Brian Wilson was a member of a rock band.
 Writing in 1981, sociomusicologist Simon Frith identified Wilson's withdrawal in 1967, along with Phil Spector's self-imposed retirement in 1966, as the catalysts for the "rock/pop split that has afflicted American music ever since"
The 1967 CBS documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, hosted by the classical conductor Leonard Bernstein, described Wilson as "one of today's most important pop musicians

