When Phil Spector died on 16 January, under the care of the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, headlines memorialised him as a flawed man, a talented human being with an unkind and unpalatable side.
A BBC headline called him "talented but flawed". The Daily Mail stated: "How the musical genius and recluse changed the sound of pop before murdering hostess Lana Clarkson." Billboard shirked all linguistic ebullience for the very simple, albeit too plain, "Phil Spector dead at 81."
At the time of his death, Spector was being treated at an outside hospital after contracting Covid-19 at a California Health Care Facility in Stockton where the producer was serving a 19-year sentence for the 2003 murder of American actress and hostess, Lana Clarkson.
