What exactly was the “wall of sound” technique and why was it so important for music?

Question

I read the wikipedia page on it and im still confused on how it is made and what exactly was so good about it. Im not familiar with music production but ive seen people mention Spector and how he contributed to music and the “wall of sound” is always something i see people mention. But i never know what exactly that is

In: 248

Answer 1

The basic idea behind the wall of sound is to layer lots and lots of instrument tracks, and especially multiple of the same instrument playing the same or similar parts, to create very full sound. This makes the music sound louder, more intense, and more energetic, which can make it more exciting to listen to.

You can really hear how effective this was if you listen to some records from the same time period that didn’t use the wall of sound technique and compare these with records produced by Phil Spector or other people applying his techniques. For example, here are some hit songs from the 60s that didn’t use the wall of sound:

[Martha and the Vandellas – Heat Wave](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k0GDQrK2jo)

[The Chiffons – He’s So Fine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rinz9Avvq6A)

Now some classic Spector-produced wall of sound songs:

[The Crystals – Da Doo Ron Ron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0dikX80Ed8)

[The Ronettes – Be My Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPpbOGnFgk)

Compared to other songs from the time, these tracks absolutely blast you in the face with sound. This was new and exciting at the time, and hugely influential on later music. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was heavily influenced by Spector’s sound, and incorporated aspects of it in a lot of his production for Beach Boys records. ‘Good Vibrations’ is a great example of this:

[The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eab_beh07HU)

The wall of sound might not seem like that big of a deal to us now precisely because of how much it influenced later music production, so it’s easy to take for granted how revolutionary these rich, densely layered tracks must have sounded to people in the 60s. People listened to Phil Spector records, other R&B records from producers inspired by Spector, Beach Boys records, and so on, the sound gradually became commonplace throughout music production.

I could spend all day pasting links to songs that show influence of the wall of sound technique, but I’ll just give you two more. One is Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’, which has Stevie overlapping **8** different Clavinet parts:

[Stevie Wonder – Superstition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g)

Another is the Smashing Pumpkins ‘Cherub Rock’. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is well known for overdubbing a ridiculous number (like, 50 — literally) of guitar tracks to create an immense guitar sound:

[Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-KE9lvU810)