Big Star
#1 Record/Radio City
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NATN Recommended
Big Star
#1 Record/Radio City
Fantasy, 1972
RiYL: Music |
This despite the fact that the only Big Star song you'll ever hear on the radio is the Bangles' witless cover of "September Gurls." This despite the fact that their only television exposure is a recasting of "In the Street" performed as the "That '70s Show" theme by Cheap Trick (a band who might have the same status now had they been wise enough to break up after their third album as Big Star did). This despite the fact that the power pop revival movement of the '80s led by the Replacements (whose "Alex Chilton" is one of the least ambiguous rock hero worship songs ever) withered on the vine as commercial rock grew increasingly dependent on synthesizers and drum machines.
So why weren't Big Star forgotten? They were too good, basically. It's easy to read an interview with the frontman of some cocky young band, see a listing of obscure '60s and '70s reference points, and ignore it as assumed hipness for image's sake. But you keep seeing Big Star's name come up. Eventually, you buy the record. Inspired, you start your own band, become the frontman of a cocky, young new band and start name-dropping in interviews. And lo, the circle of life continues. But yeah, #1 Record and Radio City. These are some good albums.
The pair is now joined as one CD on Fantasy, and it's practically the only bad thing about either album. Heard in one 24-song stretch, the differences betweem the two albums' songs are harder to make out. Chris Bell, Big Star's founder, left the band after #1 Record, leaving co-songwriter Alex Chilton to carry on as a power trio with Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens. The band's sound doesn't entirely change, but as Chilton broadens his reach to replace Bell's contributions, unintended consequences abound, most of them magnificent.
#1 Record deserves to be heard on its own merits. Collecting Chilton from an aborted solo album (and before that the pedestrian Box Tops, who didn't write their own material or play their own instruments on record) and the rhythm section from a big pool of Memphis sessionmen, Chris Bell's Big Star was conceived as a commercial rock band. Bell tunes like "Feel" and "When My Baby's Beside Me" were based around simple chord changes and sturdy R&B riffs. Bell's lyrics fit the general good-time vibe. The ballads are left to Chilton, who gives the record some emotional depth on "The Ballad of El Goodo," with a country-western dimension appearing in the coda. Hummel's horrible "The India Song" provides contrast, if little else, and sets a requirement for each successive Big Star record to include one terrible sideman composition.
Listening to #1 Record, it's easy to see how the band failed to make it past one album in the Bell/Chilton configuration. Bell's voice is a thin, undistinguished tenor while Chilton, who broke into the business on the strength of his vocals, has a beautiful singing voice, great range, and a much better feeling for lyrics. Despite the two-songwriter setup, the album feels padded; the entire second half is pretty forgettable. Bell left for a romantic early death and Chilton carried on to make Radio City, Big Star's masterpiece and one of the greatest pop records ever made.
The introductory "O My Soul" makes clear Chilton's in control of the group and has a new vision for Big Star's music. Reverb-soaked guitar and aggressive drums rock for fully a minute before the vocals come in, something that Bell never would have allowed on the radio-minded #1 Record. Chilton's vocals have changed, too, still pretty but huskier and with witty lyrics that refer to Big Star's commercial failure and boldly promise to continue anyway. "O My Soul" is an amazingly upbeat song for its subject matter ("gonna get on up and drink 'til we drop") and as an album opener it's perfect, introducing the album's general theme of pulling at the conventions of pop until something taut, subversive, and wonderful emerges.
More or less every song on Radio City is great (except for the obligatory Hummel stillbirth, "Way Out West"), but it's worth giving special mention to the landmark "Back of a Car," "What's Going Ahn," which ups the ante on Chilton's #1 Record ballads with a nasty lead guitar part, "She's A Mover," with its Stax groove and sexy vocal, and the incredibly glorious "I'm In Love With a Girl," which is not quite two minutes long but might be the human race's greatest achievement to date. Oh, oh, and also "Daisy Glaze." And "Mod Lang." Almost forgot "You Get What You Deserve" -- what a chorus! "Mod Lang" gave its name to a record store in Berkeley I used to frequent. Oh, yes, "September Gurls" is on here too. Mercy.
My recommendation is to buy the joined CD and listen to Radio City first, then go back and examine the #1 Record material when you feel you have a good understanding of the classic second record. Trying to get through all of it in one go might poison your initial enjoyment of Radio City, one of the greatest albums ever made. After you've studied #1 Record, brace yourself for the variantly titled third Big Star album, which documents the collapse of a band, a record label, AND Alex Chilton's sanity all at once. For that reason some people view it as the best Big Star record. I disagree, but it's a yin-yang argument -- both records are great.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.