Taking sides: Burt Bacharach vs Phil Spector

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I like Burt.

Probably because his loungey/elevator-esque dreariness rang more true to my halftone youth in outer suburban Australia.

Spector made more accessible pop but Bacharach really seemed to have the soundtrack for the pastel schmooze of the seventies.

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Thursday, 26 August 2004 08:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Burt, by a notch.

― Jimmybommy JimmyK'KANG (Nick Southall), Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Spector was a producer, Bacharach wasn't. Remind me, what exactly do they have in common?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:13 (twenty-one years ago)

On one hand, there's the Lana Clarkson shooting.

On the other hand, there's that album Bacharach did with Elvis Costello.

I guess Spector has the moral advantage.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:19 (twenty-one years ago)

gots to go with spector

― lukey (Lukey G), Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I have to go with Spector. Not only was he a great producer, but he also wrote "To Know Him is to Love Him" which is one of the finest songs of all time.

He also managed to frighten both the Ramones and Leonard Cohen. And, he produced Yoko Ono's Season of Glass (which may also have frightened both the Ramones and Leonard Cohen).

― Charlie Rose (Charlie Rose), Thursday, 26 August 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a really question of song vs. sound, isn't it? Both guys seem like insufferable assholes.

― briania (briania), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Spector was a producer, Bacharach wasn't.

he wasn't? uh-oh, somebody had better alert dionne warwick.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Did he actually produce her records tho? 'pologies if he did.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

he and hal david did indeed produce 'em. they produced a few others, too, but she was the teacher's pet.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Bacharach & David produced and arranged hundreds of records, many even when they weren't the songwriters.

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that produce as in "sitting in the recording booth with your feet up on the mixing desk while the engineers do all the work" or the more hands-on Spector approach?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

That depends on whether or not Burt was into gun control.

― R.I.M.A. (Barima), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

The songs don't sound as good without Bacharach, that's for sure.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that produce as in "sitting in the recording booth with your feet up on the mixing desk while the engineers do all the work" or the more hands-on Spector approach?

i don't have a clue what bacharach's method was, except that i know he was the arranger on most of the classic recordings associated with him, and you can't get any more hands-on than that. as for what exactly it is that a producer is or is supposed to be or is supposed to do, that's an argument that could fill the entire ILX server.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Indeed. Bacharach is a brilliant arranger as was Spector - but as a producer Spector surely wins hand down?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:16 (twenty-one years ago)

well, christ, hardly anything in the history of pop beats those ronettes and crystals recordings. but when i'm in the mood for, oh, "walk on by" or "anyone who had a heart," i can hardly think of anything better than those either. they're two very very different producers and they're both fantastic.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I myself think they're both a bit overrated, or at least rated for the wrong reasons. I like 'em both, but as a songwriter Bacharach seems, to me anyway, less interesting than both Jobim or Brian Wilson. Jobim seems far less mannered to me, more in touch with his inner being if you get my drift. Bacharach is fine but I hear him as Broadway, big simplified emotions and structures that call a lot of attention to themselves. This isn't a dismissal at all, just an honest assessment of how-it-sounds-to-me. Also, I don't think Warwick(e) is as good as Elis Regina.

Spector I've come to appreciate as a figure in rock history. The actual records, I don't know. I like the Ronettes' "I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine" and several others just fine, but Phil's not someone I go back to very much these days. I admire his sheer ego. Just got thru reading Earl Palmer's autobiography and Earl, the quintessential session-musician-who-wants-to-play-jazz, regards Phil as a great producer but not much of a musician. On the other hand, in Ribowsky's bio of Spector he relates a story of Spector playing very, very good jazz guitar one night in a club in L.A. So I would say it's a bit unfair to say Spector wasn't a musician. Same thing that Fred Wesley says about James Brown--he couldn't really sing that well, or play organ or piano well, but he had that extra something...and that extra something is what makes it all worthwhile, in my opinion. Bacharach just doesn't have that, as accomplished as he is. He always looked good in those sweaters, though.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

New thread: Ronnie Spector vs. Angie Dickinson

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Briania, I'm curious, why do you think BB is an asshole?

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 26 August 2004 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Eddie, those big simplified emotions and structures that call a lot of attention to themselves are part of what's great about Bacharach. And I reckon he and Spector share some parity on the "extra something" you speak of.

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Monday, 30 August 2004 00:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Bacharach. I've never understood why Spector's productions are considered so legendary; maybe they're just too dated to seem relevent.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 30 August 2004 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Comes down (perhaps) to "I Say a Little Prayer" vs. "A Fine Fine Boy." In which case, Spector but it's close.

― Burr (Burr), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:59 (twenty-one years ago)

To Hal and Bacharach

― mentalist (mentalist), Monday, 30 August 2004 05:18 (twenty-one years ago)

bacharach all the way.

because he didn't ruin the long and winding road, and spector did.

and his songs are very very nice and lovely.

― Daz, Monday, 30 August 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

They both had marvellous muses, Dionne 'i love a spliff' Warwick with her vocal range and unique ability to interpret their songs, and of the delicious course Ronnie Spector.

― mentalist (mentalist), Monday, 30 August 2004 09:51 (twenty-one years ago)

In the Bacharach bio that seems to be interminably showing on the A&E channel that I get on cable, he comes off as a smug, self-aggrandizing blowhard who patronizes Dionne & the musicians while calling everybody "Baby."

― briania (briania), Monday, 30 August 2004 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

A product of his times; if not a prototype.

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Monday, 30 August 2004 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

SPECTOR!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Monday, 30 August 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Spector was a producer, Bacharach wasn't. Remind me, what exactly do they have in common?
-- Dadaismus (kcoyne3...), August 26th, 2004.

Phil Spector + Bacharach = Pet Sounds

― Elvis is Dead, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 10:02 (twenty-one years ago)

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