For decades that lore has echoed through new records and retrospective box sets, countless books and essays, documentaries, TV movies, fictional accounts (such as Paul Quarrington’s Whale Music) and tribute songs by, among others, John Cale, Tears For Fears and the Barenaked Ladies. This year brings another crest in that wave: in April, the 72-year-old Wilson released his latest and perhaps final solo album, No Pier Pressure. And the widely praised biopic Love and Mercy is now in US cinemas, with Paul Dano as the young hit-making wizard and John Cusack – who has been likening Wilson to Mozart, a frequent comparison of his most ardent admirers – as his diminished older self. This summer Wilson goes on a rare tour and will release his new autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson, in autumn.

Even an observer sympathetic to Wilson might wonder: when will it be enough?

He gets around

Critics like to squabble over which artists are overrated or underrated. But Wilson defies those categories entirely. The Beach Boys’ chief creative force was one of the prime movers of rock’s mid-1960s artistic evolution, harmonising angelically with his brothers Dennis and Carl (no relation to the writer of this article) and cousin Love. He made recording history with sonic landmarks such as Good Vibrations and God Only Knows. He kept The Beatles looking over their shoulders. And then, after 1967, despite some decent efforts, he didn’t. The Beach Boys’1976 marketing slogan “Brian’s back!” has never really come true. These facts remain relatively undisputed.