Originally Posted by almauro

As usual, you don't know what your talking about. The Beach Boys played all their instruments quite well on all their albums up until 1964, when Brian Wilson suffered from his first bout of mental exhaustion. From 63-64, the band released 7 albums, which was unprecedented, and Wilson being the prime songwriter was simply worn down. Capital records and the rest of the band members agreed to let Brian Wilson stay in the studio to write and record tracks with session musicians, while the rest of the Beach Boys toured, with Bruce Johnson as his replacement. The strategy was to have the songs completed and ready for the rest of the Beach Boys to lay their vocal tracks, so they could quickly complete and release the record, hit the road and start touring, keeping the hit machine going. Unlike your statement, the Beach Boys could indeed play their instruments, Carl was just has good has George, Dennis could beat the crap out of Ringo, and Brian was one of the greatest musicians that ever existed on this planet.