Album: Various artists <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

The Phil Spector Collection, ABKCO

Phil Spector's not worked a lot in recent years, but then, who'd want to take their chances with someone in whom the thin divide between genius and madness appears so fraught with danger? He reportedly pulled a gun on one client (Leonard Cohen) and repeated the stunt with another (The Ramones). But although it's hard to love a past-it gun-nut like Spector, the defence team in his forthcoming trial for murder might find their most persuasive arguments in this two-CD set, which pairs the classic A Christmas Gift For You album with a 22-track compilation of hits from his early-Sixties Wall Of Sound heyday. That's everything from "Be My Baby" through "Baby I Love You" to "River Deep, Mountain High" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling": an entire youth culture, in other words. Sadly, it doesn't include Phil's own debut single (as The Teddy Bears!), "To Know Him Is To Love Him"; but then, that would be stretching irony to breaking-point.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Be My Baby', 'River Deep, Mountain High', 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town', 'White Christmas', 'Then He Kissed Me'