases, discover the fabric of reality, that kind of stuff.
Well said sir. I know hyperbole has it’s place, but even so.
People will probably always use “genius” as a throwaway synonym for “I really like this”, but I think it’s possible that the era of adults sincerely attempting to argue that their chosen pop star is objectively, empirically and meaningfully “a genius” is probably at an end. For now, at least.
The only musician I’ve ever thought of as a genius is Bob Dylan, and that’s a thought that came and went pretty rapidly. He quite obviously doesn’t belong on a list with Newton, Shakespeare, Einstein, Plato and Da Vinci. He’s just a bloke who’s written a bunch of songs I really like. And that’s enough for me.
Eno?
In the sense that he has approached musical projects and other areas with fresh innovative perspectives. Even if I’m not always impressed with his stuff I can usually appreciate his take. I enjoyed his book A Year With Swollen Appendices and it, more than anything, steered me towards his writing on various topics. Sure he can come across as pretentious and even as a chancer I genuinely regard him as unique and capable of broadening my mind through his work.
Fire away with your counter arguments.
No counter from me – I was coming here to post the same. Within the fairly narrow parameters of this thread, he was the only one who came to mind.
Controversial, of course – lots here dislike him, although arguably that shouldn’t preclude them from acknowledging his genius…🙂
Just for his smelling salts he should have a place at the top table.
Feeling slightly liverish this morning, S?
I believe Hylda Baker spoke highly of him too.
Plus
Truly superb!
(ps: I’d buy that issue…)
I never realized that Eno had been mates with Colonel Gaddafi
You scamp. I see what you did there.
I’m guessing that I didn’t?
@fitterstoke
Second Thickos Club member coming through!
“Genius” isn’t just masculine, you know. Although, I agree with Bingo about it falling out of use, how about Beyonce, MIA, Sophie, St Vincent, Lana Del Ray, Fever Ray…?
Hmm, I refer you to @leffe-gin above….
WRT Brian Wilson style intuitive expertise, I would put forward Senaid Aitken. Up there with Robert Kirby in string arrangements, as well as a top notch classical, jazz and folk violinist. Sings well too, if not to my taste.
Female musicians have to be really exceptional to even get noticed by the people who hand out the genius accolades. Someone like Anne Dudley, who is a consummate arranger, composer and keyboard player, and was at one time on practically every record… as well as breaking new ground with Art of Noise… does she ever get called a genius?
You see similar people like Isabella Summers, now one of the top soundtrack composers for TV and movies, and formally the keyboard player/programmer for Florence Welch. She is someone who is just extremely good, more ‘good’ than many male counterparts, and generates almost no mentions at all.
I’m not saying that these are geniuses, nobody is in pop music. But if they had a pair of clackers, then Mojo et. al. would be all over them.
I feel like Mojo is where a lot of this started… they got to interview people like Peter Buck who intellectualised things like Beach Boys Love You – perhaps because they needed an excuse for liking something that is so intrinsically square.
Agree that this thing got started in Rock journalism. You’ll see the word “genius” used in other areas of the music press, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone sincerely argue that (say) Frankie Knuckles or DMX deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as Marie Curie and Descartes.
The irony is that the overwhelming majority of famous musicians are complete fuckwits you wouldn’t trust to boil a kettle.
Descartes were much better after Marie left the band and her short lived solo project. Her Radioactivity project was still the best gloves off, hands down version of that style, mind.
I’m not surprised that Descartes and Curie had their differences. Marie was interested in a record contract, while René was only interested in le contrat social.
Yeah but, who put the kettle on…?
A case of putting Descartes before the horse.
Well, you win the white carnation, Hubes…
Funny how there was this flowering of pop as art in the 60s and people talked about Lennon and McCartney like they were akin to Schubert and other classical masters, sounds a bit laughable now and Leonard Bernstein eulogising Brian Wilson and The Beatles. It was a new renaissance in certain quarters. A serious art form which should have it’s geniuses. Didn’t quite live up to that hype though. Went off the rails a bit. Everyone got a grip or went up in smoke – the acts I mean. It’s enough to be highly talented and driven to create.
One of the reasons I’ve never much enjoyed the Beach Boys is that I read the hype before I ever heard the music.
I was aware of the Beach Boys in the 60s, who couldn’t be. but it was as they entered the 80s, with shaggy beards and hats that I cam to love them. I blame Nic Cohn and his book, the Guy Peelaert illustrated Rock Dreams, which gave them a dose of post Dead scuzzy realism.
..ah yeah, the whole ‘make them look less square so that I can justify liking them’ school of BB criticism. I think they are great but they are as square as Cliff. Which is ok, I ain’t losing sleep and I ain’t counting sheep.
I dare say, at the time, that was a/the factor. The 4 page spread in NME by Nick Kent gave me the permission I didn’t either need or think I needed. Anyhoo, it worked and am as happy with Little Deuce Coupe now as I am with Feel Flows. (Less keen on Student Revolution Time and other Mike Love cack like Funky Pretty.
The Steven Gaines book – Heroes and Villains – that came out around the same time as NK’s piece was another major reason for the upswing in the BB’s legend.
While he’s a bit of a knob, I think history will probably be a lot kinder on Mike Love than is currently the case.
I grew up listening to Beach Boys Party rather than one of the good ones, and I still love it for what it is.
History will be reasonably kind to Mike Love, the prat in the hat, because he wrote the lyrics to California Girls – probably one of the 100 or so pop songs that will survive in 150 years time.
That’s just a leerer’s charter, isn’t it?
It is. A pop song by a bunch of young lads singing about their lives… the cover of it by Dave Lee Roth was hilarious.
Young lads leering emphasizes for me the jock tendency in the Beach Boys. Maybe after a few years Mike could have put away such childish things, but I suppose the clue is in the band name.
Good point really. It’s exactly that – and this is my point – some want to ignore that aspect of the BBs, to make them cooler.
I prefer the DLR version to be honest. Great video too.
I think I prefer the Katy Perry song in all honesty.
The curse of Katy Perry strikes again
I could produce a massively long list of musical artists I rate very highly indeed, but I shall refrain from doing so. None of them, apart from possibly Palestrina, JS Bach, Les Paul and Duke Ellington would be considered by me to be geniuses. It’s a devalued term without relevance now.