Big Star are a nice little footnote in rock history. Featuring guitarist/vocalist/main songwriter Alex Chilton (with guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens rounding out the "classic" lineup), Big Star put out a couple of nice "power pop" albums in the early 70s but were the unfortunate victims of incompetent marketing that prevented their albums from getting the exposure they deserved. The band flamed out in '74 after those two albums, released a posthumous album in '78, saw its individual members either go on to solo careers of mixed success or just disappear (Bell died in a car accident at age 27 after recording a solo album that would be released later, Hummel decided not to pursue music after Big Star, and Stephens kept the band name alive for money, such as it was), and reunited for a single album about 30 years later. Their first two albums consist of pop music ranging from pretty good to occasionally great, but they're not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and there's no reason I can't just do really quick tossoff reviews of their albums, since nobody would care otherwise.
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WHAT DO YOU MEAN PEOPLE LOVE THIS BAND????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While my gut reaction towards the group has always been that they're nice but basically inessential (and this is a feeling that held for many years before writing this page), there's no escaping the fact that most people familiar with them have tended to put them on a very high pedestal, and so it's necessary for me to give this elevation the thorough examination it deserves. While the band had almost no commercial success when it was together (a sad fact that by all accounts accelerated the band's collapse), it developed a sizable cult following by the early 80s, just in time for a bunch of post-punk bands to cite them as an influence. By the time the 90s hit, the band was regularly being cited as an influence for bands in the "alternative" genre, and the band suddenly and retroactively reached the pantheon level for gobs of rock fans and historians (despite, among other things, putting out so few albums). It's extremely common to find #1 Record and Radio City ranked pretty high in lists of the greatest rock albums ever, and it's not uncommon to find somebody defending Third/Sister Lovers as an underrated masterpiece. True, the band is still mostly unknown among mainstream rock listeners, but among people "in the know," not loving them is a pretty good way to lose "cool points" in a hurry.
Well, I've never really been one to care about "cool points," but while I don't come close to sharing in the general love-fest towards the band, I also find reverence towards the band fairly understandable, for better or worse. One idea I've never seen mentioned, but that seems pretty obvious to me, is that the band's gross mismanagement by Stax makes them extremely sympathetic and even a beacon of hope for bands whose careers never quite took off as expected. That is, if your favorite band (or maybe a band you're in) doesn't achieve any level of commercial success, and blame needs to be assigned somewhere, the fact that Big Star's distribution company actively sabotaged their attempts at commercial success creates a strong enough precedent to justify whatever conspiracy theory one can come up with of why their own band didn't make it. Plus, the fact that Big Star ended up influential and revered many years after their dissolution is enough to create hope for other bands that they too could be rediscovered in years to come and finally be recognized as the geniuses they really are.
(Interestingly, I discovered a couple of days after writing this paragraph that a Pitchfork review of the first two albums said something nearly identical. I swear that I didn't plagiarize them)
It's not just their position as a ready-made symbol of outside forces in conspiracy to squash great music that gives them such appeal, though. Big Star fits in perfectly with a certain narrative of the history of rock music that's been embraced by a large number of people: after the 60s ended, rock music lost its way and became too big and bloated to be enjoyed by unpretentious people, with only a small number of bands carrying the torch of "real" rock music until punk and post-punk bands were able to bring rock back to its senses, with 90s alternative bands and indie rock bands from various eras leading the way. While many groups were losing connection with reality and "progressing" for its own sake (and while people were buying these albums so as to stay in step with the changing fashions), Big Star was writing "real" rock songs about "real" topics for "real" people. In addition, they took their main influences (these guys clearly LOVED The Beatles, The Byrds and, to a slightly lesser extent, The Kinks), mixed them with contemporary 70s influences to create a style all their own (despite the fact that Chilton sounds uncannily like Roger McGuinn, I actually find it rather unfair to dismiss them as a weak knock-off of their predecessors, and that is certainly not a significant factor in me rating them lower than many others would), and in the process showed a solid template for transferring the lessons of the past from one musical generation to the next. Given these notions, it would seem that regarding Big Star as an entity of greatness beyond its limited output would be a reasonable action.
So what's my problem? Well, for starters, while it might be to Big Star's credit that they were such a strong influence on indie rock and on the 90s alternative scene, it's an unfortunate fact that my total boredom with 90s alternative rock was the main factor that prevented me from getting into rock music until I was 15, and that drove me almost exclusively into the world of classic rock (and yes, prog rock) for a good while. A large part of the reason I eventually bought the #1 Record/Radio City two-fer was that I was interested in hearing some of the lauded roots of this genre that I remembered keeping me away from rock music for so long; unfortunately, as clearly 70s as that disc might have been, it was impossible for me to escape the basic sense of boredom I'd experienced years before with the genre descended from it. As you'll see below, I escaped a bunch of that boredom, but definitely not all of it.
