About this artist
Michael Edward Love is an American singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. Characterized by his nasal tenor and occasionally baritone singing, Love has been one of the band's vocalists and lyricists for their entire career, contributing to each of their studio albums and serving as their frontman for live performances. He is the cousin of bandmates Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, and is often regarded as a maligned figure in the group's history, a reputation he acknowledges: "For those who believe that Brian walks on water, I will always be the Antichrist."
Love was one of Wilson's collaborators during the Beach Boys' peak in the 1960s. Among the band's US Top 10 hits were the Wilson–Love songs "Fun, Fun, Fun", "California Girls", and "Good Vibrations". Love's lyrics primarily reflected the youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance, which helped fashion pop culture's perception of the "California Dream". Starting in 1968, Love was a student of Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and became a TM teacher in 1971. The experience influenced his lyrics to take on themes of astrology, meditation, politics and ecology.