Five songs produced by Phil Spector which people will still be listening to in 100 years
The Beatles might have been made up of some of the best songwriters on the planet, but their sound was a lot more complex than just what those four wrote.
Phil Spector was able to take these songs and heighten them with his great production technique. He could handle what the band members came up with and elevate it, so much so that the songs resonated with those who listened far and wide. People love The Beatles’ work, but it wouldn’t be what we know it as without the power of Phil Spector. It was his wall of sound technique that really helped elevate everything, something which producers around the world use now.
Outside of music, the producer lived a very controversial life. This piece will focus primarily on the art he put out into the world, as his controversies shouldn’t be glossed over, but are also too complex to cover in a piece like this.
With that in mind… his art. No doubt people will be listening to a lot of these songs years from now, and there are a select few that should see out another century. So, what Phil Spector songs do we think fans new and old will still be playing in over 100 years? Let’s find out.
The iconic songs produced by Phil Spector:
The Beatles – ‘Get Back’
It’s hard to believe that Paul McCartney managed to conjure up this track out of thin air, but when you watch the documentary of the same name, there’s video evidence of him doing it. Everyone in the room has their ears prick up the moment he starts humming what is now an iconic melody. It’s certainly a moment, but the job isn’t done; it now lies on a producer like Spector to take that moment and turn it into something which can be consumed en masse.
This is why he was such an asset to bands like The Beatles, as he was able to give the individual members room to run and come up with ideas, but also tap into their psyche in a bid to better understand what they want out of their music. He grabbed that Paul McCartney spontaneity and turned it into one of the greatest tracks the band ever wrote.
George Harrison – ‘My Sweet Lord’
Arguably, one of the most overlooked members of the Beatles was George Harrison. He was always an exceptional musician and songwriter, but was often overlooked by his bandmates, who didn’t give his songs the attention that they deserved. Harrison was one of the band members most eager to leave so that he could pursue a solo project and actually get the songs he wrote off the ground.
There were some things about working with The Beatles that he liked, though, and one of them was Paul Spector’s production technique. As such, when he started putting together his debut solo album, he asked the producer to help out. There isn’t a bad song on the album, but the standout song is the meditative ‘My Sweet Lord’.
John Lennon – ‘Mother’
When you’re producing other people’s songs, you need to understand their vision, and that was hard if you were working with John Lennon when he was putting together solo material. Lennon was much more socially aware when writing these songs, and working on tracks which mean so much to the person who created them is difficult, yet Spector was able to capture the heart and soul of the music wonderfully.
“Many, many people will not like ‘Mother’; it hurts them,” said John Lennon when discussing the track. “The first thing that happens to you when you get the album is you can’t take it. Everybody reacted exactly the same. They think, ‘fuck!’”
The Crystals – ‘He’s a Rebel’
While a lot of Phil Spector’s best work was with the Fab Four, he also worked with some other excellent musicians, such as The Crystals on their song ‘He’s a Rebel’. The process of recording this was tricky, as due to logistical and managerial issues, The Crystals didn’t actually sing on the song, but it was instead The Blossoms; regardless, the tune was a hit.
It climbed to number one in the charts, and while there were complications actually recording it, the way Spector was able to work with another band in order to bring it to life shows his commitment to music and his adaptability. ‘He’s a Rebel’ remains one of the producer’s greatest songs.
The Beatles – ‘Let It Be’
We’ve already had a Beatles song on this list, but the idea of only including one seems borderline criminal. What is there to say about a track like ‘Let It Be’ which hasn’t already been said? The song is undeniably one of the greatest of the Fab Four, as it’s moving, emotional, and epic in every sense of the word.
Once again, though, it’s not enough to just write a song this good; it has to be put together in the right way. It’s hard to say with any degree of certainty whether ‘Let It Be’ would be a success or not without the input of Spector, but thanks to their collaborative efforts, that’s not a hypothetical we have to spend too much time pondering over.
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