If you don’t like T-Pain now, you will be on the wrong side of history later. I don’t like Thr33 Ringz as much as I like last year’s Epiphany. But I’m sure that T-Pain’s wicked Autotune habit will sound better in five years than Spector’s often indistinct Wall of Sound method does to me now. In any case, Autotune only enhances T-Pain’s proclivity toward spiraling melodies: his grasp of harmony and song structure is one that no studio gimmickry can yet manufacture.

More importantly, he’s the most likable guy in pop music since, I dunno, Phil Collins? Grohl? The Biz? The likes of “Long Lap Dance” reveals that he knows the lengths a fellow can go to stretch a dollar at the club. Almost alone in the current hip-hop/R&B diaspora, T-Pain is there for the rest of us.

"Can't Believe It" (ft. Lil Wayne) video [Dailymotion]
T-Pain [MySpace]
80 '08 (and Heartbreak)

The explanation comes from writer Neil Steinberg, who walks us through the process by which a celeb blooms post-mortem (no, not that way), arguing that you've got to be pretty huge in life before you can eclipse yourself in death. I was ready to claim otherwise: Nick Drake is far better-known in now than when he was alive. But Drake isn't pulling down anywhere near the bucks of the folks on the big list, which is really Steinberg's point, so I'll concede. He also gets into some nuts-and-bolts stuff about how posthumous celebrity images have been utilized:

But image management used to stop with death. After a star died, every T-shirt factory, souvenir stand and coffee cup company from Hollywood to Shanghai was free to swoop in and start profiting from their fame without consideration for good taste or long-term damage to a celebrity's image.


That began to change in 1979, when the son of Dracula star Bela Lugosi sued Universal Pictures over its sales of vampire-themed products. The court ruled against Lugosi, but a paragraph in its ruling caught the eye of Richman, a Los Angeles-based lawyer then in his mid-20s.


The paragraph said that had Lugosi sold his image in his lifetime, he would then have a common law trademark that could be passed on to his heirs. Suddenly, fame could be inherited. Lugosi hadn't sold his image, but plenty of stars had, and Richman started looking through old magazines and contacting the heirs of every star who had ever endorsed a product, starting with W.C. Fields. A short time later, when Fields appeared on a stamp, the U.S. Postal Service was pressed first to seek permission, and it did.

Related to this is Ad Age's Charlie Moran, who asks his readers what they think of ad agencies licensing the music of known felons and miscreants. Obviously Elvis, with his multiple addictions and habit of shooting out televisions, might qualify here, but Moran has something more specific in mind: the recent British commercial for HP, which uses Joan Jett's version of "Do You Wanna Touch Me," written by Gary Glitter, an all-too-well-known sex offender:

In the midst of the presidential race, when associations-upon-associations and surface appearances can be more powerful than anything else, this situation has a ring of familiarity. So this is the question: Should HP (or any marketer) be vetting the personal lives and reputations of musicians whose songs they license? If songwriters are just as relevant as performers, how many rungs down the creative chain are relevant? Are producers relevant too, and would that make all the works of, say, Phil Spector off-limits?

Glitter presents one of the thorniest conundrums of its kind. "Do You Wanna Touch Me" and the stadium standby "Rock and Roll, Pt. II" are among the biggest, most obvious dumb-rock-chants ever. (It's easy to forget that Glitter wrote the former, since Jett's version is definitive, though Glitter was a star in England, so the association is undoubtedly fresher there.) But the real point is that while plenty of stars are innocent-till-found-guilty, like Spector, Glitter was indeed found guilty. And if HP should think twice about using his music, what about all those sports arenas using "Rock and Roll Pt. II"?

Top Earning Dead Celebrities + Death, Career Move [Forbes]
Should We License Songs From Musicians With Questionable Personal Lives? [Ad Age]

I knew the routine by heart. He'd start with the guitars, and he'd have the guitars play, and then he'd maybe have them change something, and he'd have the guitars play [again]. And when he was satisfied that maybe he had something going, he would bring the pianos in.

So now it was the guitars and the pianos playing. That didn't work, so it was back to the guitars and the pianos sat out. Then he got something else going with the guitars and then he added the pianos. When he got past that point, it was bring in the basses. And so they played. And if that didn't work, back to the guitars. So this was a continuous ... and so it was adding always to that. And the horns. And finally, the last thing to be added was the drums.

Phil knew what he was looking for and could communicate this. I think the biggest part I played was to serve as his sounding board. He trusted me, that was the thing. Phil wanted everything mono but he'd keep turning the volume up in the control room. So, what I did was record the same thing on two of the [Ampex machine's] three tracks just to reinforce the sound, and then I would erase one of those and replace it with the voice.

Larry Levine: "Wall Of Sound" Engineer [All About Jazz]
Working With Phil Spector [CNN]
Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High [YouTube]
[Photo copyright Ray Avery/CTSIMAGES.COM]

"Chelle," the No. 2 friend behind the corpse of Lenny Bruce, is the profile allegedly belonging to Spector's wife (it's since been deleted, no doubt after some counseling from lawyers). But the real surprise comes from the fact that whoever's managing Ronnie Spector's official page seems to have added "Team Spector" to her roster of MySpace pals; her presence in the "Team Spector" top 8 made me initially think that this whole Team Spector thing was actually an attempt to bring bandom and current events together, but I guess the joke's on me.

