Updated Monday, May 22, to include information about the re-air date for "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys."

"A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys" will re-air on Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network, and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

An ocean of ink has been spilled about how the Beach Boys went experimental in the mid-1960s. But there's a strong case to be made that they were avant-garde from the jump.

Think of their synthesis upon arrival: Surf music by non-surfers; Chuck Berry guitar stylings fused with the vocal harmonies of the Four Freshmen; Brian Wilson's continuation of the studio lineage of Phil Spector; their reflection and galvanization of a burgeoning youth culture, bringing the Pacific to landlocked kids the world over.

And as per their psychedelic-era masterpieces — the luxurious, confessional Pet Sounds and the universe-sized, eventually terminated Smile — Wilson has engendered a widespread, and correct, comparison to Mozart.

What began as a family band singing Christmas carols ended up lasting six decades. The Beach Boys' music encompasses such disparate themes as muscle cars, transcendental meditation, environmental collapse, "the church of the American Indian," and fantastical island getaways.

And all that just scratches the surface of this culture-shifting, endlessly relitigated, gorgeously weird band, an American phenomenon with no real analog. With roughly half a dozen divergent personalities (depending on the lineup), three of them bound by DNA, all of them geniuses in their own way, their catalog was bound to contain almost as many oddities and curiosities as simply great songs.

For their singular efforts, the Beach Boys are about to get their own GRAMMY celebration. On Monday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, "A GRAMMY Salute To The Beach Boys," a two-hour tribute special featuring a lineup of heavy hitters, including John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Fall Out Boy, Mumford & Sons, LeAnn Rimes, St. Vincent, Weezer, and many more, will re-air on CBS. The special is also available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+. 

Naturally, this special homes in on the hits, from "Surfin' U.S.A." to "California Girls" to "Good Vibrations" and beyond. But if you'd like to go deeper, here are 10 memorably zonked deep cuts in their long voyage. (Note: this list focuses less on late-period collaborations and era-specific genre crossovers than core albums from their first two decades.)

"Chug-A-Lug" (Surfin' Safari, 1962)

The Beach Boys introduced themselves not just with a "Let's go surfin' now/ Everybody's learnin' how," but with a "Here a mug, there a mug, everybody chug-a-lug." So begins "Chug-a-Lug," the fourth song from their debut album, Surfin' Safari, wedged between "Ten Little Indians" and "Little Girl (You're My Miss America)."

Co-written by Gary Usher — the man responsible for their early "car songs"  — the message of "Chug-a-Lug" is simple: we, the Beach Boys, are drinking a lot of root beer. In the verses, the three Wilsons — Brian, Carl and Dennis — yak about girls and cars at the root-beer stand; then-guitarist David Marks and an unknown "Larry," "Louie," and "Guy" join in on the fun. ("Gary" is concievably Usher.)

But talk of being "glued to the radio," "ordering fries," "chas[ing] that chick," et al are peripheral to the thesis. The bouncing-off-the-walls rhythm evokes not merely nursing a soft drink with your friends, but madly guzzling it. "Give me some root beer," Love intones.

"Lonely Sea" (Surfin' USA, 1963)

It takes about five seconds of listening to the Beach Boys' earliest music to perceive a wounded heart in the center — and its owner is Brian Wilson. 

You hear it in his keening "Everybody's gone surfin'!" in "Surfin' USA." Ditto "Catch a Wave," when he pleads in falsetto, "But don't you treat it like a toy." And the sparse, spectral "Lonely Sea" seems to contain that fragile essence in microcosm.

"It never stops for you or me," Wilson sings, casting the Pacific as a metaphor for universal human angst. "It moves along from day to day." From "In My Room" to Pet Sounds and beyond, you can trace the DNA of "Lonely Sea" to every sad, lonely Beach Boys song in its wake — a number calculable only by NASA.

"Amusement Parks U.S.A." (Summer Days [And Summer Nights!!], 1965)

Starting around 1963's Surfer Girl, Wilson upped the ante with each successive Beach Boys album, interweaving their surfing and hot-rod songs with embellishments with harpsichords, harps, cheerleaders, marimbas, and other outside-the-box instruments. 

Some tunes in this pre-Pet Sounds era, from "Be True to Your School" to "The Little Girl I Once Knew," split the difference between the early hits' youthful exuberance and their psychedelic innovations. "Amusement Parks U.S.A." is one such example; while it's essentially about taking your girl to Disney, the whirling calliopes and sound effects render it a mind movie.

Instead of landing at wholesome and innocent like its predecessor, "County Fair," "Amusement Parks U.S.A." sounds like a Tilt-a-Whirl shaking apart, each shaky note and carnival bark adding to the heavy, leaden atmosphere.

Clearly, the psychological pressure was building; within a couple of years, it would burst. No matter how many reboots of their early hits they would go on to attempt, the Beach Boys would never quite return to the carefree universe of "Amusement Parks U.S.A."

"The Times They Are A-Changin'" (Beach Boys' Party!, 1965)

Every canonical masterpiece has its on-ramp or lead-up; what's Pet Sounds'?

Somewhat shockingly, the album immediately preceding Pet Sounds was Beach Boys' Party!, where our heroes recorded cover songs (and two cheekily rendered hits) in an intentionally offhanded, slapdash manner in the studio and layered party noises on top.

The result is a charming curio, and the album did give the world their hit version of "Barbara Ann." But amid doo-wop funnies like "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow," the inclusion of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" — Bob Dylan's Ecclesiastical folk hit about the passing of kings and values and generations — is a wonderfully puzzling one.

