Sonic Perfection: the producer Brian Wilson called “the greatest in the business”
Talking about Brian Wilson is as much about his ear for production as it is about his songwriting. Although he could certainly pump out classics whenever the time called for it, his ear always led him to arrange some of the finest works that anyone had ever heard, almost like he had some sort of spiritual connection to his music that instinctively drove him to create pieces like ‘California Girls’. Despite his ability to have a sixth sense in the studio, Wilson thought everything he did was borrowed from his former hero.
Wilson never stopped being a sponge for all kinds of great music. He may have started working out harmonies with his brothers singing along to the Four Freshmen, but once he got ahold of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, he had a better handle on what he wanted to do with The Beach Boys. However, it was Phil Spector who shaped that impetus into something more expansive.
He wanted to make the kind of tunes that made people want to party all night long, but one can only play so many songs about surfing before the mere sight of a surfboard gets you physically nauseous. Wilson knew there was more out there, and Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ was half the reason why he got behind the desk in the first place. He wanted to take Spector’s orchestral approach and render pop baroque.
While Spector hardly ever played a note on any of his productions, he was more interested in the broader sonic picture. ‘Be My Baby’ became a staple of a bright and shiny new sound, hitherto unknown in the history of recorded music.
When speaking to Rolling Stone, Wilson thought Spector was the model for what he wanted songs to sound like, saying, “I didn’t feel I was competing as much as I was emulating [him], emulating the greatness of his style in my music. We have a high degree of art in our group. We’ve come to regard Phil Spector as the greatest, most avant-garde producer in the business.”
Then again, what Spector did isn’t all that avant-garde from what we hear today. Sure, the core ethos of any rock band centred around the guitars and the pounding beat, but bringing in sweeping strings and creating an orchestra for just one rock tune was something that Spector pioneered without really thinking too hard.
Others were bound to follow, and what Wilson did with The Beach Boys’ greatest records took Spector’s model to the next level. There are occasionally a few pieces of the production that sound like the work of ‘The Wall of Sound’, but the idea of putting something like a theremin on ‘Good Vibrations’ or actually using the crunch of vegetables as percussion on the song ‘Vegetables’ is the work of genius whether Wilson knew it or not.
Spector could have been the springboard for what Wilson did, but it’s not like the Beach Boys mastermind was trying to copy the style of one of his production heroes. He was producing music coming from deep within his soul, and just like the title of his unreleased masterpiece would imply, his ability to make everyone smile with his tunes wasn’t lost on any of the listeners.
Alas, that was then, and now you can’t mention Spector without dwelling on his damning demise. To some extent, Wilson’s comments allude to the heady days that inevitably led to bundling down rabbit holes. The wall of sound has now been demolished by despicable actions. Wilson himself also pushed too far too fast and faced up to his own demons. In this regard, the interface of art and inspiration between Wilson and his fallen former hero seems to encapsulate both the brilliance and barbarity of the business in the 1960s.
