What If Department:
What if Brian Wilson had not pulled release of SMiLE in January of 1967, recorded many months before SGT. Pepper’s?
What if Brian Wilson had not withdrawn The Beach Boys as the headlining act of The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967?
Certainly rock history would look different, and that group would not have been effectively banned from FM radio, and hence, from classic rock stations.
You might as well ask what would have happened if Brian Wilson was not deeply mentally ill and what would have happened if Mike Love was not completely excited about hitting the oldies circuit and making a great living singing the same 20 songs for the next 50 years?
If you’ve ever read an interview with Mike Love, you know that he inspired part of “Back in the USSR,” because he tells that story in EVERY interview. You also know that his happiest points in the band where the early 80s during their “America’s Band” hokey nostalgia period where they were playing to huge crowds with him in complete control through “Kokomo” because he can now say that he wrote a number song without Brian, and Brian never wrote a number one song without him.
The Beach Boys story was never going to end harmoniously (that’s a double pun, folks).