A large chunk of this boredom, then, is that I don't feel anywhere near as much emotional resonance as is clearly intended to be felt in the music produced by the band. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy basic 60s-style guitar-rock plenty, and I feel plenty of connection with the best of early Beatles, Stones, Byrds etc., but there's something I find weirdly sterile and off-putting about a lot of the music from the first two Big Star albums (I'm leaving Third/Sister Lovers out of this discussion because that album has its own issues). When I read that "Thirteen" is regarded as an all-time great ballad, I can't help but think that this is sadly hilarious; I had tons of pain and torment in my adolesence, but it sure didn't have anything to do with the kind of bland problems and perspective depicted in this song. "Thirteen" (however perfectly decent the melody might be) is a good symbol of the main problem I have with most Big Star songs, namely that the lyrics, while superficially giving a survey of what it's like to be a young person with whatever problems, end up sounding like they were written by people whose only experience with being a young person with problems and hopes was through sitcoms and mediocre 'coming of age" movies. Aside from something like the breathtaking "Watch the Sunrise," there's no major indication of an awareness of the outside world or of anything beyond the extremely tangible and literal (at least when The Ramones took this approach they did it in an incredibly cartoonish manner, whereas the cartoonish aspects of Big Star seem very unintentional for a band that sounds so weirdly earnest), and this prevents me from feeling much resonance with most of their material (though again, there are exceptions).
So without the lyrics, there's just the music, and aside from some small wrinkles, the first two albums are somewhat monolithic. If you dig the style you'll love it, and if you're like me you'll have a small number of favorites and not care much about the rest. The third album changes things up a little bit, of course, but it has its own problems, even if it's still somewhat enjoyable. And the fourth, well, nobody cares about the fourth.
All this may make it seem like I dislike Big Star, but that's too strong a statement; even if I don't feel a lot of love for the band, they still have some nice songs, and at worst they make for some nice background. The highlights and general decency of the rest of #1 Record make it a minor classic, and the fact that the debut and Radio City are most easily found on the same CD probably makes that an essential addition to a serious collection of rock music. Given that my feelings for the band don't go beyond considering the debut very good (sometimes great) and the next two pretty good, though, it's impossible for this band to get any more than a one from me. Perhaps had they been given a chance to stick around for longer, they could be a band I'd rate higher, but I can only judge what actually exists.
What do you think of Big Star?
Best song: The Ballad Of El Goodo, When My Baby's Beside Me or Watch The Sunrise
The rockers sometimes sound kinda goofy, but they're quite good on the whole. The most famous of the lot is "In the Street," made famous by Cheap Trick's cover (for That 70's Show), but it's definitely my least favorite; it has nice guitar lines and high energy and all, but the lyrics and the vocals drive me bonkers. Much better in this vein is the opening "Feel," with some great builds from soft into loud, some of the most effective Beatles-style backing harmonies on the album, great horn parts and fun guitar all over the place. "Don't Lie to Me" makes for some great up-tempo screamy angry blues-rock, "My Life is Right" has some amazing high-pitched harmonies in the verses to serve as a counter to the more rocking chorus, and "When My Baby's Beside Me" has to be close to a perfect power pop song. Maybe it's basically all of the band's 60s rock influences dumped into a single song, but the world needs more great songs in this vein, with brutally efficient riffs coming together with a verse and chorus like this one.
Anyway, the ballads are where the album shines most. "The India Song" is a ludicrous throwaway, and "Give Me Another Chance" slides out my ears even as I'm listening to it (I can tell that the lyrics are supposed to be ultra-resonant, but ugh, I feel like these should belong to a really mediocre country song), but the rest are really nice. Yes, even "Thirteen," as silly as the lyrics strike me, has some awfully lovely acoustic guitar parts, and the melody carries an effective air of nostalgia with it. Much better, of course, is "The Ballad of El Goodo," where the band does a nearly perfect Byrds homage in the choral vocals but gives the song their own flavor through things like the slightly phased guitar bits and the unexpected "Hold on, hold on..." twist in the middle. "Try Again" is a really nice bit of folkish country with gospel lyrics (they're as resonant as anything on the album, with the possible exception of the next song), and those pedal-steel (at least, that's what I assume they are) guitar bits are awfully moving. If a gun were put to my head, though, I'd definitely have to pick "Watch the Sunrise" as my favorite; multiple great acoustic guitar lines + my favorite Roger McGuinn 2.0 vocals of the album + charming lyrics of awe at the beauty of the world around you = one hell of a great song. Why couldn't this song have become their calling card instead of "Thirteen" or "In the Street?"
