Phil Spector's dead to me now

I think All Things Must Pass sounds great, and was never going to sound like the Band.

Time Out of Mind, btw, the story I heard is that Lanois had a second studio going on where he could mess with the tracks. That is, Dylan heard the "clean" stuff but Lanois wasn't done with it yet. And it sounds great, too, imo. I mean, as if Dylan (or anyone else at his level who complains about a producer messing up their album) did not have the power to say "no."

How's *the* Steve Hoffman's bootleg remaster of All Things Must Pass?

I haven't been compelled to give End of the Century a listen for the first time in almost 40 years. I loved it at the time, but I was still in the relatively early throes of Ramones worship, who my friend Peter got me onto in 1979 (smalltown life). My favourite was "Danny Says." I'm looking at the song titles and not being flooded with great memories--I think I'll let it be, to coin a phrase.

Time Out of Mind, btw, the story I heard is that Lanois had a second studio going on where he could mess with the tracks. That is, Dylan heard the "clean" stuff but Lanois wasn't done with it yet. And it sounds great, too, imo. I mean, as if Dylan (or anyone else at his level who complains about a producer messing up their album) did not have the power to say "no."

I like the album as is too, but I also prefer some of the "less-produced" recordings on Tell Tale Signs and elsewhere (specifically the early recording of "Can't Wait," "Red River Shore," the "Cold Irons Bound" from Masked & Anonymous and the faster live rendition of "Highlands"), I think they're better even if what they released was still good.

Dylan and Lanois argued a LOT though, especially on that album. They've both talked about this in separate interviews since then. I think people can understand that on a very basic level - even if you're in a position where you have the ultimate authority, I'm sure you can understand what it's like to give in a little when you're constantly butting heads with someone you don't want to fire. Dylan once said he didn't feel the least bit satisfied even after 1) getting his first platinum album in decades and 2) winning his first major Grammy awards for it because it always sounded to him like someone's trying to steer it one way and someone else is trying to steer it another way.

Harrison's official site used to sell a hi-res version of the album. 24/96 I believe. Just find that, you can't do better.

I didn't know the Ramones' music until long after they broke up. In retrospect, it's one of their better post-'70s albums, but I could see how a lot of critics may have been unkind when it immediately followed four classics (five if you include the live album) that remain their absolute best work, IMHO. To be really unkind, it was the start of a gradual decline, barring Too Tough to Die. But it's got some great stuff on it, especially "Danny Says" which is my favorite track off there too.

I'm pretty sure I've read a quote from Harrison from around 1970 saying he didn't like the clean, contemporary production of the era, and hired Spector specifically for the density and opacity of his sound.

So what drew Lennon to repeatedly work with Spector?

it always sounded to him like someone's trying to steer it one way and someone else is trying to steer it another way.

Or maybe that was another quality that makes it great? Even so, we're talking about an inscrutable guy that had already gone with Lanois once before, and, for that matter, famously shelved tons of his own good stuff, do dunno if even Dylan knows best. Though Dylan has done such a good job as Jack Frost that I wish he would produce other people. Or, you know, hire out his ace band and top-notch engineers.

Phil Spector's greatest sin is that he was not Steve Albini.

Very informative thread! Didn't know all that about Time Out of Mind, but Dylan writes thoughtfully about the making of Oh Mercy in Chronicles, explaining his position on what he was going for, but sympathetic to Lanois' frustration as well (might should have been one produced by Jack Frost AKA BD, but yeah he was trying to figure out how to make acceptably modern records---before going back to the Mississippi Sheiks etc., which seems to have helped lead him toward his 00s Americana grooves).

I would take Dylan's production from Love and Theft on over Lanois' production, period.

Yeah. Of course there was also the influential success of his old sideman T-Bone Burnett, via suprise hit of O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack etc., so that may have helped him (self-assurance and critical/commerical-sucess-wise) move past the Lanois-associated trend-dominated era.

So what drew Lennon to repeatedly work with Spector?

No idea, but Lennon got along with him, idolized his early records and liked what he did on Let It Be and "Instant Karma!" so it never seemed strange that he would hire him for other stuff.

Or maybe that was another quality that makes it great? Even so, we're talking about an inscrutable guy that had already gone with Lanois once before, and, for that matter, famously shelved tons of his own good stuff, do dunno if even Dylan knows best. Though Dylan has done such a good job as Jack Frost that I wish he would produce other people. Or, you know, hire out his ace band and top-notch engineers.

Probably, I mean Dylan has clearly struggled with making records before. By that, I mean people around him see him trying to figure out what he wants and not knowing. Al Kooper said Dylan drove him crazy on New Morning because it seemed like he was changing his mind every day, and he also suggested that the bad reviews for Self Portrait was the main catalyst, which undermines the myth that Dylan purposely put out a bad album (as well as Dylan's own claim that he purposely put out a collection of songs that would "evaporate" when he released New Morning). I think the world of Dylan but the guy's still human, he has doubts like every other artist.

Dylan's main engineer is Chris Shaw, and he works on a lot of stuff (https://www.chrisshawmix.com/), and guys like Larry Campbell, Charlie Sexton et al have gone on to tour with other people and produce other records.