Al Jardine, the band's resident folkie, takes this one. "Al's gonna sing a 'test song!" one of the Boys, possibly Love, announces amid a clatter of funny voices.As Jardine warbles the 'test song's thunderously significant lines, the overdubbed revelers fall over themselves giggling.

"Little Pad" (Smiley Smile, 1967)

As forever carved in the annals of rock mythology, the hyper-ambitious, multitudinous Smile (was it a comedy record? A history book? A symphonic ode to the elements?) was never to be. Despite Wilson's 2004 reimagining and the later Smile Sessions boxed set, the world will never know exactly what the album would have ended up as.

Instead, the world got Smiley Smile; despite containing monumental cuts meant for the aborted work, like "Heroes and Villains" and "Good Vibrations," the world ultimately received it as an ersatz Smile. Or, as Carl Wilson famously called it, "a bunt instead of a grand slam."

Between those aforementioned hits are assorted oddities — outgrowths and fragments of the shelved material — including the deliciously stoned "Little Pad," which wanders from laughing fits to blissed-out humming to ukulele-laced daydreams of Hawaii. Like the rest of the album, it may have been at a different scale than Wilson hoped for, but it'll make you smile all the same.

"A Day in the Life of a Tree" (Surf's Up, 1971)

Something of a darker companion piece to its radiant predecessor Sunflower, Surf's Up also drew heavily from the Smile sessions. And despite tunes like the lighthearted "Take a Load Off Your Feet" and wistful "Disney Girls (1957)," it feels freighted with a brooding, defeated atmosphere — as well as a potent environmental and political conscience.

Much of the chatter about the album centers around Brian Wilson's magisterial ode to death, "'Til I Die," and the elliptical, Smile-salvaged masterpiece of a title track. Just as startling, though, is the ecological lament "A Day in the Life of a Tree."

"Feel the wind burn through my skin/ The pain, the air is killing me," Rieley laments over funereal organ and not much else. "Oh Lord, I lay me down/ No life's left to be found/ There's nothing left for me." Dark Beach Boys doesn't get much darker than this.

"Chapel of Love" (15 Big Ones, 1976)

Literal bell sounds ring in the Beach Boys' cover of the R&B-pop classic that the Dixie Cups made famous. Such is the rest of 15 Big Ones, a conscious step back from original material after the wonderful (and unfairly ignored) Holland and Carl and the Passions.

But what could have marked the Beach Boys plugging back into their roots after a decade of freewheeling experimentation — their Let it Be, perhaps — is something else entirely. 15 Big Ones coincided with their infamous "Brian's Back!" campaign, where they heralded the return of their troubled leader from a backseat role.

Instead of sounding like a retreat to an earlier template, though, 15 Big Ones is its own strange organism; even when the material is as happy-go-lucky as can be, the sound and execution are dense and enveloping — even vaguely menacing.

As the hook of "Chapel of Love" rolls on and on, the cumulative effect is less of puppy love than Sleep's doom-metal opus Dopesmoker.

"I Wanna Pick You Up" (The Beach Boys Love You, 1977)

The most divisive album in the Beach Boys' catalog by some margin, The Beach Boys Love You is considered by some to be their final masterpiece and a return to Pet Sounds-style magic; others regard it as a shocking example of outsider art by a rock institution.

The answer may lie somewhere in the middle. While tunes like "I'll Bet He's Nice" and "The Night Was So Young" are as beautiful as anything Wilson ever wrote, there's no accounting for the profound quizzicality of tunes like "Johnny Carson," "Honkin' Down the Highway" and the one-minute Roger McGuinn co-write "Ding Dang."

Honestly, about three-fourths of The Beach Boys Love You could be on this list, but there's arguably no more bizarre moment on the record than "I Wanna Pick You Up."

Therein, a ragged-sounding Dennis Wilson describes caring for an infant (or infantilized romantic interest?), from bathing to feeding to finally, soothing to sleep, leading to the unforgettable final line: "Pat, pat/ Pat, pat, pat her on her butt," with a repetition of the final word for emphasis: Butt.

"Hey, Little Tomboy" (M.I.U. Album, 1978)

Despite being more conventional than "I Wanna Pick You Up," "Hey, Little Tomboy" — a holdover from Wilson's uncompleted, big-band-influenced project Adult/Child — lands in a (somehow) even stranger zone. Here, a stereotypically boyish girl undergoes a transformation into a lipstick-clad, capital-W woman.

As one critic put it, "[It's politically incorrect in every way by modern standards, yet its innocence and simplicity are undeniably charming — and just so Brian."

But regarding this highly unorthodox creation, let's hear it from the architect himself: "It's about a little girl who is sort of a roughneck, and this guy convinces her to become a pretty girl… We're very happy with it."

"When Girls Get Together" (Keepin' the Summer Alive, 1980)

Dr. Love's lifetime inquiry into what makes California girls' psychologies really tick arguably reached its apogee with "When Girls Get Together," a cut from the obscure Keepin' the Summer Alive. The song is less fun in the sun than an austere march, complete with regal horns and tinkling mandolin.

"When girls get together/ They don't waste time on things like weather and stuff," Love announces. "They all just play around and never seem to discuss it enough." But just as he seems to establish that womens' conversations are frivolous, a heel turn: "This must have been going on prehistory/ They may not ever solve the mystery/ But they'll go talk until eternity."

Such are these Loveian koans, which will be carved into the Book of Boys for scholars to parse millennia from now. And such is the dual legacy of America's band: They gave us a songbook in turns blissful and ingenious, and delightfully, inexplicably strange.

The Beach Boys' Sail On Sailor Reframes Two Obscure 1970s Albums. Why Were They Obscure In The First Place?