Among the album's guest contributors were Nick Laird-Clowes, Jeff Lynne, Elliot Easton, Philippe Saisse, Christopher Cross, and Terence Trent D'Arby.

[9][10] The group's efforts to keep Wilson at the production helm were unsuccessful,[11][12] and at the end of 1982, his family, bandmates, and management prevailed upon him to volunteer back into psychologist Eugene Landy's "24-hours-a-day" therapy program.

[22] In January 1987, Sire Records president Seymour Stein invited Wilson to act as a presenter for Leiber and Stoller's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[25][26] Paley, as he himself described, was assigned to the project "to kick [Brian] in the ass and get him going",[25] as well as to evaluate material for Stein and Lenny Waronker, the latter of whom being the president of Sire's distributor, Warner Bros.

"[28] However, Wilson had formed an aversion to this approach due to the fact that his personal decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s had coincided with the "diminishing commercial reception" to his more experimental recording output.

[40] The album featured a host of guest appearances from acts including the Cars' guitarist Elliot Easton, jazz keyboardist Philippe Saisse, singers Christopher Cross and Terence Trent D'Arby, among others.

Landy and his aides (nicknamed the "Surf Nazis"[44]) were a constant disruptive presence, and creative differences between him and the rest of the production team occurred throughout the album's making.

[43] Stein, who characterized the album's recording as "hell on earth", said that Landy would then send back the wrong master tapes, "just to drive Russ crazy".

[49] Critic David Fricke noted that "the rich, expansive arrangements echo the orchestral radiance of Wilson's spiritual mentor, Phil Spector.

[52] Writing in his Beach Boys biography, Timothy White states that "Landy would change studios every few weeks so Brian would not, in the words of one production staff member, 'form any lasting new professional relationships.

"[54] White reports that a discarded remix, arranged by Landy, had been "heavily accented by strings and other intensely lush touches à la Murry Wilson".

"[2] Carlin describes it as "stompingly rhythmic" and "another of Brian's deceptively autobiographical songs, combining the percussive sound of footsteps, drums, sleigh bells, synth bass, synthesizer, electric guitars, and three layers of interlocking voices into a description of his own impossibly rigid life".

[59] Carlin explained that both songs contain sleigh bells and "percussive blasts of snare", however, "Melt Away" blends it "into an entirely different feeling, with words that emphasized the scars of experience while the interweaving paths of the bass and melody conspired with the billowing ooohs and aaahs to describe the soothing balm of love.

[63] According to Paley, "Brian was really into writing this as a survival thing, the idea of a little man against the big men and making it on your own … the misunderstandings that must have happened between travelers on the same trail and how scary that must have been.

[74] Other still-unreleased recordings from the album's sessions include "Heavenly Lover", "Love Ya", "Saturday Evening in the City", "Tiger's Eye", and "Hotter".

[76] "Tiger's Eye", according to Paley, is "about a guy who's worried about his girlfriend in the jungle and he's trying to find her; it's got a scary mood to it, but it's got a Motown feel, and a nice climbing bass line in the bridge that I remember.

Carlin describes Wilson as having performed "in tight leather pants, lurching across the stage with all the grace of a traffic cop whose jockey shorts have caught on fire.

"[81] There, and in his other public appearances, Carlin states that Wilson was "too obviously terrified, his hands shaking, and his eyes darting around like a guy with fear in his heart and ghosts on his mind.

[52] In August 1988, Rolling Stone reported that Wilson had "half of a second album written" and that there were discussions about "producing both The Beach Boys and the Ramones", as well as a solo tour.

[30] In September, Wilson, accompanied by Landy, appeared at that year's Beach Boy Stomp fan convention, held at a church hall in Greenford, a West London suburb.

Cavanagh wrote, "He arrived and the audience of 250 Beach Boys disciples behaved as if the Second Coming had taken place [...] Attempts to engage him in meaningful conversation were mostly a failure, but he sat there for over an hour signing his name.

[37] In Stereo Review, the writer stated that Brian Wilson confirmed that the artist had successfully delivered "Pet Sounds II" and was "clearly at work again with talent intact".

[87] Rolling Stone's David Fricke concurred and wrote, "Brian Wilson is a stunning reminder of what pop's been missing all these years [and] the best Beach Boys long player since 1970's Sunflower", with his only criticism being that the LP appeared to lack "a real statement of direction or purpose".

[88] Los Angeles Times' Paul Grein wrote that Brian Wilson makes "a strong case for the argument that genius isn’t a perishable commodity".

[86] Sun-Sentinel's Deborah Wilker rued: "Wilson's clever, mostly upbeat ideas flow magnificently throughout the record, easily transcending his emotional madness.

"[89] Less favorably, the Associated Press's David Bauder wrote that "Brian Wilson can't compare with any of the early '60s Beach Boys classics", while People's Ralph Novak described the record as "often appalling".

[90] Gary Pig Gold, in MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, wrote that the album would disappoint listeners expecting a Pet Sounds-quality masterpiece, however, "That is not to say Wilson isn't still capable of producing works of true beauty; his flair for both vocal and instrumental arrangement remains unparalleled, his voice is now more mature but still as achingly expressive as it was in its prime, and magnificent melodies still seem to spill from him with impossible ease.

"[93] Conversely, Robert Christgau wrote that Wilson sounds too much "like the sincere, talented, mildly pretentious nut he is" to convince the listener of "the pain in his voice".

[94] Among Wilson's biographers, Carlin writes that the album occupies a space "between moments of sweet, redemptive beauty and songs that were overwhelmed by their own ambition, to some that actually did combine the tacts of the past with the tools of the present into a wholly new sound.

[104] Japanese composers Hirokazu Tanaka and Keiichi Suzuki cited Brian Wilson as a major influence on their soundtracks for the video game Mother (1989) and its sequel EarthBound (1994).