The five best songs Phil Spector ever produced
The idea that awful, despicable people can still be capable of producing great art is one of the hardest facts to reckon with, as a music fan or cultural consumer. Separating the art from the artist is a tricky task, particularly when it comes to the life and times of Phil Spector.
Back in the 1960s, Spector was the production mastermind behind a deluge of pop masterpieces. With his pioneering ‘Wall of Sound’ production style – layering instruments over one another and amping them up to create a sound tailor-made for dancehalls and radio play – Spector was an utterly unavoidable figure in the transatlantic pop market. The Ronettes, The Crystals, Tina Turner and, eventually, The Beatles; his talents seemed to transcend all boundaries of genre and style, creating some of the most iconic and beloved songs of all time.
Even in the years that followed his 1960s heyday, Spector continued to experiment with his output, crossing paths with the likes of Leonard Cohen and The Ramones, and working on records that, it should be noted, both of those artists subsequently hated. His output might have been of diminishing returns, but he would forever be the man who changed pop music forever, which was a fact that became much harder to come to terms with in 2003, when Spector murdered Lana Clarkson, a crime for which be convicted six years later, in 2009.
Looking back through his career, it is difficult to argue that the murder came out of left field, too. During his relationship with The Ronettes’ Ronnie Bennett, the producer allegedly imprisoned, abused, and psychologically tormented her, not to mention stripping her of any future royalty cheques for her work on tracks as ubiquitous as ‘Be My Baby’. This catalogue of abuse might not have been as publicly acknowledged as his later murder charge, but it seems as though Phil Spector was always a rather despicable individual.
Much of the work he produced, however, has since been elevated beyond the crimes of its creator. Here, we have plucked five key tracks from Spector’s production discography, in an effort to exemplify just what a colossal influence he had on the music world during the 1960s and 1970s, for better or worse.
The five best songs Phil Spector ever produced:
The Crystals – ‘Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home)’
The blueprint for the girl group era, and one of the earliest triumphs of Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ production, the nonsensical lyrics of ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ were, in essence, a pop revolution when they hit the airwaves in the spring of 1963.
Spector knew instantly that he had struck gold with the track, and it was the success of The Crystals’ single that spurred on future experiments with his production style, not to mention the songwriting partnership of Spector, Barry, and Greenwich, which produced some of the finest pop songs of all time, including this triumph.
Subsequent songs reached greater heights than this number-three single, but without ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’, Spector’s production career would have been very different, as would the landscape of 1960s pop.
The Beatles – ‘Across The Universe’
George Martin was the producer responsible for the bulk of The Beatles’ masterpieces, but Spector worked closely with the band during their later years, in an attempt to salvage the Get Back sessions, transforming those famously tumultuous sessions into the band’s final album, Let It Be.
While ‘Across The Universe’ might not get the same doting attention as, for instance, that album’s title track, the John Lennon-penned track is an utterly beautiful effort that, in many ways, predicted the direction of his early solo career, a lot of which was also produced by Spector.
One of the key attributes that sets ‘Across the Universe’ apart from Spector’s external discography is its relatively stripped-back, almost lo-fi sound, in stark contrast to the ‘Wall of Sound’ that Spector was known for. While part of that was undoubtedly down to the quality of the original recordings and what the producer had to work with, it did show another side to his production mastery.
George Harrison – ‘My Sweet Lord’
In addition to working on Let It Be, Spector also ended up carrying out production work on solo efforts by John Lennon and George Harrison, and while this slot could easily have been filled by Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, ‘Mother’, or even ‘How Do You Sleep?’, it is impossible to ignore Harrison’s defining masterpiece: ‘My Sweet Lord’.
The first number-one single by an ex-Beatle, and a song that followed the songwriter throughout his illustrious solo career, the track united his spiritualised songwriting and Eastern influences with the ‘Wall of Sound’ pop production mastery that had, in the years previous, produced some of the most iconic hits of the 1960s. Needless to say, therefore, the single is a notable highlight in the careers of both Spector and Harrison.
Ike and Tina Turner – ‘River Deep – Mountain High’
Although credited to Ike and Tina Turner, Ike Turner is not featured in any aspect of this recording, no matter how minor. Instead, Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ allowed Tina Turner’s soon-to-be ubiquitous performing prowess to shine in its own right. It was by no means an easy process, with Spector’s ruthless perfectionism demanding that Turner perform hundreds of vocal takes, risking absolute exhaustion in the recording studio.
What’s more, the song failed to capture the attention of the US mainstream upon its release, in stark contrast to the UK, where the song became an instant hit. More importantly, it provided some very early foundations for Turner’s solo career, away from the abusive tendencies of Ike, and despite what a chore the recording process had been, it still stands out as one of Turner’s all-time greatest cuts, as well as an inarguable highlight of Spector’s production discography.
The Ronettes – ‘Be My Baby’
A top place pick that should come as absolutely no surprise, ‘Be My Baby’ is an utterly perfect song. The pinnacle of pop production and a precedent that spawned an unimaginable number of similarly inclined masterpieces in its wake, the song is Spector’s magnum opus as a producer, and the greatest endorsement of his ‘Wall of Sound’ production style.
Co-written by Spector alongside Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and featuring a group of musicians not yet known as the Wrecking Crew, with Ronnie Bennett’s distinctive vocal tones at its centrepiece, ‘Be My Baby’ was a perfect pop storm that certainly paid dividends. Had Spector produced this and only this song, he still would have gone down as one of the greatest producers of the 1960s.
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