Obscurity! reviews Big Star

There are books on Big Star. Read them, or read the bio on the VU and remove all the details. Also, I'm going to dispense with my normal approach with these reviews.

Fine: Chilton had a decent career that wound up in the late 60s, and he joined some local Memphis musicians to form Big Star - who have a claim at the best power-pop group of all time. Big Star was only one of a couple of groups releasing material in this vein on the doomed Ardent label, recording in the same studio (Cargoe, the pre-Big Star Rock City, and the Hot Dogs also being involved). Troubled guitarist/singer Bell quit after their first album, their second went nowhere, and the bassist quit. Down to only two people (Chilton and Stephens) the duo started recording a third album, which was abandoned in 1974. Chilton went solo, and Big Star's last attempts were released four years later to much acclaim. Since then, Bell made a bunch of solo recordings, but unfortunately died; Stephens works at the recording studio in Memphis; Hummel became an aerospace engineer, and Chilton embarked on a careening solo career that has a tepid reputation.

The band reunited in the 1990s, if by "reunited" you mean Chilton + Stephens + two guys from the Posies.

Big Star: Chris Bell (guitar, vocals), Alex Chilton (guitar, vocals), Jody Stephens (drums), Andy Hummel (bass). Bell left 1972, and Hummel quit in 1974. John Lightman replaced Hummel for some live shows.

The Box Tops: The Letter (1967)
Chilton's soul group, often just him and session players. The title track was a big hit.

Alex Chilton: 1970 (rec. 1970, rel. 1996)
The remains of Chilton's solo sessions before he joined Big Star.

Rock City (rec. 1969-70, rel. 2003)
Bell and Stephens, along with Thomas Dean Eubanks (guitar, bass) and Terry Manning (keyboards).

Big Star: #1 Record (1972), ****
Every time a band like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Tapes 'N Tapes makes it big thanks to word-of-mouth, think of this: both the Velvet Underground and Big Star gained fame even though there were few copies of the albums to hear until they were reissued in the early 1980s. Big Star was one of the first American power-pop bands, and arguably the best. They were sincere: singing about broken loves, the lives of teenagers, probably their own lives. Their sound was based on the Beatles, the Kinks, the Byrds, and anyone who could be earnest without devolving into a whine. Part of their secret lies in production - never have guitars glittered so, and the vocal harmonies, additional percussion give an overall feeling of hard work until completion. There's a divide between the harder power-pop which makes Badfinger look like professional hacks ("Feel", "When My Baby's Beside Me", "In The Street", "Don't Lie To Me" are all highlights), and more poignant, often acoustic, songs ("Ballad of El Goodo" which just glistens, "Thirteen", "Watch the Sunrise"). The albums sort of trails off towards the end, with some lesser songs (the second-rate flower-era "The India Song", "Try Again", "Give Me Another Chance") all tending more towards their lighter sound. Even so, they do all the little things right - the tambourines, the noisy break in "Don't Lie To Me", sparse use of keyboards, and the guitar solos. Granted, Chilton's vocals are much stronger than Chris Bell's, but Bell is often singing about frustration or trying to assure himself, and his vocals work well in those situations. But my God, they had an ability to capture adolescence with the folky "Thirteen", or the bored teenagers with "In The Street". Everybody has been there - driving around your little town at night with nothing to do, felt like they have to keep trying in the face of failure, or wanted to yell "don't lie to me!" These were ordinary kids, making damn fine music.

Big Star: Radio City (1974), *****
Radio City is several things: it is uplifting, honest, heart wrenching, and lovely. Bell left, off to fulfill his tragic destiny, and Chilton scaled back the acoustic, putting more power in the power-pop. The result is music with the Stones' brawn and grit, but firmly within pop's realm ("Life is White", "Mod Lang"). Radio City still built on #1 Record; it has teenage anthems ("Back of a Car", "September Gurls"), and concludes with direct and honest solo acoustic song ("I'm in Love with a Girl"). Chilton was ever devoted to the Beatles, and some of the slower, less guitar-oriented songs have the mystical daze of the late Beatles around them ("Daisy Glaze", the charming "Morpha Too"). Since I cannot really do Radio City justice, (and indeed, there have been many words on the subject written elsewhere), I just want to briefly mention a few factors in Big Star's genius. One is their relationship with Ardent Studios, where they recorded. The other albums power-pop that came out of the studio at this time (Cargoe, and the Hot Dogs' Say What You Mean) also had the same finely tuned production. The band's close relationship allowed the studio to perfect their sound further, in the studio itself, a luxury which few bands had. The other is Jody Stephens' drum style, which is bouncier, more varied and a bit more forceful (and as a consequence, more interesting) than his compatriots in Badfinger or the Stories, to name a few. It seems that a lot of power-pop drummers tried to update Ringo's style for the 70s, using a fuller but still basic sound, while Stevens' playing has more depth. Whatever the elements, Radio City was the crucible in which the band crystallized.

