My friend Dave smiles when I put on Smiley Smile. He and I are at least more-than-casual fans of the Beach Boys, and it’s one of their many albums we enjoy listening to. I tend to skip the first track “Heroes and Villains,” going straight to “Vegetables,” because the second that song starts it’s impossible to pay attention to anything else. But in reality, I could play any number of Beach Boys songs to entertain Dave. It could be “Solar System” from Love You or “Caroline, No” from Pet Sounds. We get probably the biggest kick out of “A Day in the Life of a Tree” and “’Til I Die” from Surf’s Up, two songs written by a man in dire artistic and physical health.

For us, it only makes the music better.

Behind every one of these songs, there’s a story — usually a miserably sad one — and it has no clear beginning or end. The Beach Boys were a beautiful, timeless group for about ten years. Or at least that’s I way I see it. Their early hits are untouchable, and Pet Sounds is, well, you should know.

By 1972, the Beach Boys had gone from America’s darlings to the old uncle at the family reunion who everyone avoids. Brian Wilson — the puppy-faced pop Mozart — had taken enough acid and coke to ruin his body and mind, but the Wilson Brothers carried on, with diminishing returns, both recorded and live: touting “Brian’s Back!” on tours, dragging him into the studio, dedicating an embarrassingly earnest album sleeve to his “recovery” on Love You, etc.

Dave and I used to spend plenty of hours with Pet Sounds. It’s easy to love and even easier to praise. I don’t listen to it much anymore, because I don’t need to. I’ve moved onto the Boys’ records that are a bit tougher to love. Any Pitchfork-reading music appreciator can talk miles about Pet Sounds, but I think the real fun comes after.

Following one of pop’s most critically acclaimed albums of all time was, in this case, impossible, and Brian and the boys failed beautifully. Locked in what fans see as his attempt to achieve pop perfection, Brian plugged away at his “masterpiece.” Smile was to be the greatest album ever. And after Pet Sounds, how fucking excited would you have been?

Instead, we got years of excuses, group strife and Brian’s emotional and physical downfall, and some of the most inexplicable and exciting music the group would ever release.

Smiley Smile, the afterbirth of Smile, sounds like an aural acid casualty. From the batshit musings of “Vegetables” to the horrifying "Wind Chimes," these songs stun first, confuse second and, finally, endear. They were sparse, strange and empty. There was room for the story to fill in the gaps, room for our imagination to run free. Surf’s Up’s ending song cycle features Brian, sounding as though his vocal cords are seconds from collapse, comparing himself to a tree that wasn’t “meant to live.” The Moog-laden, childlike Love You (my current favorite Brian production) features songs about patting children on their behind and going roller skating. One night, my friend Cam gave the best description I could conceive for Love You and Brian: “This is Frankenstein music!”

Brian’s story is one of many. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Sly Stone, at least two of the Beatles — the list goes on. It’s the story of pop music, but even more, pop stardom. It’s the moment you hear a song and wonder, what does this person look like or do on a Saturday night? It’s when you start looking past the music and looking for a story to hold onto. When journalists start asking embarrassingly specific questions about drug use, and my parents glance at the TV and ask, “Who gives a shit?”

A lot of people. A lot of people give a shit about these stars, and it’s the same reason US Weekly piles up in barber shops and TMZ has a television show.