By Jason M. Rubin

Though Brian Wilson has left us, his enormous musical legacy lives on through a growing series of posthumous CD and vinyl reissues and books.

When the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson died on June 11, 2025, just nine days shy of his 83^rd birthday, it sent a sonic boom across the musical landscape. His long and successful career as a visionary producer, brilliant composer, talented multi-instrumentalist, and extraordinary vocalist played out amid his complicated personal life, complete with physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands – and belt – of his father, unchecked mental illness (including decades-long auditory hallucinations), and longtime substance use, which, while nearly killing him on several occasions, nevertheless led to the sumptuous orchestral introduction to “California Girls” and the impressionistic potpourri of his greatest single, “Good Vibrations.”

Though Wilson has left us, his enormous musical legacy lives on through a growing series of posthumous CD and vinyl reissues and books. Many more are sure to come as the prodigious and prolific songwriter no doubt left deep vaults of tapes that have yet to see the light of day. The pipeline seems to have been opened even before Wilson died, with the April 15, 2025, publication of SMiLE: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Brian Wilson by author and documentarian David Leaf, Wilson’s longtime Boswell, who nearly single-handedly resurrected the eventual Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s stature with his 1978 book, The Beach Boys and the California Myth, issued at a time when the Beach Boys couldn’t have been less hip.

(By the way, if you aren’t aware of the SMiLE saga, there is plenty to read on the subject, as well as in Leaf’s excellent 2004 documentary, Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of SMiLE, and the 2014 Wilson biopic Love and Mercy (Arts Fuse review). Suffice to say, SMiLE was the unfinished 1967 album slated to come on the heels of “Good Vibrations” and change the way popular music was written, arranged, performed, and produced. Yet in his weakened state, the project became to Wilson what the boulder was to Sisyphus. His inability to finish it led to his withdrawal from the group and from life itself. In 2004, Wilson and his band recorded and released their own version of the album, as Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE.)

Wilson’s death, inevitable yet unexpected, cast a pall on Leaf’s book tour, yet his comprehensive oral history of the SMiLE legend was a salve for fans coming to grips with the loss of their hero, and must have helped generate sales even among the non-disciples. November saw the reissue of Live at the Roxy Theatre, originally released in 2000, which represented Wilson’s first tour as a solo act and introduced his potent band of exceptional players and singers who recreated the most challenging compositions in his catalog with what looked like effortless skill and deep passion for the material.

Now, in 2026, the floodgates have opened and a number of products spotlighting Wilson’s career are hitting the marketplace—there are four such releases in just the first six months of the year. In order of release date:

Cover art for We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years

We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years. This box set, focusing on the “Brian Is Back” era of 1976-1977, was released on February 13, 2026. This was a polarizing time period that promised Wilson’s long-awaited return to the studio and the stage, yet often he was back physically, but not mentally or musically. The BIB campaign was a response to the platinum compilations Endless Summer (1974) and Spirit of America (1975), which mined the band’s 1962-1965 catalog and poured money into Capitol Records’ vault. That was good news for the Beach Boys but not for Warner Brothers, their label since 1970. No Beach Boys album on Warners had done anywhere near that level of business. The label wanted Wilson’s involvement, though it was unclear if he was ready to respond.

The first album represented on We Gotta Groove is 1976’s 15 Big Ones. The title referred to the band’s longevity and also to there being 15 cuts on the album, about half covers of old 1950s and early 1960s staples (intended to make Wilson’s re-entry less stressful for him). This was considered a warmup for the album that followed, Beach Boys Love You (1977), which in all but name was a Brian Wilson solo album. He wrote all the songs, most entirely by himself (he did not like writing lyrics and rarely did so with the Beach Boys, though on at least a couple of occasions – 1968’s “Busy Doin’ Nothin’” and 1971’s “Til I Die” – the results were nothing short of sublime). Wilson played almost all the instruments as well, though it should be noted this was often limited to piano, Moog, and snare drum. Still, that is notable because many critics and musicians point to the album as an early example of lo-fi – ironic, given that Wilson had been the lead architect of a unique production technique that was luscious, rich, and full.

Beach Boys Love You splits Wilson devotees to this day. This writer considers it a minor masterpiece, worthy of being discussed alongside Pet Sounds. Others don’t get it. Patti Smith did. In a review from the October 1977 issue of Hit Parader, Smith gave the album a positive review, while noting, “love you. i believe he does. i believe they do. i don’t live it but i believe it. you’re into it or you’re not.” She ends in typically poetic fashion: “and I think after everyone’s gone. when he’s all alone. for no apparent reason. brian wilson bursts into tears. not necessarily unhappy ones. manic and monotone. in the privacy of his own barbeque.”

Bucking chronology, the three-CD box set features Love You first (along with outtakes), all but declaring its greatness over 15 Big Ones, which doesn’t show up until disc three, and is limited to outtakes and alternate mixes. Disc two presents a rare look at yet another in a long line of never-released Wilson/Beach Boys albums, begun after the Love You sessions. This was to be called Adult/Child and featured a number of tracks with orchestral backing, arranged and conducted by Dick Reynolds, who did arrangements for the Four Freshman (hugely influential to Wilson) and Frank Sinatra. Wilson once called him “a god to me.”

