Have to politely disagree - 2012 was the last kick of a dying bull. Let's be honest, most of us expected something would happen. What happened in 1966-67 robbed the music world of not only possibly the best album ever released but also decades of music from one of the very, very few bona fide genii in the pop/rock field. Brian was never the same after Smile was scrapped. There were odd sparks and flarings of the flame, but compared to the upwards curve of 1963-66, it was dim stuff. Nothing compares. Nothing ever will.
That the band not only survived that but also came to produce music of genuine quality is hugely to their credit. But just imagine what could have been. The two saddest words in the English language: if only...
Fair enough. My opinion
might be slightly coloured by the fact that I ended up missing the 2012 live shows entirely, with my son's birth coinciding with the RAH date. My only chance of ever seeing a full Beach Boys line-up gone, forever!
Same here, our sons must be pretty much the same age! I'd have loved to see them all together and would have made the trek to London (I might have JUST managed if they'd played in Manchester) but there was no way with the timings. And then they were gone...
Back to the original question, for me it's a tie between the abandonment of Smile, for the reasons AGD just mentioned, along with the mid-70s power shift to Mike after Endless Summer. Two times when they were making great music but were yanked backwards by cowardice/greed.
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