TEARING DOWN THE WALL OF SOUND: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown
HE’S A REBEL Phil Spector: Rock & Roll’s Legendary Producer by Mark Ribowsky
INSIDE THE MUSIC OF BRIAN WILSON: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys’ Founding Genius by Philip Lambert

AS THE NEW AGE OF THE pop single blooms from several million iPod earbuds, it is no surprise to see a revival of interest in Brian Wilson and Phil Spector.

Kings of the three-and-a-half minute pop symphony in the early 1960s, for many years they languished in eccentric, damaged obscurity. But recent events — a much-publicised revival for one, a murder trial for the other — have pulled them back into the limelight.

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound and He’s a Rebel arrive as Spector pleads not guilty to shooting the actress Lana Clarkson in his southern California mansion four years ago.

Ribowsky’s book, first published in 1989, comes with 100 new pages, and delivers the “tycoon of teen” in detail as rich as his extravagant arrangement of Ike and Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High, his last big single, released in 1966.

“He had no conscience so he could only show remorse by making me an omelette,” according to Beverly Ross, Spector’s former Brill Building songwriting partner, quoted by Ribowsky in one of a thousand moments that humanise Spector utterly. Ribowsky follows his megalomania deep into the music — from not telling musicians which name a song would be released under to insisting on recording in unremixable mono after the advent of stereo. This latter trait gave his sound “a primordial feel of joyful noise”.

Brown’s book is not as textured, but has its own strengths, notably a stunning interview with Spector published just days before Clarkson’s death. The British journalist vividly recreates a typical Wall of Sound recording session — Spector reminding world-class jazzbos to “keep it dumb”, and taking away the drummer Hal Blaine’s cymbals — capturing the sheer exuberance of creation.

Like Ribowsky, however, he is done with the Wall of Sound by halfway through, its blocks rebuilt into new configurations of betrayal and paranoia.

Spector had a profound influence on later musicians — particularly Wilson. But, perhaps because Wilson has remained the victim — of an abusive father, misunderstanding band-mates and a svengali psychiatrist — the Beach Boy has received politer treatment than Spector. Approaches have ranged from Timothy White’s monumental social history, The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience to Domenic Priore’s Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile!, which reproduced every available clipping about Wilson’s abandoned 1966 Smile album.

Philip Lambert’s Inside the Music supports decades of lip service to Wilson’s skills with some 300 pages of sober musicology. It is hard to imagine any writing about sun and surf being quite so dry.

“The linkage between the pairs, the A minor chord to the E-flat major, is an extraordinary move that wouldn’t be out of place in jazz harmony, or a Four Freshman arrangement, but is almost unheard-of in popular music” is Lambert’s description of a particularly dramatic breakthrough for Wilson, in his song The Warmth of the Sun.

Still, Lambert’s work is extraordinary for what it is, examining the young songwriter piece by piece as Wilson teases out his own voice. It’s not exactly poetry, but it is of extraordinary value.

Lambert invents his own nonacademic terms to describe some of Wilson’s techniques, including “interrupting celestial choirs” ( Sloop John B) and a “dream sequence” ( Good Vibrations). This is telling, if only because these are among the exact traits that make Wilson’s music so special: the Beach Boys’ sound.

Wilson also recorded in mono, out of necessity, not control. Deaf in one ear, supposedly thanks to a childhood slap from his father, Wilson’s one-track mixes melted his brothers’ voices into what one critic, Paul Williams, compared to “a door [that] has been opened, and love and beauty and musical magic are flooding in”.

These vocals, along with Wilson’s survival into the art-rock era, have kept him listenable. Much of Spector’s work feels locked away behind unrepentant corniness ( I Love How You Love Me) and a pre1960s mentality ( He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss), co-written by the young Carole King). Of course, the murder charge and the batty wigs he wears to courtroom appearances might aid that impression — just as Wilson’s heavily assisted completion of Smile in 2004, subsequent tours, and general likeability have ensured his durability.

But fun as Wilson is to listen to, it is Spector that the current crop of overload-happy bands such as Arcade Fire and Klaxons should study. Although it is nigh impossible to replicate the Wilsons’ harmonies, pitch correction tools can get the blend close enough, especially with computer speakers. It is here that Spector’s monomaniacal monophonics remain transcendent. Walls of sound come prefab these days — with the rows of faders extending to the virtual horizon — but the real thing remains a masterclass in mixing for density.

Reconciling their music with the men that Spector and Wilson became can be uncomfortable, even dramatic. Ribowsky uses well-applied epigraphs from Henry IV and Oedipus Rex. But while, as he notes, Brian once “brooded endlessly about Phil always being one step ahead of him”, it is Wilson who has arrived first at the third act — redemption, at least in public. Spector’s equally fated story has some action left in it yet. And, like Shakespeare, maybe a few wigs.

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound Bloomsbury, £16.99; 512pp £15.29 (free p&p) He’s a Rebel Da Capo, £10.99; 454pp £9.99 (free p&p) Inside the Music of Brian Wilson Continuum, £14.99; 404pp £13.49 (free p&p) 0870 1608080 or buy here

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