'Wall of Sound' Fails

Have you ever taken an action that you felt sure was right at the time only to later come to regret it? It happens to artists, and all of us, all the time. Perspectives change. There's no point in demonizing the deceased over it.

 

But then you should also get to the point where you realize that just because you'd make a different decision now, that doesn't imply that the previous decision was wrong then. It's just different. You're just different now. And you'll probably be different yet again 10 years from now. It's not possible to make decisions at any point that take into consideration every point in your entire life. You have to make the right decision at the time, for that time, and then "let go of it" later. Worry about the present decisions later, not the previous ones.

 

I love the songs on REM’s Reveal, but they suffer from that synthy wall-of-sound overproduction. I’d love to hear those songs with more natural sounding arrangements—the wall-of-sound style might have worked with the right instruments. But this kind of thing gets tiresome pretty quickly:

 

Devin Townsend.
Come at me, bro.
(I don't even know anything about Devin Townsend, but someone had to do it.)

 

So true. The 45 mixes of those two songs are just balls to the wall powerful, and without the Spectorization they would be completely emasculated.

 

No. It made it the best Beatles or Beatles-related LP in history!

 

Old George thought so. But Young George loved it. I'll take Young George over Old George.

 

To be fair, the songs are mostly really good, and the backing band is one of the best in history...

 

Couldn’t agree more. In fact, I consider What is Life to be the perfect Spector WOS production. The build, the breakdown, and the rebuild all enhance a song that seems to have been written with a big sound in mind. The arrangement propels the song forward through the verses and into those ecstatic, heartfelt choruses without burying or overwhelming a single note or breath. One of my favorite songs since I first heard it as a shaver:

 

He has a pretty good wall of sound sometimes.


Try Some, Buy Some by Ronnie Spector. Love the song and because of that i think the Wall of Sound works on it.

Some other songs with the Wall of Sound that again aren't failures are Rock n Roll Winter, See My Baby Jive, Angel Fingers, & I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, from the mind of Roy Wood.

 

Yeah, Roy Wood had quite a brilliant streak of Spector-influenced hits in the early '70s. No fails there.

 

The only tune I think Phil should have toned it down a bit was Awaiting on You All.

 

Absolutely. Consider too that the songs were mainly of a spiritual nature and that big sound made them sound properly majestic.

 

Well, I prefer Let it Be...Naked over Let it Be. There’s that.

 

I absolutely love the sound of this album and cannot put it in the reverbed to death"All Things Must Pass" catogory. And I'm surprised that a prog fan wouldn't like it. Producer David Hentschel's incredible use of automatic double tracking for pleated harmony vocals as well as his clever use of flanging and old school varispeed on Deep In The Motherlode is a technical marvel. This album would have been sub par without it's " Wall Of Sound". Incredibly, Hentschel was the recording engineer on "All Things Must Pass" and learned to stay away from Phil Spector's over the top sonic indulgences that obviously didn't work on that album.

 

Well I certainly can't agree with either of these. Two of the best songs on the LP!

 

All the Way to Reno is another song I really like!

 

Never heard that before but I like it! The intro is reprised at the end, to the fade-out, and it works ...

 

I think Wah Wah is a masterpiece and love the way it sounds, it really is a Marmite record though.
Some love it, some despise it. I'm the former.

 

Listen to “Beware of ABKCO” if you haven’t. I love these versions

 

Phil definitely neutered Art Of Dying. The demo and early Studio takes are pretty spooky.

 

Hi Cynthia, do you know that it couldn’t be cleaned up? I remember George saying that he didn’t like what was done to the beautiful sound that was achieved during the recording. I am curious whether the wall of sound was recorded onto the final multitrack and the session reels along the way.

 

Looks like your doing the revisioning.

George had a problem with the production at the time. He chose to let it go then and then to live with it thirty years later.

I don’t recall him throwing Spector under the bus, unless you have something to share. Or, are you just being crabby?

 

It's been nearly two pages, and no one has mentioned Oasis' 'Be Here Now'?!

 

Well put. It is the one song on the 30th anniversary remaster I could not listen to. The mastering was harsh to begin with - combine that with the song and I got a Wah Wah.