Good vibrations.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Memoir - Brief article - Book review

Mike Love, the nasal singer and frequent lyricist for the Beach Boys, is one of the most hated men in rock. The early reaction to his memoir Good Vibrations (Blue Rider) suggests that the book isn't going to change that. Love and his cousin Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys' main composer and vocal arranger, are painted in fan history as, respectively, the Antichrist and the man who walks on water.

Wilson represents sensitivity and artistic exploration in this saga; Love, brash showmanship and a bourgeois approach to entertainment as a business. It took both men to create and maintain The Beach Boys as America's longest-lasting and still quite successful band; Love is proud that 2015, 53 years into their career...