Of course, the album weirdly ends on a total anti-climax with "ST 100/6," a minute of atmospheric vocals and guitars; it's nice enough, but why not extend it out into a full song? Ah well, it's still a debut album, and they had time to figure out that it's not really a good idea to do things like this (was ending on a note like this supposed to be an Abbey Road homage?). It's too bad they didn't really get the chance.
Best song: Ehn ... maybe You Get What You Deserve
Honestly, the circumstances of the album made it unlikely for it to surpass the first one. After the debut didn't sell, the band actually broke up out of frustration, and even when they reunited Chris Bell didn't come back. While Bell left behind some material, this nonetheless left Chilton to collaborate with Hummel (the guy who wrote the worst song on the debut, "The India Song") and a couple of session musicians in order to come up with material for the rest. Granted, great albums have been made in worse circumstances than these, and many people like to say something to the effect of "The tension of the sessions gives a tension to the material," but what I end up hearing is material that's much less memorable and much more awkward than I'd want or expect. There are plenty of good ideas, but those ideas are generally either less developed than I'd prefer or shoehorned in with lesser ideas in bizarre ways. Combine this problem with lyrics that irritate me pretty much any time that I bother to listen to them, and you get a product that makes me consider giving this an even lower grade.
And yet, song for song, only "Morpha Too" (a weird underproduced piano number near the end) and maybe "What's Going Ahn" (a boring acoustic plod, aside from a nice descending guitar line in its more emotional moments) strike me as a total waste. The only songs that seem borderline great to me are the dark rocker "You Get What You Deserve" (there are some nice riffs in there) and the pleasantly poppy "September Gurls," but it's not like there's anything especially wrong with stompers like "Life is White" or "Mod Lang" or a pop ballad like "Way Out West" other than seeming a little boring to me (well, and that Hummel is just not an effective lead vocalist at all). The other songs, though, each have some aspect that makes me furrow my brow a bit. "Back of a Car" has some really nice guitar lines and could have been made into a classic, but shouldn't it be less sluggish? "O My Soul" is definitely an interesting statement, what with the awkward-yet-strangely-effective keyboards, or the way weird white-boy funk gets combined with conventional power pop to make a groove unlike any other I can think of, but 5:40 is waaaay too long for this track. "Daisy Glaze" becomes an incredible bolt of upbeat poppy greatness in the second half, but it's surprisingly dull in the first half; "She's a Mover" sounds like a potential classic for about 15 seconds (and whenever that original idea comes up again) and then turns an okayish mid-tempo plodder. And finally the closing acoustic "I'm in Love With a Girl" is kinda charming, but while some may dig how underdeveloped it is, it seems like another wasted opportunity to me, not to mention a bizarre way to end an album.
So yeah, I definitely like the album more than not, and there are plenty of great moments ... but there are lots of albums I can say that about. Clearly there's something in this album that must hit emotional centers hard for some people, but if not finding some deep spiritual connection with "Mod Lang" means I haven't truly experienced life, then so be it. I'll still be content.
Best song: Kizza Me or Till The End Of The Day
Eventually, this became an album with a major cult following, and I can definitely see the reasons. Even if I like this album less than Radio City, I feel like the potential for this album greatly exceeds the potential for that album, and might exceed that of the debut. After all, I'm more likely to lean towards eccentric pop music than straight-ahead power pop, and I definitely feel a lot more emotion I can connect with in the messy ambiguities of this album than in the "I can't get a license to drive in my car!" or "Won't you tell your dad, 'Get off my back?'" directness of the first couple of albums. Unfortunately, while the album seems like an awesome experience on paper, I find that it gets pretty boring and samey (a weird thing given how messy it is at the same time) as it goes on. When I listen to this album, the imagery my mind associates with it is floating in a dreary bog, and while this is neat given that I can't think of other albums that prompt this imagery, I'd also have to say that there aren't a lot of pieces of driftwood for me to cling onto in the second half. "You Can't Have Me" is a notable exception, fusing a fascinating bubbly tone in the bass, some wailing saxophone, some disconcerting backing vocals and a drum groove that becomes incredibly entertaining in the second half, but the rest of the second half is songs that are kinda interesting individually but don't really work together (then again, I'm not sure any of the songs were necessarily intended to work well with any of the other songs).
