(To even describe it as "his music" is to give the douchebag more credit than he deserves. Like the coach who demands pro athletes play his way, he couldn't not make everything about himself rather than work around the skills of those he was producing. Following the chaotic sessions for the Rock 'n' Roll album, Spector sent the following message to his one time friend: "I only went into the studio to do one thing, and you can tell this to John Lennon. They were making records, but I was making art...")
Perhaps this explains why I'll inevitably be praising the bulk of the six or seven CHUM number ones he had something to do with despite the fact that I don't think much of him. It helps, too, that they'll be spread out over the next several months and even years as we cover his beginnings as a young and hungry producer and songwriter to his early sixties' peak to the cusp of his mental breakdown and, finally, to a brief renaissance alongside individuals who were his creative superior before the wheels came off for good. Oh what a wild ride it will be.
Let's begin with "To Know Him Is to Love Him" by his trio The Teddy Bears. When Spector was nine his father committed suicide. His would tombstone read, 'To Know Him Was to Love Him' which clearly stuck with the grieving boy. He would eventually form a band in high school which would evolve into the trio The Teddy Bears along with friends Carol Connors and Marshall Leib. Searching for a hit, the mercurial teenage songwriter came up with "To Know Him Is to Love Him" which transforms the sorrow of losing a parent at a young age into the heartbreak of unrequited love.
The song didn't just become a big hit but it also went on to become a favourite of a number of budding pop stars and, as a result, it has been covered a great deal over the years. While I have no doubt that it sounded magnificent at the time, the very fact that virtually everyone who has done a cover of it has at least equaled its quality does diminish the original a tad. The Beatles — I really can't stop bringing them up, can I? — did two recordings of it (with the lyrics altered to "To Know Her Is to Love Her"; some subsequent versions have made it gender neutral) with their Live at the BBC rendition from 1963 being especially good, with stronger harmonies and musicianship. If you prefer something more delicate, it's hard to beat Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris' reading from their 1987 collaborative album Trio. That's not to say that I'm not impressed by The Teddy Bears and their original, it's just it's hard to be wowed by something that others managed to equal or even top.
"To Know Him Is to Love Him" was a massive success but The Teddy Bears were not able to keep the momentum going with its follow-up "I Don't Need You Anymore", which only just cracked the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100. You'd think that having a major hit be followed by a giant flop would have prepared Spector for the ups and downs of fickle pop fans and radio programmers but the crushing disappointment and bursts of madness that resulted from the lack of a decent chart placement for both Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep — Mountain High" and then-wife Ronnie's "Try Some, Buy Some" suggest he didn't learn a goddamn thing. He was right, everyone else was wrong: a definite red flag that you're dealing with a giant piece of shit.
Can't wait to hate listen to his next number one!
Score: 7
No comments:
Post a Comment