The label and the rest of the Beach Boys were unenthused. The initial goal was to get Wilson back in the studio. Once he got settled there – and was allowed on Love You to do pretty much anything he wanted – the band’s goal now was to rein him in. As it turned out, Wilson eventually got bored and was a bit player at best on subsequent Beach Boys albums. That said, We Gotta Groove proves that for two years in the murky waters of post-SMiLE breakdown and pre-solo career resurrection, Wilson put out a ton of catchy music with way more jewels than duds, and in a handful of cases (“The Night Was So Young” being the prime exemplar) reached heights long thought no longer attainable by such a wounded composer.

Brian Wilson On Tour 1999-2007. The splashiest new release is this Record Store Day exclusive, hitting select vinyl bins on April 18, 2026, in a limited pressing of 2,000 copies. Featuring multicolored vinyl and a groovy cover showing Wilson at four key stages of his career, the album collects 14 rare live performances from the very beginning of his sudden metamorphosis into a traveling performer and extended to the mid-to-late 2000s, when he and his band were firing on all cylinders. The tunes represent gigs at some of the world’s great venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, and UCLA Royce Hall.

Record Story Day limited releases are notoriously hard to find, but this one is well worth the hunt. It opens with a Harry Nilsson song performed in 1999 and ends with a rare cover of the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home.” In between are deep tracks and fan favorites from throughout his Beach Boys and solo careers – including two tracks mentioned above, “Busy Doin’ Nothin’” and “The Night Was So Young” – as well as a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Goode.” Though drawn from different times and places, there is a uniformity of sound quality and depth, a testament to the skill of longtime Wilson engineer Mark Linett, who also is credited as producer.

This album could go for as much as $40 on Record Store Day, but will easily cost at least twice as much on eBay afterward, so ask your local record store in advance if they plan on stocking it.

Pet Sounds 60^th anniversary vinyl releases. Preceding the 60^th anniversary of Wilson’s masterpiece, Pet Sounds, by one day, Capitol Records and UMe will unveil four new editions of the album on May 15, 2026. One will be a 2-LP collection of the album in both mono and stereo. Another is a single LP mono edition using an advanced mastering process. There is also a 2-CD/2-LP set of highlights from the Pet Sounds Sessions box set from 1997. The most compelling release visually will be a “Zoetrope” mono edition; as it spins, a series of animated images will appear on the vinyl.

All Summer Long: Conversations with The Beach Boys from Surfin’ to SMiLE. Compiled by David Beard, who for more than three decades has published the Beach Boys fanzine Endless Summer Quarterly, this book presents an oral history of the band from 1961-1967, when they shot meteorically from regional curiosity to worldwide legends. Taken from interviews with band members, friends, family, and insiders, Beard presents a remarkably broad survey of first-person testimonies that shed considerable light on a group that the public has long appreciated yet misunderstood.

Of course, the band members haven’t always done themselves a favor in that regard; some, especially Wilson, can be unreliable reporters. For example, he would make up things if he was not interested or comfortable, or would give answers that he thought interviewers wanted to hear – often contradicting himself in subsequent interviews. Lead singer and first cousin Mike Love is notorious for taking credit for things (like coming up with album titles) for no apparent reason other than to buoy his own ego. He also is acutely aware that fans consider his well-known opposition to Pet Sounds and SMiLE (“Don’t fuck with the formula,” he is said to have told Wilson at the time) to be partly responsible for his cousin’s eventual breakdown and so uses interviews to try to repair his image by praising much of the work he once found so objectionable.

Actor John Stamos, Love’s buddy and occasional onstage guest with the Beach Boys, writes the foreword, yet that’s hardly a draw. But considering how young the Beach Boys were when they started (lead guitarist Carl Wilson was only 14 when they recorded “Surfin’”), All Summer Long provides a fascinating view of a band that started out rough, grew and matured, and eventually made some of the best and most polished pop music that’s ever been recorded. One wonders if Beard will compile another collection of interviews that goes from SMiLE to maybe Sunflower, the 1970 album that warrants considerable scrutiny as it was the band’s first album for Warner Brothers and marked the emergence of bad-boy drummer Dennis Wilson as a creative force. All Summer Long comes out on June 11, 2026.

It’s worth mentioning that Mike Love’s Beach Boys (he owns the name) and original member Al Jardine (backed by members of Wilson’s band) are both still out on the road, bringing the music of Brian Wilson to life all over the world. As I said earlier, I expect – and eagerly await – more Wilson/Beach Boys material to come out in the ensuing months. He may be gone, but Brian Wilson’s genius endures.

Jason M. Rubin has been a professional writer for 40 years. He has written for The Arts Fuse since 2012. His books include SHORTS: A Sizable Collection of Short Fiction (2025); Villainy Ever After (2022), a collection of classic fairy tales told from the villains’ point of view; and Ancient Tales Newly Told (2019), a pairing of two historical romances, one set in 17th-century England and the other in Biblical Jerusalem and Sheba. Jason also teaches journaling workshops. He holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Learn more at https://jasonmarkrubin.wixsite.com/jasonmrubin.com.