ReviewKirk Curnutt, Brian Wilson. Icons of Pop Music. Sheffield and Bristol, CT: Equinox, 2012. xvi + 176 pp. 11 b&w illustrations, discography, bibliography, index. ISBN-13: 978-1-90804-991-9, £50, $90 (hbk); £14.99, $24.95 (pbk).Reviewed by: Dale Carter, University of Aarhus engdc@hum.au.dkWhile not as extensive as the ever-growing library of texts devoted to The Beatles or Bob Dylan, the literature on Brian Wilson, with and without The Beach Boys, is considerable. Just as these other popular music icons have had their lives filleted, their careers assessed and their work subjected to a range of analyses, so Wilson has over the years attracted a variety of published studies. Latterly his return to touring and more regular recording, as well as the remarkable resurrection of Smile, have all helped fuel a renewed interest in a man whose achievements as songwriter, musician, vocalist, arranger and producer surely have had few, if any, equals over the past half-century. The majority of these studies have been journalistic, blending biography and music history, occasionally sensationalist but often thoroughly researched, with Peter Ames Carlin's Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of The Beach Boys ' Brian Wilson (2006) perhaps the most accomplished of late. Academic analyses, focusing primarily on Wilson's work, have been less common, Philip Lambert's path-breaking Inside the Music of Brian Wilson (2007) joining shorter pieces by fellow musicologist Daniel Harrison as exemplary analyses of his compositions, arrangements and use of the recording studio. While contributions by Domenic Priore, Kingsley Abbott, Marshall Heiser and Timothy White also warrant praise for their elaboration of the social, suband pop cultural contexts within which Wilson has worked, the publication of Kirk Curnutt's Brian Wilson is a particularly welcome and innovative addition to the bookshelf.A professor of literature introduced to The Beach Boys as a boy during their mid-1970s greatest hits revival, Curnutt brings to his study a range of analytical and interpretive tools enabling him to address not only Wilson's musical career but also its representations and the popular understandings their interaction has informed. This does not mean that Brian Wilson offers a weighty post-modern reading in which its nominal subject becomes more a set of discourses to be dis-