I’ve always been a bit odd.

Modern trends have always evaded me, right down to music. 

The Beach Boys were far from my generation. I have a faint memory of “Kokomo” when it shockingly became a No. 1 hit in 1988. That’s the closest the band have been to the pulse of current music in my life, an earworm pervasive enough to catch the ear of an elementary schooler. 

A decade later they were far from that spurt of popularity. That’s when I dove headlong into their music, intrigued when my Dad bought a greatest hits cassette at Walmart.

The Beach Boys creative force, Brian Wilson, died June 11.

He had nothing to do with Kokomo, a story way too complicated to even begin to summarize. Complicated doesn’t even begin to describe Brian Wilson’s life.

Born in 1942, the oldest of three very musically inclined brothers, Wilson’s youth was abusive. Music was always his reprieve.

Music made Wilson a star with the Beach Boys — formed with those brothers Dennis and Carl, his cousin Mike Love, and with friend Al Jardine — but its pressures and his own demons led to a flameout in 1967, a year after the now-renowned Pet Sounds album was released.

The decades after were waves of drug abuse, mental instability, comebacks and a mentally and financially abusive relationship in the 1980s with his psychologist, Eugene Landy.

As always, music saved him. 

Fortunately, the last 30 years of Wilson’s life were stable, with not just a support system of family and friends, but an outpouring of love from the music industry and fans.

After everything he went through I still can’t believe I saw Wilson play a live concert at Jacksonville’s Florida Theatre in 2015.

You can appreciate Brian Wilson and Beach Boys music for many things.

The harmonies and the musical arrangements of songs such as “Good Vibrations” are right up there. There is plenty of sunshine pop to bring a smile. But everywhere, including in the sunshine pop, were Wilson’s insecurities. As often pointed out, “God Only Knows,” opens with an unbelievable lyric:

I may not always love you

Which immediately turns itself around:

But as long as there are stars above you

You’ll never need to doubt it

I’ll make you so sure about it

Oh the Beach Boys could sing harmonies. “Don’t Worry Baby,” another song with its anxiety on its sleeve, is a prime example. 

Of course, the happy songs were beautiful, but even in his pain, Wilson wrapped his darkness in beauty, such as with “Caroline No.”

You’ve heard and will probably hear plenty of the Beach Boys’ greatest hits over the next few days. All of it worthy. I want to suggest a few of the deeper cuts. With the Beach Boys: “The Warmth of the Sun,” “You Still Believe in Me,” “Marcella,” “Time to Get Alone,” “Break Away,” “In My Room,” and “Let the Wind Blow”; and solo cuts “Desert Drive,” “Lay Down Burden,” “Midnight’s Another Day,” “Oxygen to the Brain,” “Melt Away,” “Cry,” and “This Song Wants to Sleep With You Tonight.”

Throughout everything, music was always there for Wilson. The world is fortunate he shared it with us.

Becky Taylor is sports editor for The Valdosta Daily Times.