Wall of Sound

The Wall of Sound is a recording approach and style of music production developed by American producer and songwriter Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in the early 1960s. Aspiring for an aesthetic akin to the live spontaneity of 1950s rock 'n' roll records on an orchestral scale, his method involved treatment of the studio as a compositional tool alongside a rotating ensemble of about twenty-five Los Angeles-based session musicians, later known as the Wrecking Crew and sometimes credited as "the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra". From 1962 to 1966, he produced over a dozen U.S. top 40 hits, most of which were co-authored with songwriting teams such as Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and nearly all in conjunction with arranger Jack Nitzsche and engineer Larry Levine. Spector's process combined arranging, rehearsal, and mixing simultaneously.