No, I still believe both albums are masterpieces.

However, after watching documentaries and films about Brian Wilson’s struggle with mental illness, I’ve come to believe that Mike was correct in opposing both albums.

In rock history, there have been plenty of examples of band members disliking a work that the public loves—not because the music is bad, but because of the trauma involved in creating it. They lack the emotional objectivity to separate the pain of the process from the quality of the outcome.

Mike Love was on the plane when Brian Wilson had his first panic attack. He then saw Brian step back from touring due to mental health struggles and performance anxiety. He saw Brian who now openly admits to self-medicating his mental illness with recreational drugs spiral further. He likely witnessed Brian becoming more anxious and mentally unwell, possibly even developing early psychotic symptoms and paranoia. He saw the drug-fuelled parties filled with people ie. spiritual guides, musicians, hangers-on, whom Brian’s own wife, Marilyn, described as “enablers” and “parasites,” taking advantage of him and worsening his condition.

So when Brian started writing music that alluded to drug use like “Hang On to Your Ego”—how else would a concerned family member react? And when the recording sessions for Smile became increasingly bizarre such as Brian playing piano in a sandbox, asking musicians to wear hard hats and firefighter gear while creating music in a psychedelic style associated with the very crowd harming him, how could Mike reasonably separate the art from the mental collapse he was witnessing?

Smile may have been a musical masterpiece, and although Brian was lucid at the beginning, it arguably became a symptom of his deteriorating mental health. For someone close to him, it’s not reasonable to expect emotional distance to separate the quality of the music from the decline of the artist himself.

I genuinely doubt that if Brian had started taking drugs and his mental health had improved, if he’d been able to perform live, and if his relationships with his wife and bandmates had strengthened thatMike Love would have had the same level of negativity toward the music. Sure, his taste may have differed, and he may have disapproved of the work, but it likely wouldn’t have been as vehement. Considering Mike Love’s later affiliation with Transcendental Meditation, there was some philosophical overlap with the psychedelic scene. His more positive feelings about Pet Sounds in later years, when there was greater distance from its creation, reflect this shift even if he never fully accepted Smile.

It’s common for loved ones of people with mental illness to feel as though they’ve lost the person they once knew and to just want that person back. Mike’s push to return to the familiar style of Early Beach Boys, even if it felt dated or out of step with the times, seems to me like a longing for the old Brian Wilson: the one not plagued by anxiety, depression, and psychosis.

History often lionises the “tortured artist” those who suffer to create brilliance and romanticises the trauma that fuels artistic genius. But that overlooks how utterly hellish it must have been to be that artist, and just as painful to be their friend or family member watching them suffer. The drug scene that inspired Brian during this time created many masterpieces, but it also laid the seeds for his psychotic break, his divorce from Marilyn, and his estranged relationship with his children.

If Brian Wilson had listened to Mike Love and distanced himself from the psychedelic drug scene, music history may have been worse off but it’s possible Brian Wilson would have lived a happier life.