Alex James

Hooked on Beethoven

Alex James leads a Slow Life

issue 14 June 2008

Stephen Lipson, a record producer, lives in the village up the road. Well, he was very pleased with himself, glowing with satisfaction like someone who’d just finished a particularly abstruse crossword. Back in the parish after a couple of weeks in Los Angeles, where he’d been making the new American Idol record. He didn’t even bore me with playing the record itself like musicians always do, but he told me how he’d played everything on it because American session players are all muppets, and then four hours after he’d finished it, it was number one on iTunes. ‘And it still is!’ said Penny, his wife. ‘And top of the Billboard 100.’ For any record-maker, that’s a bull’s-eye.

I like that guy, Stephen Lipson. He’s had more number ones than just about anybody, and he’ll have plenty more, and still his name will remain obscure and that’s the way he likes it.

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