Before Virality, There Was Derek Taylor: The Man Who Branded Brian Wilson and The Beatles as Geniuses
Brian Wilson died in July at 82, and in the outpouring of tributes one word kept surfacing: “genius.”
I had the privilege of working on shows for Brian including the Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Tour, Brian Wilson Presents Smile, and the All-Star Tribute to Brian at Radio City Music Hall. Like so many, I believe Brian Wilson was a genius. His music shaped generations.
His Beach Boys bandmates said it outright, posting that “the world mourns a genius today” It was a fitting encomium for the visionary behind all those wonderful songs and albums, but it made me wonder how that label first attached itself to Brian Wilson. Genius is rarely self-evident; someone helps frame the narrative. Before our era of virality, one man did exactly that for Brian and even for the Beatles:
Derek Taylor.
Taylor was an English journalist-turned-publicist with a flair for drama. He primed the world for Beatlemania with the tantalizing tagline “The Beatles Are Coming”. By 1966, he was in California, moving in Brian Wilson’s circle, and he saw an opportunity to reinvent the Beach Boys’ image. Wilson, for all his talent, was stuck with a surf-and-sun stereotype he’d outgrown. Taylor intuited that what Brian needed wasn’t just a new sound but a new story; one that cast him not as a squeaky-clean surfer boy but as something far more exalted.
That year, as the Beach Boys prepared to release Pet Sounds, Taylor spearheaded what can only be called a proto-viral marketing campaign. The slogan at its core was simple and audacious: “Brian Wilson is a genius”. Taylor, the Beatles’ former press officer now working as the Beach Boys’ publicist, dropped that phrase into press releases and conversations with journalists. He genuinely believed it, and he intended to make others believe it too . Using his deep Rolodex of British media contacts and music-biz friends, he set out to legitimize Wilson as a serious artist on par with the likes of Lennon, McCartney and Bob Dylan.
Taylor’s strategy was wonderfully theatrical. In May 1966, he and Beach Boy Bruce Johnston flew to London with acetates of Pet Sounds. They hosted listening parties in hotel suites, playing the new record for an elite gathering of rock journalists and musicians, including Lennon and McCartney. John and Paul nodded in admiration as “God Only Knows” filled the room. The journalists left buzzing, ready to spread the gospel of Brian Wilson’s brilliance. Sure enough, British music papers soon ran headlines like “Brian, Pop Genius!” and gushed about the Beach Boys’ forward-thinking artistry . Eric Clapton even proclaimed in Melody Maker that “Brian Wilson is without doubt a pop genius”.
“Brian Wilson is without doubt a pop genius”.
This praise was no accident. Taylor orchestrated it masterfully, leveraging credibility from his Beatles years. He made sure Pet Sounds earned acclaim in the UK that had eluded it back home . By year’s end, Brian Wilson was ranked among the world’s top musical personalities, right alongside Lennon and even ahead of Bob Dylan . In essence, Derek Taylor succeeded in making the world see Brian not just as a hitmaker but as an auteur.
Yet every narrative, once set in motion, takes on a life of its own. The “Brian Wilson is a genius” campaign worked, perhaps too well. Wilson later admitted that being pedestalized created intense pressure. “Once you’ve been labeled as a genius, you have to continue it or your name becomes mud,” he reflected, after retreating from the spotlight in the late ’60s . The same storyline that validated his art also became a burden he struggled under. Taylor could craft a narrative, but even he couldn’t control how it ultimately shaped the artist at its center.
“Once you’ve been labeled as a genius, you have to continue it or your name becomes mud,”
Taylor’s gift was spinning grand yet intimate myths around musicians, a talent that made him indispensable in the pre-internet age. Before working with the Beach Boys, he had been hand-picked by Beatles manager Brian Epstein to serve as the Beatles’ press officer during their rise to fame. Taylor wasn’t the sort of PR man who issued dry, canned statements; he traded in whimsy and insight to help the Beatles tell their story on their own terms. He even helped shape Epstein’s autobiography, turning taped recollections into a polished narrative. So trusted was Taylor that John, Paul, George, and Ringo treated him as an insider, dubbing him a “Fifth Beatle”.
After burnishing the Beatles’ image, Taylor sailed west to ride a new cultural wave. In California he promoted the Byrds as America’s answer to the Beatles and embraced the psychedelic bloom of the late 60s . He was a driving force behind the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, the event that ushered in the Summer of Love. Taylor served as its publicist and spokesman. When The Beatles launched Apple Corps, their own creative venture, they lured Taylor back to London in 1968 to mastermind its publicity. He presided over Apple’s press office with his trademark extravagance and creativity.
Through all these exploits, Taylor understood the power of narrative in a way today’s strategists might envy. He operated in an era of typewriters and rotary phones, yet he managed to ignite global buzz. He knew that people crave stories about geniuses, about revolutions, about larger-than-life characters who are ultimately human, with a little help from a savvy publicist. Derek Taylor passed away in 1997, still at work helping the Beatles tell their story through The Beatles Anthology. But his influence endures. Every time we call Brian Wilson a genius or speak of the Beatles as cultural touchstones, we’re echoing narratives that Taylor helped shape decades ago.
Reflecting on Brian Wilson’s life and that overused word “genius,” I keep coming back to Derek Taylor’s old-school alchemy. Long before tweets and TikToks could spread an idea like wildfire, Taylor understood how to make an idea contagious using the tools of his time (and, I would argue, these are still the tools of “our” time): words, relationships, and a bit of showmanship. Before virality, there was Derek Taylor, quietly turning talent into legend. It’s a story that reminds me why I fell in love with marketing in the first place. Because, when done right, it’s really about shining a light on greatness so that everyone else can see it too.