In 1964, Wilson had a nervous breakdown and resigned from regular concert touring to focus on songwriting and production, leading to works such as the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and his first credited solo release, "Caroline, No" (both 1966), as well as the unfinished album Smile.

[76] From January to March 1963, Wilson produced the Beach Boys' second album, Surfin' U.S.A..[78] To focus his efforts on writing and recording, he limited his public appearances with the group to television gigs and local shows.

[85] Around the same time, Wilson began producing a girl group, the Honeys, consisting of sisters Marilyn and Diane Rovell and their cousin Ginger Blake, who were local high school students he had met at a Beach Boys concert during the previous August.

[97] Excepting his work with the Beach Boys, for the whole of 1963, Wilson had written, arranged, produced, or performed on at least 42 songs with the Honeys, Jan and Dean, the Survivors, Sharon Marie, the Timers, the Castells ("I Do"), Bob Norberg, Vickie Kocher, Gary Usher, Christian, Paul Petersen ("She Rides with Me"), and Larry Denton ("Endless Sleep").

"[104] Author James Perone identifies the Beach Boys' May single "I Get Around", their first U.S. number one hit, as representing both a successful response by Wilson to the British Invasion, and the beginning of an unofficial rivalry between him and the Beatles, principally Paul McCartney.

[160] For the remainder of 1966, Wilson focused on completing the band's single "Good Vibrations", which became a number-one hit in December, and a new batch of songs written with session musician Van Dyke Parks for inclusion on Smile, the planned follow-up to Pet Sounds.

[189] Journalist Nik Cohn, writing in 1968, said that Wilson had been rumored to be "increasingly withdrawn, brooding, hermitic [...] and occasionally, he is to be seen in the back of some limousine, cruising around Hollywood, bleary and unshaven, huddled way tight into himself.

[242] Although increasingly reclusive during the day, Wilson spent many nights at Hutton's house fraternizing with colleagues such as Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop, who were mutually bemused by an extended Wilson-led singalong of the folk song "Shortnin' Bread".

[236] Along with his guest appearances on Johnny Rivers' rendition of "Help Me, Rhonda" and Jackie DeShannon's "Boat to Sail", Wilson's production of California Music's single "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" represents his only "serious" work throughout this period of semi-inactivity.

[258][259][nb 23] Marilyn also called in the band's lawyers and accountants to remind her husband that, pursuant to the terms of his contract with Warner Bros., he was legally obliged to write and produce for the Beach Boys or else he would be sued by the label and lose his home.

[311] In early 1982, Wilson signed a trust document that gave Carl control of his finances and Brother Records, Inc. (BRI) voting power, and was involuntarily admitted to a three-day stay at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.

[319] On November 5, Wilson was falsely told by the group that he was penniless and no longer a member of the Beach Boys, and if he wanted to continue receiving his share of income from the touring band's earnings, he had to reenlist Landy as his caretaker.

[334] Released in July 1988, Brian Wilson was met with favorable reviews and moderate sales, peaking at number 52 in the U.S.[331][335] It included "Rio Grande", an eight-minute Western suite written in a similar vein to the songs from Smile.

[342] According to biographer Peter Ames Carlin, in addition to plagiarizing excerpts from earlier biographies, the contents of the book ranged from Wilson's castigations against his bandmates to passages that "read like depositions for their various court cases".

[347] The day after the restraining order had been placed on Landy, Wilson had renewed his songwriting partnership with Andy Paley and, together, subsequently wrote and recorded a large collection of material for a proposed Beach Boys album throughout the early to mid-1990s.

'"[424] In March 2016, Wilson and Al Jardine embarked on the Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour, promoted as his final performances of the album,[425] with Chaplin appearing as a special guest at all dates on select songs.

[441] On July 26, 2022, Wilson played his final concert as part of a joint tour with Chicago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, where he was reported to have "sat rigid and expressionless" throughout the performance.

[463][nb 32] Later in his career, Wilson recorded renditions of certain favorites, including the Everly Brothers' "Devoted to You" (1958), the Robins' "Smokey Joe's Cafe" (1955), the Olympics' "Hully Gully" (1960), the Shirelles' "Mama Said" (1961), and the Regents' "Barbara Ann" (1961).

[526] Other songs are characterized by "syncopated exercises and counterpoints piled on top of jittery eighth-note clusters and loping shuffle grooves", features that producer Alan Boyd said took "an almost manic edge" in Wilson's work during the 1970s.

[512] In his 2008 book Dark Mirror: The Pathology of the Singer-Songwriter, Donald Brackett identifies Wilson as "the Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost of popular music—deceptively simple, colloquial in phrasing, with a spare and evocative lyrical style embedded in the culture that created it.

[553][nb 45] Once Britz assembled a preliminary recording setup, Wilson would take over the console, directing the session musicians from the booth using an intercom or non-verbal gestures after supplying them with chord charts.

[686] In his 2015 book Electric Shock, Peter Doggett identifies Wilson as the quintessential figure of an era marked by "some of the most notorious pop battles" between "idealistic musicians" and the executives funding their ambitious projects.

"[700] Artists who have described Wilson as a "genius" have included George Martin, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Elton John, Tom Petty, Henry Rollins, and Questlove.

[506][nb 67] In his 1969 book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn recognizes Wilson as a progenitor of authentic pop art, elevating high school-themed music "to completely new levels" and transforming it into a mythic narrative.

"[641][nb 72] The most culturally significant "tragedy" in 1960s rock, according to journalist Richard Goldstein, was Wilson's failure to overcome his insecurities and realize "his full potential as a composer" after having anticipated developments such as electronica and minimalism.

[725] Frith added that, while the influence of both these producers was evident in 1967 hit songs by the Electric Prunes, the Turtles, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Tommy James and the Shondells, and the 5th Dimension, the most enduring and successful American pop act was the Monkees, which had been created as "an obvious imitation of the Beatles".

[725] Speaking in a 1997 interview, musician Sean O'Hagan felt that rock music's domination of mass culture following the mid-1960s had the effect of artistically stifling contemporary pop composers who, until then, had been guided by Wilson's increasingly ambitious creative advancements.

"[736] The critic also notes, "For the artier branches of post-punk, Wilson's pained vulnerability, his uses of offbeat instruments and his intricate harmonies, not to mention the Smile saga itself, became a touchstone", especially for such bands as Pere Ubu, XTC, U2, R.E.M., the Pixies, and My Bloody Valentine.

[738] Newer acts who were influenced by Wilson, or that voiced their admiration, included Robyn Hitchcock, Redd Kross, the Church, Rain Parade, Big Dipper, the Go-Betweens, Psychic TV, the Feelies, and the dBs.

[742] In 2009, Pitchfork ran an editorial feature that traced the development of nascent indie music scenes, and chillwave in particular, to the themes of Wilson's songs and his reputation for being an "emotionally fragile dude with mental health problems who coped by taking drugs.