Is Larry Campbell the guy who is the Levon proxy in Robbie Robertson’s Once Were Brothers?

I'll add that the controversial side of Spector's work (not him as a terrible person, just his work) is the legacy of heavy-handed producers. That remains a polarizing topic in terms of what a producer should be. But more invisible producers don't get the press that someone like Lanois gets, and when you look at the paychecks they get and the high profile they have, it's not hard to understand why some people want to be producers like that.

I haven't seen Once Were Brothers but Campbell joined up with Levon Helm after Dylan, they were close collaborators too until Levon died.

Yeah, I think it's more about whatever restores Dylan's xxxp self-assurance in the studio (incl. how those songs should go/how can he finish them, which is certainly a thing mentioned in Chronicles and demonstrated on The Cutting Edge--and something on Tell-Tale Signs: he stops playing, and somebody asks, "Is that it?" and he says, "I don't know." How those good-to-great tracks ended up alone together maybe, though figuring out why he left some things in the can, compared to shit that made the albums, is always--well, he sometimes overthinks--but what can self-consciousness be like, if you are carrying that Bob Dylan mask and legacy around--?)

FWIW, Lenny Kaye was interviewed once for a book on Todd Rundgren since he produced an LP for Patti Smith (not one of my favorites, but it has a few of her best recordings like "Dancing Barefoot"). This always stuck out for me:

"I learned [Todd's] philosophy which is, and something I’ve repeated many a time to any band I’ve produced with, it’s a great aphorism which is: ‘If you know what you want, I’ll get it for you. If you don’t know what you want, I’ll do it for you.’ And that’s pretty much the job of a producer, and producers like it when artists have ideas."

https://pulmyears.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/wizard-wednesdays-dancing-barefoot-at-lenny-kayes/

Time Out of Mind is Lanois' nadir: fog machines and smoke to obscure how underwritten and uninteresting half of Dylan's songs are.

No idea why anyone would have a problem with "End of the Century". It's good!

I don't remember TOOM well enough to say (although it seemed like he got so depressed that he found his way to humor, "Erica Jong" and all), but if DL did obscure it well enough to get for inst Album Of The Year at the Grammys, wouldn't that kind of shit-shining be worth considering as successful production?

It's like looking for a ring amid the brambles and thickets but realizing there is no ring.

Oh well, life's a journey.

Life’s an illusion
Love is a dream

No idea why anyone would have a problem with "End of the Century". It's good!

xp And "h'mmm, good shit-shining!" might've gotten him even more work (if that's what he did, or some needy stars thought he did).

But then compared to what came after, of course...

James, compare that w their Laswellization, Too Tough To Die, and please let us know what you think (I've never heard either, but better you than me).

Per Dow’s request, I just switched over to listen to the first track of Too Tough to Die and am about to switch right back.

Re: _Plastic Ono Band_, he did play piano on "Love" and he was heavily involved in the mixing, but yes, otherwise he was MIA for most of the sessions. As a joke, Lennon even rented a billboard, asking Spector to come back and produce his album.

(It's not just the speaker, the transmission alone makes a difference in how you hear something on the radio.)

Wow

Speaking of reputations, that album was produced by Andy Johns, whose name as engineer is on several of the greatest rock albums ever made. And yet the band claims he would pass out drinking wine and that they produced it themselves.

I love the sound of Time Out of Mind, and if that is Lanois's nadir, then hats off to that guy.

I’m onto side two of End of the Century. It’s okay, but honestly it’s making me want to listen to The Undertones.

“Rock ‘N’ Rock High School” being the umpteenth song with RnR in the title and/or lyric that doesn’t quite measure up, although perhaps it’s better than most. Now songs about funk otoh...

I listened to this record this morning, the echoed booming of the drums was the most notably Spectorian attribute of the punkier tracks.

I love the sound of Time Out of Mind, and if that is Lanois's nadir, then hats off to that guy.

Same here. The only track I thoroughly dislike is "Make You Feel My Love" (it should've been replaced by "Red River Shore"), but otherwise the less ambitious songs ("Dirt Road Blues," "Million Miles" and "'Til I Fell in Love with You") sound like great mood pieces. They make me wish Augie Meyers had played on more Dylan albums - Love and Theft is the only other one that features him.

Dylan wanted him on Modern Times, but weather conditions prevented Meyers from making the trip up from Texas.

Bill Wyman's new article for NYMag is pretty damn good: https://www.vulture.com/article/phil-spector-music-producer-murderer-obituary.html#_ga=2.227531550.2076685399.1611222315-356502157.1611222315

re End Of The Century, I've never heard it on vinyl, so I don't know how it originally sounded, but in the 90s I had it on CD and it sounded really muddy. I sold that off and bought the remastered version in the early 00s and it was a massive improvement. now I like it more than Road To Ruin tbh.

Bill Wyman article good but

Ellie Greenwich and Phil Barry

Plus they worked for Leiber and Stoller and so they were actually in the Brill Building proper.

Also, LaLa Brooks sang “Da Doo Ron Ron,” which is not noted.

A couple of those lost Celine Dion tracks actually leaked. Not surprisingly, they're pure schlock, but if I had to sit through her records, the first track would be almost tolerable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pvvOnWOMTs