Easy Listening

Phil Spector, like him or not, has had a profound effect on the way we appreciate popular music. His work in the studio is prolific, incredibly original and often controversial. The Wall of Sound recording technique certainly warrants mentioning as a crucial development in Mono recording, he was adamantly opposed to stereo recordings, saying they focused too much on the listener, and not enough on the producer; read about it here.

People like covering his work. If you went to Oberlin College, Wesleyan, or live in Brooklyn, you might have overheard someone mention a band called Grizzly Bear; they are pretty fucking good, and they don't mind wearing their influences on their sleeve, whether or not one can appreciate that is a different question. Here's them doing their best girl group impression, I guess, on their version of "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)"




Reasons to not like Phil Spector:

-He's a megalomaniac
-He may have shot his wife dead during an argument (I suppose he's no William Burroughs in that regard)
-He played Dr. Kevorkian to the fading esprit de corps of the Beatles
-He may or may not advocate domestic abuse in his songwriting (I personally think that the band Grizzly Bear pretty much hit the mark with their take on the Crystal's classic, when sung by a sullen male voice to take the irony of the track and make it in to a modern Bo-Diddley kind of swagger song)

Did he kill his ex-wife? Probably, he's a crazy motherfucker.

¿XANADU?


Is that Nick Koenig?



Anyways, here's more Phil Spector than I know what to do with, if you want more, then leave a comment:
The Crystals-He Hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss):Back to Mono
Bobby B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans-Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Hearts?
The Ronettes-Walking in the Rain
The Ronettes-Soldier Baby of MineThe Beatles-Long and Winding Road:Let it Be

The perfect storm will crash down upon the Atlantic Division come 2010, which believe you me is on the way, and it may or may not require Lebron James. More to come on my zygote of a theory about idealism, Jorge Luis Borges, NBA perfection, the importance of James Posey, Bobby Brown and Julian Wright to the New Orleans Hornets, the overall expendable nature of basically every player on the Houston Rockets summer league squad, The deep seated fear of mercenary free agents ruining entire seasons of intrigue in a desperate search for the glory of a championship, Jews in the NBA,the ballad of DJ Mbenga, the importance of Run THC (Sean Williams, Yi Jianlin, and (in my funny, jewcentric world) Jordan Farmar), and maybe even a peek at some Chinese people wearing Yi Jerseys.