Phil Spector and the New Movie Soundtrack

Abstract

This article looks at the changes that occurred in pop music during the 1960s, which established the foundation for the reconfiguration of its relationship with film. The focus is on the work of producer Phil Spector and the radical changes that he brought to the medium of pop music in the early part of that decade. While the article stops short of suggesting that Spector was directly responsible for the transformation in cinema soundtracks heard in New Hollywood films from 1968 onwards, it does contend that his influence rendered pop music more accessible for movie soundtracks. Spector's innovative studio manipulations, which were designed to remove the sonic dominance of the vocal, were at the centre of these transformations.