"God Only Knows" is often praised as one of the greatest songs ever written, as the Beach Boys' finest record, as Carl's best vocal performance, and as Brian's most quintessential work. Writing in his book "America in the Sixties" (2010), historian John Robert Greene identified the song as "one of the most complex—and beautiful—songs in the annals of American popular music" and credited it with remaking "the ideal of the popular love song. Granata deemed "God Only Knows" a musically and technically impressive accomplishment that Wilson and the Beach Boys never repeated on their subsequent records. In 2012, music journalist Dan Caffrey argued that the descriptor "teenage symphony to God", originally reserved for the band's "Smile" album, was better suited for "God Only Knows". He wrote that the song "has resonated with generations of music fans simply because of its concept", before concluding, "The entire world will listen to it for years to come."