In their early-’60s inception, The Beach Boys were nothing less than the sound of America. But over the next half-century, they’d come to symbolize its divided soul, and the psychic tug-of-war between flag-waving optimism and darker truths. After forming in the LA suburb of Hawthorne in 1961, brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson; their cousin Mike Love; and high school pal Al Jardine defined the sunny California fantasy forevermore with wave-riding soundtracks like “Surfin’ U.S.A.” As the surf fad dried up, Brian expanded his primary-songwriter role to become the band’s all-knowing creative director, and on mid-’60s delights like “California Girls,” he refashioned The Beach Boys into the male equivalent of the girl groups ensconced within Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. Brian’s auteurist vision and his increasingly poignant songcraft achieved peak clarity with 1966’s chamber-pop masterpiece Pet Sounds—the album that featured the immortal “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and heralded rock’s elevation into high art. As Brian entered an extended period of seclusion, the band took a more democratic approach in the studio, resulting in a series of irreverent, eclectic records—epitomized by 1971’s self-effacing “Surf’s Up”—whose inspired fusion of soul, psychedelia, and orchestral pop would be later reclaimed by future generations of home-recording indie savants. The subsequent decades saw a whirlwind procession of lineup changes, legal infighting, tragedies, and surprise late-career novelty hits (1988’s Club Med perennial “Kokomo”). But the eternally youthful promise embedded in their music ensures that, when you hear a Beach Boys classic, the American dream feels real all over again.