The first half has some clear highlights, though, and it also benefits most from the initial novelty of having such a strange sound on a Big Star album. The opening "Kizza Me" is angry, confused passion in both lyrics and music, with Chilton's "I wanna WHITE OUT" and "I wanna feel you, deep inside! Kizza me!" pleas buoyed by a bizarre mix of guitar and piano. "Thank You Friends" could have been a conventional pop-rocker in another context, but the combination of the female backing vocals and Chilton's weirdly passive-aggressive put-downs of people around him pretty much annhilates any commercial potential for it (but gives it a lot of charm). "Big Black Car" combines "traditional" Big Star lyrics with a morose, almost ambient vamp; "Jesus Christ" serves as inspiration for a legion of future indie-pop bands (Chilton makes an upbeat song featuring the chorus, "Jesus Christ was born today! Jesus Christ was born!" just because he can); "O, Dana" unexpectedly becomes a pretty happy pop song, and "Holocaust" immediately makes things a downer again with a piano-based song (with mournful quiet guitar parts in the background) that culminates in the lines, "You're a wasted face/You're a sad-eyed lie/You're a holocaust." I'm not thrilled with the "Femme Fatale" cover stuck in the middle of the side (the backing vocals don't really help things, and besides I still feel like only Nico should sing it), but then again, can the 70s get more indie rock than Big Star covering a Velvet Underground song? It fits into the whole, so that's at least something.
The bonus tracks, added to the original to try and create something like "the originally intended" version of the album, aren't amazing on the whole, but I'm definitely a great fan of the cover of "Till the End of the Day" by The Kinks. It's by far the best choice for a Kinks cover to include on this album; the original is peppy and energetic on the surface, but the pep is purposefully forced and a mask for a weariness with the world, and this cover preserves that feel. Plus, I like the touch of using the introduction to "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" by The Who: it's a fun contrast to have the introduction to an all-time "Look out world, here I come!" song turn into a "Fine, world, you win" song. Of the other songs, the closing cover of "Whole Lotta Shaking Going On" by The Loving Spoonful is kinda fun, but other than the weird "Downs" (where Chilton seemingly does everything he can to ruin the song but just makes it more interesting), I don't feel like they boost the album's quality much.
In the end, my feelings on the album are muddled and confused, and I give it a matching rating, but I kinda feel like that's appropriate for the album. Honestly, I'm not sure to whom I would recommend this album, yet I feel like it's such a bizarre experience that everybody should hear it a couple of times. Get it if you're curious.
Best song: Lady Sweet
Pretty much the only song worth coming back to repeatedly is "Lady Sweet," a mellow/bittersweet power pop ballad that rivals anything the band did during the 70s (even the major highlights on the debut). Once the chorus comes in with that glorious melody and those angelic harmonies (different from before, and honestly I don't actually know who is singing lead here, but I don't really care) start singing "And I might as well be losing sleep for all the good it would do me ..." I'm in heaven. Pop perfection, that's what this is, and the "Can't you see that I'm free to choose?/And I choose Lady Sweet" part near the end is an amazingly resonant bit for me.
Power pop fans hoping that "Lady Sweet" is a sign of other great things to come will be disappointed, though. Unless somebody has an addiction to Chilton's voice or a strong love for The Posies, this will inevitably come across on the whole as a mix of pleasantly decent but forgettable pop music and diverse excursions into silly tackiness. NOBODY needs something in their collection as ridiculous as the never-ending "Love Revolution," a lite-pop-funk groove that couldn't be made by anybody who actually still gets what makes for good pop music, or the band's really awkward cover (using guitar/bass/drums) of an old classical piece ("Aria, Largo") by Georg Muffat, or whatever the hell the closing "Makeover" is trying to be. Knowing in advance that the band wasn't going to make any serious attempt to recover its past helps cushion the blow, of course, but I feel like the only keepers aside from "Lady Sweet' are the opening "Dony" (which sounds a little bit like "Radio City-by-numbers"), the bouncy "Turn My Back on the Sun" (which momentarily steals blatantly from The Beach Boys but backs away before it becomes a major groaner) and the cover of an old song called "Mine Exclusively," done here as solid upbeat guitar pop.
Perhaps one could make the argument that an album with these highlights and with only a couple of serious embarrassments should get a higher grade, but the album just feels way too pointless for me to regard it highly or enjoy it much, so it gets a mediocre grade. Obviously, most fans of the band felt the same way, and fairly low sales were compounded by seemingly most fans forgetting this existed within a pretty short while. Regardless, I'd recommend that any fan of the band (and even people who don't love the band) hunt down "Lady Sweet," and if getting this album for $1 is the best legal way to do so, I wouldn't discourage it. Knowing that this is the last new material the band could ever produce (Chilton died a few years later, and Stephens stopped touring the band as Big Star around that time) gives it at least some heft, too.
*#1 Record - 1972 Ardent*
B
(Very Good)
Radio City - 1974 Ardent
9
(Good)
Third/Sister Lovers - 1978 PVC
8
(Good / Mediocre)
In Space - 2005 Rykodisc
6
(Mediocre)