Phil Spector was such a watchword for weirdness even before his murder trial that his negative celebrity already threatened to eclipse his importance as a hitmaking music producer ("the Tycoon of Teen") in the 1960s. Since the early '70s his work has been scattered and eccentric (Leonard Cohen, the Ramones), but in his prime, he helped define the studio's importance in creating recordings as artifacts rather than documents of live performances. He also made some memorable records.
One of the best ways to sample his work is still the four-CD set Back to Mono (1958-1969), its title signaling Spector's preference for the aural power of monophonic sound. Recently, several single disc CDs have been issued by the Legacy label, some including good material omitted from Back to Mono and some of the new reissues overlapping with one anothernot surprising given Spector's penchant for treating performers as mannequins in a pop diorama.
Spector called his songs "little symphonies for the kids" but until he reached his peak years, roughly 1964-69, records such as "Then He Kissed Me," "He's a Rebel" "Not Too Young to Get Married" were closer to two-minute operettas of romance, romance frustrated (by unsympathetic oldsters) and the emotional masochism of youth. Some of it falls strange on 21st century ears, especially "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)," which measures a man's devotion by his violent response to unfaithfulness. By the middle of the decade Spector found his sonic métier, complete with sleigh bells ringing and the architecture of deeply resonant piano, thunderous drum beats and massed orchestras of brass and strings. They were symphonic in scale.
Listening to Be My Baby: The Very Best of the Ronnettes, Da Doo Ron Ron: The Very Best of the Crystals and The Sound of Love: The Very Best of Darlene Love is to hear how Spector's influence has traveled from the Beach Boys to Abba and Bruce Springsteen. He helped define an era whose music still echoes in our imagination.
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