Spector judge gets MySpace threat as jury deliberates [Reuters]
[Screengrab: Defamer]

"Arena - The Agony and The Ecstasy Of Phil Spector" is being made by Oscar-winning director Vikram Jayanti and produced by long-time "Arena" filmmaker Anthony Wall as part of BBC2's fall schedule...

"I like to make definitive films about creative people," said Jayanti. "I am not interested in pursuing the question of his guilt or innocence but his standing as an artist and his psychological landscape. Spector is a tortured genius, a deeply troubled man, who speaks openly about his pain - the pain of his father killing himself and the pain of his own son dying."

"But he is also a very funny man and a brilliant mimic. He does a brilliant impersonation of John Lennon who he regarded as a special friend."

They got along great—especially when Spector wasn't (allegedly) pulling a gun on the former Beatle. Anyway, we'll reserve judgment until we see this thing, but it does make us eager to re-read Tom Wolfe's excellent "The First Tycoon Of Teen" profile from back in 1964. Anybody know of a copy archived online? If so, drop us a line at tips@idolator.com.

BBC secures Spector interview [Variety]

[Photo: Getty Images]

Apparently, tonight's Inside Edition will feature a video made by Phil Spector in 2005 in which the producer defends himself against accusations that he was responsible for the death of actress Lana Clarkson. According to the Drudge Report:

Spector, now on trial for the murder, made the video in 2005 in his chess room where Clarkson was found dead. Spector originally intended to post it on his web site to defend himself against the accusations of murdering Clarkson.

He taped the video twice wearing two separate outfits including a Hawaiian shirt with shell necklace as well as a formal suit and denies having any part in the death of Clarkson.

Phil Spector: "She [Lana] may have accidentally taken own life. She may have purposefully taken her own life. She may have been eating the gun with her dancing."

Phil Spector: "I don't know why, when, how or where in what circumstance. She may have taken her own life - whether she planned to or not. It is not my responsibility to do that."

Phil Spector: "What I do know I had nothing to do with her taking her own life"...

In the video he offers the women $100,000 to take a lie detector test. In the video Phil Spector holds up a signed check.

In the portion above—clearly taken during the "shirt n' shells" portion of the shoot—Spector makes a pre-emptive strike at the women who would be testifying against him two years later: "It's nonsense. They just want to get on Inside Edition. They just want to get on Entertainment Tonight. They just want to testify at the trial. And they just want to make money." Somewhere, an EP at Extra is hanging his or her head in shame.

SPECTOR SLAMS THE WOMEN

[Witness Stephanie] Jennings said she had an occasional two-year romantic involvement with Spector. In 1995, at the Carlyle Hotel, Spector became "extremely drunk and obnoxious," slurring his words and walking unsteadily, Jennings said. When she refused his demand to come to his room after a party, he erupted in anger, and slapped her while they were in a bathroom, Jennings said.

"He slapped me or pushed me. I ended up falling backwards," Jennings said. "I jumped up and I pushed him and he fell into the bathtub." Spector then blocked the door, produced a handgun, pointed it at her and told her she could not leave, she said. Jennings was 5 feet tall and 100 pounds. Spector ripped the shower curtain as he fell into the tub, she added.

We don't care if the guy co-wrote "Spanish Harlem"; he's going down.

The Phil Spector Trial: Daily news updates from the courtroom [LAT]

[Photo: Getty Images]

- Michael Jackson is "the most depressing, heinous thing," Spector said. "Starting out life as a black man and ending up as a white woman. What's that all about? But the King [of Pop]? He's no King . . "

- - On Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys leader and songwriting legend who battled mental illness for years, Spector declared, "I don't feel sorry for Brian Wilson. I never thought he was that talented to begin with . . . I'd be more impressed if somebody with a brain idolized me."

- Oasis, the British band fronted by Liam and Noel Gallagher, are "jerks."

- On Tina Turner: "I made her famous, and she resents that . . . But give it up, for God's sake . . . Why say, '[Bleep] you.' Just leave me alone."

- Bruce Springsteen, who borrowed the "Wall of Sound" technique for his breakthrough hit "Born to Run" in the 1970s, "should have paid me royalties . . . Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery until it becomes plagiarism." Spector also said the Boss' career is stale: "He's protected himself with three new songs and 25 old ones."

Have to give him credit for that insightful Oasis criticism—they are kinda jerkish! You can fine even more revealing opinions on Spector's frequently updated music blog, in which he dubs CocoRosie "snoozy" and asks "why anyone should give two poos about this Patrick Wolf fop?!!"

Spector Slaughters Pop Stars [Page Six]

Except that examination of the body revealed that the gun barrel wasn't placed against Clarkson's temple. It was placed inside Clarkson's mouth. According to a search warrant affidavit from the county police, Clarkson had "what appeared to be a single entry gunshot wound to the mouth." "She kissed the gun," Spector later told Esquire. "I have no idea why."

We can't be the only ones who cringed at that line—and as a bonus, it contradicts Spector's earlier claim that Clarkson "took Spector's gun, waved it over her head like a lariat, and sang 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin''" before putting the gun to her head and pulling the trigger. (Yes, really.)

A Phil Spector Primer [Slate, via Paper Thin Walls]

If the New York Post's always-reliable photo-shopping team is to be believed, Ronnie Spector can't even perform in public without being harassed by the all-watching, all-knowing, perfectly spherical head of her ex-husband, who wants her to get back in the car right now, chop-chop.

RON-NUTS [New York Post]