Then He Killed Me: RIP Phil Spector

In my own version of "athlete takes signing bonus and buys Maserati," the first time I got a big check from my old real estate job ($9,000) I went straight to Times Square and bought the Phil Spector box set for $72, which for some reason heretofor (thentofor?) I had thought to be out of my reach.  - XMASTIME

Phil Spector has just died at age 81:

His 13 top-10 singles included some of the quintessential “girl group” songs of the era: “He’s a Rebel,” “Uptown,” “Then He Kissed Me” and “Da Doo Ron Ron”by the Crystals, and “Be My Baby” and “Walking in the Rain” by the Ronettes. For the Righteous Brothers he produced “Unchained Melody” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” a No. 1 hit that became the 20th century’s most-played song on radio and television, according to BMI.

His signature was the wall of sound, perfected at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, where he worked with the engineer Larry Levine, the arranger Jack Nitzsche and a team of musicians nicknamed the Wrecking Crew by Hal Blaine, one of their regular drummers.

With dozens of musicians and backup singers packed into Gold Star’s cramped quarters, Mr. Spector layered multiple guitars, basses and keyboards over one another and applied a shimmering gloss of strings. This sonic wave assumed even grander proportions when channeled through Gold Star’s resonant echo chambers.

“The records are built like a Wagner opera,” Mr. Spector told The Evening Standard of London in 1964. “They start simply and they end with dynamic force, meaning and purpose. It’s in the mind, I dreamed it up. It’s like art movies.”

It's always baffled me re: why every producer or band didn't try to blatantly copy him. Other than Born to Run (the sound of which Bruce immediately ditched), Brian Wilson and The Ramones (whom he of course produced on the half-amazing, half-terrible End of the Century), nobody really tried to affect the Wall of Sound that extensively. Baffling (pun intended) to moi. 

George Martin was great and is the fifth Beatle, but it's not like anybody hears a non-Beatles song he produced and thinks "ohmygod, that's George Martin!"  Meanwhile, Phil Spector could record a song with whoever's starting for Duke this year, and you'd recognize instantly "holy shit, that's Phil Spector!"

All I can really say for sure is that 1. he'll always be the greatest producer ever, and 2. it's a surprise he only killed one person (that we know of).

The Greatest.