MUSIC
Phil Spector’s Christmas
Rock’s unforgettable, dark entry into the Christmas cannon
Enjoying A Christmas Gift for You invokes the need to separate the art from the artist beyond what we know about convicted killer Phil Spector. Its 1963 iteration already began with a dark birth, as the album was purportedly released the day JFK was assassinated. Despite promotion being pulled for the album, it still charted, then exploded in its 1972 re-release on Apple Records, peaking at 6 on Billboard and becoming the staple it is today.
You’d have to separate the music from producer Phil Spector, who dons a padded Santa suit in the 1972 re-issue’s janky cover betraying the glorious soul tracks within. You you’d easily skip over the reissue when crate digging if it weren’t for a black, scraggly fringe of hair poking out from the white trim with spectral eyes leering over a pair of lowered sunglasses. (That’s a triple entrendre, if I’m counting right).
Somehow the creep factor suitably captures the other dark aspect of the album’s production. While accounts of the recording include grueling hours for some artists who were still in their teens and Spector’s frustrating perfectionism, he would also be known to do stand-up routines and joke around on outtakes at the expense of prospective listeners, calling them…
