As the Beach Boys sang “house,” the song, “All Summer Long,” didn’t just change chords — in a luscious instant, it ascended to a higher place. Another wave of voices flooded in, but it was the revelation of that chord that was the hook, the spice, the thing that made me melt.

Paul McCartney is paying tribute to music icon Brian Wilson following the death Wednesday of the Beach Boys co-founder. “Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special.

Brian Wilson, the musical savant who scripted a defining Southern California soundtrack with a run of hit songs with the Beach Boys, has died. He was 82.