Sly Stone and Brian Wilson

The NBA Jam “He’s On Fire!” Edition of American Pop Geniuses

Let’s be honest: If you were making a “Which Two Music Legends Would Never Hang Out?” list, Sly Stone and Brian Wilson would be on there, somewhere between Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift, or John Lennon and Yanni. Sly is the guy in the rainbow vest who looks like he just walked out of a psychedelic soul revolution. Brian is the dude in a striped shirt, nervously sucking down a doobie, composing symphonies about surfing and heartbreak. On the surface, pairing them is like putting Magic Johnson and Larry Bird on the same team in 1984. But Magic and Bird did end up on the same team —the Dream Team. And Sly and Brian? Secretly, they were the Dream Team of American pop.¹

Brian Wilson: The Original Studio Rat Who Made Sadness Sound Like Summer

Brian Wilson is the guy who took the “California Dream” and then spent the next decade trying to figure out why it sometimes felt like a nightmare. He’s the only person who could write Fun, Fun, Fun and In My Room and have both sound like an autobiography. If you have ever tried to harmonize with your friends in a car, you owe Brian Wilson a royalty check. He was the first guy who realized the studio wasn’t just a place to record music — it was a place to build it, brick by brick, until you had something that sounded like God whispering in your ear.²

This is the same guy who needed 90 hours of recording time to get Good Vibrations right. NINETY! That’s more than the number of times I’ve watched The Wire.³ But that’s what it took for him to chase the sound in his head — the sound that would eventually become Pet Sounds, the album that made Paul McCartney cry and made every rock critic start using words like “baroque” and “orchestration” and “genius” in the same sentence.⁴

The real twist? For all the sun and surf, Brian Wilson’s music is loaded with melancholy. In My Room is the first emo anthem. God Only Knows is a love song that’s also a prayer.⁵ He made sadness sound like summer, and in doing so, he invented the idea that pop music could be as deep and weird and personal as anything in the Louvre.

Sly Stone: The Guy Who Made Funk a Weapon and a Hug at the Same Time

Sly Stone is the guy who looked at the world in 1968 and thought, “What if we just mashed everything together — rock, soul, jazz, gospel, politics, and a little bit of chaos — and then made everyone dance to it?” Sly and the Family Stone were the Avengers before there were Avengers: Black, white, male, female, all on one stage, all playing like their lives depended on it.⁶

Everyday People is a utopian anthem. Dance to the Music is a party starter that doubles as a mission statement. Family Affair is a family therapy session set to a groove.⁷ Sly’s genius was taking all the mess and beauty of America and turning it into a sound that made you want to move, even if you were moving through pain. And then, just when everyone thought the revolution was here, he dropped There’s a Riot Goin’ On, which was basically the sound of the revolution’s hangover.

Sly changed music twice: First, by inventing the sound of unity, and then by chronicling its collapse. If you’ve ever danced to a pop song with a groove, or heard Prince or OutKast or Kendrick Lamar, you’re hearing Sly’s fingerprints all over it.⁸

The Secret Sauce: Mad Scientists, Outsiders, and the American Dream

So what’s the connection? Both guys were weirdos, outsiders, mad scientists who believed — maybe naively, maybe brilliantly — that music could change the world. Both got chewed up by their own genius. Both made albums that are less like collections of songs and more like sacred texts.⁹

Wilson turned heartbreak into harmony. Sly turned chaos into groove. They were the twin poles of the American musical psyche, and even if they never shared a studio, they were playing the same game: break the rules, chase the impossible, and leave everyone else scrambling to catch up.

Here’s to Sly and Brian: The Magic and Bird of American pop. The rest of us? We’re just lucky we got to watch them play.

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¹ This is also how I feel about Shaq and Kobe.
² Or, if you’re Brian, God whispering, “Maybe you should try 91 hours.”
³ I’m not proud of this.
⁴ True story: McCartney said God Only Knows is his favorite song ever.
⁵ “There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to…” — that’s basically the entire plot of every John Hughes movie.
⁶ If you don’t believe me, go watch their Woodstock set.
⁷ “It’s a family affair…” — try not to sing it.
⁸ Prince once said he wanted to be Sly Stone when he grew up. Mission accomplished.
⁹ If you’re not listening to Pet Sounds or There’s a Riot Goin’ On like the religious scholars read the Dead Sea Scrolls, you’re doing it wrong.