Music Review: Big Star - #1 Record/Radio City

Written by General Jabbo

Big Star is one of those bands whose massive influence never translated into massive success. Bands such as R.E.M. and the Replacements worshipped the ground these guys walked on, yet many music fans have never heard of them. The re-release of the band’s first two albums, #1 Record and Radio City on one CD aims to change that.

Singer/guitarist Alex Chilton cut his teeth as the singer of the Box Tops, who hit number one with “The Letter” in 1967. Frustrated at just being the mouthpiece (the band didn’t write their own material), Chilton quit and headed to New York before returning to his native Memphis. At the same time, his friend of many years, Chris Bell, had formed a trio with fellow future Big Star members Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens called Ice Water. After Chilton’s failure in New York, he was persuaded to join Ice Water, who quickly renamed themselves Big Star after a local grocery store chain.

While Memphis was known for blues, soul, and R&B, and much of the rest of the rock world featured much heavier tunes, Big Star’s sound was firmly rooted in 1960s pop. Bell’s love for the Beatles inspired the Bell/Chilton writing credit on every song ala Lennon/McCartney and the band sounded like mid-period Beatles meet the Byrds with a little of the Kinks for good measure. Not many bands sounded like this in 1972 or even wanted to, and that may have hurt Big Star at the time, but they were very good at what they did.

Their debut mixed Bell rockers such as “Feel,” with its Robert Plant-like vocals, the urgent ‘Don’t Lie To Me” and “In The Street” (known more recently from the fine Cheap Trick cover used on “That 70s Show”) with the more wistful Chilton numbers, including the George Harrison-sounding “The Ballad of El Goodo” and “Thirteen,” a look back at Chilton and Bell’s childhood. It’s a well-crafted, layered piece of pop perfection, with perhaps the only misstep being Hummel’s “The India Song.”

Article Author: Cinema Sentries

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