"Beach Boys figurehead"?
Who writes this stuff? Figurehead implies a sort of front man with no real power. I don't think that's generally been true of BW... at least with respect to the Beach Boys. 1962-68, he was real leader. During various other points, he's been either involved, uninvolved or semi-involved, but I don't think there was ever a period when the group was pretending Brian was the leader but he wasn't. The group may have exaggerated his involvement here and there in the '70s/'80s in order to placate record companies or pique the public's interest, but the other ego(s) in the band would never have gone as far as pretending he was fronting/leading them when he wasn't.