10 Best Covers Of Beach Boys Songs
5. Good Vibrations – Psychic TV
At his peak, Brian Wilson was no doubt one of the great innovators in popular music. Good Vibrations, released as a single in 1966, marks both a high point and a low one. It's an extraordinary composition, full of subtle subversion and wildly imaginative sounds. The song was initially intended for inclusion on the one of the great 'lost' albums of all time, Smile.
Smile never saw the light of day. Wilson's growing mental instability, together with the band's legal problems and other external factors saw the project collapse. Smile was to be Wilson's magnum opus – an album of even greater ambition than Pet Sounds.
Volumes have been written about this song alone, which by itself ate up countless hours of session time, across multiple studios with a host of session musicians, all of which pushed the cost up to unprecedented levels. That we have this masterpiece at all is a wonder.
England's Psychic TV, formed in 1981 by Alex Ferguson and ex-Throbbing Gristle member, Genesis P-Orridge, were the perfect band to cover this number. More of a loose collective than a stable unit, Psychic TV have released an astonishing number of albums featuring a rotating cast of experimental musicians.
They do the track full justice here.