Just as it's tied to emotional memories, so most pop music evokes specific times of year. Most of the best pop picks on summer, simply because that (idealistically speaking) is when the nights are longer, the girls are prettier, and you can take the hood off your sportycar and bomb off into the glorious sunset.

There's never been any better summer music than that created by Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys, between '62 and '67. More so even than Chuck Berry, Wilson's compositions sum up what pop was always about, and what we're the poorer for having lost.

The very early Sixties, the years just before the Beatles, were the most unproductive that white pop has known, until Wilson came along with "Surfin'," a weird mixture of goofy acappela-style vocal and Chuck Berry riffs recorded in the Wilson's garage—wouldn't you know? Their first album, titled "Surfin'...