My appreciation for The Beach Boys has grown massively in the last couple of years. Brian Wilson was a songwriting genius and wrote some of the most beautiful harmonies and melodies ever. Their work during and post Pet Sounds is incredibly imaginative, if slightly inconsistent.
However, as much as I think The Beach Boys are great and their best work is amongst the best ever made; however, this also applies to The Beatles who also managed to produce significantly more great material than The Beach Boys, or, for that matter, the vast majority of bands/artists that have ever existed. It would have been interesting to see how The Beach Boys would have gone on post Pet Sounds had Brian Wilson not lost it. Good Vibrations, Surfs Up and Heroes & Villains show there was plenty left. I think the latter two are amongst the best songs of the era even though they're not as well known as other Beach Boys songs:
But then, when you make songs like the following consistently, who can really compete?
And so on. Fucking crazy shit.