So many conflicting emotions, all strong; so many mixed internal signals. #1 Record reflects the teenage conundrum; Radio City is the condition itself.

Big Star: Live (rec. 1974, rel. 1992), **1/2
Big Star never sold enough records to merit a live album during their existence, but in 1974 they did a live in the studio session for a Long Island radio station. Big Star fans will want Live, but it is nothing essential. Just a trio (with John Lightman on bass) the set lasts under fifty minutes. No real surprises in Chilton's selections: mostly drawn from Radio City and nothing from their to-be-recorded album. Chilton breaks out a mini acoustic set in the middle with "Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," "I'm in Love with a Girl" and the album's lone surprise: Louden Wainwright III's "Motel Blues." Their performance is fine, but doesn't deviate much from the studio recordings.

An exhausted Author who wrote operas was ordered by his doctor to move to a small town to relax. After arriving, within days the town elders visited him. They asked him to write an opera to close their old opera house, which was scheduled for demolition. After hearing their request, the Author mulled it over for a few minutes, smiled and agreed. Several months later, he gave the completed libretto to the town elders, and asked for control of the production. The libretto was a bit rough in spaces, but the town elders readily gave the Author all the assistance he asked for, such a great Author would likely never visit their town again. Finally, a few more months of rehearsals the town elders were invited to the dress rehearsal.

The elders went to the opera house, and watched. The music, which they had not seen entirely, fought with the singers. Musical non-sequiters abounded. The production made the opera as much about the artifice of production as about the story itself. The main character now appeared more as an actor tired of doing the audience's bidding. The town appeared, as did several characters similar to the elders (they argued amongst themselves over who represented who later). When it was finished, the elders argued over whether the tone of the work was either indifferent or sneakily sarcastic. Some wanted to confront the Author, but he left before they could talk to him. All felt it was a fiasco which would make them the laughingstock of the area.

Aghast, they burnt down the opera house that night. Even so, they all kept copies of the score for the opera, because it was compellingly curious, even if unpresentable.

You may hardly recognize Big Star on Third/Sister Lovers: the band sounds transformed. Hummel had left, Chilton's drug use slurred his vocals, and the band's previous perfectionist simplicity was replaced by sundry outside sounds: strings, female backing vocals, honking saxophones. Sure, Third/Sister Lovers is a power-pop album more or less, but a deranged one. Chilton was messing with pop's templates and creating moods, rather than recording any sustained band performance. Their previous work was credibly created live; T/SL's interwoven pieces would be a hindrance. The electric power-pop songs have messy strains of madness ("You Can't Have Me", "Kizza Me", "Thank You Friends") and Chilton's ballads are transformed into ragged voiced chamber-pop ("Stroke It Noel", "Blue Moon", "Take Care"). At the other end, Big Star never sounded so numb and down before - the solipsistic extension of previous moods like "Dazy Glaze" comes on slow, bleak tracks like "Big Black Car" or "Holocaust." Except for Stephens' "For You", the whole album feels like Chilton couldn't decide whether to walk away or keep on working. He was tired of giving himself and having it not be noticed - "Get me out of here, I hate it here" he sings in a quiet moment. This corrosive uncertainly leads Third/Sister Lovers to have the same stand-offish feel of many artists who have turned their back on the mainstream, compounded with the outpouring of one man's filtered mind. Their previous album's had a pure feeling to them, as Bell and Chilton outpoured, but with T/SL, Chilton's whole approach had changed; songs deal with frustration ("Thank You Friends", "You Can't Have Me"), or with have a mocking tone ("Jesus Christ"). Velvet Underground sounds come through as well, not only with a cover of "Femme Fatale"¹ but in the feedback guitar part in "Kangaroo", and the album's general pattern of cultural interference. Some of the work also resembles another disturbed un-hero - Syd Barrett - not only Chilton's slacker vocals, but the disquieting slide parts on songs like "Holocaust." Chilton was not seeing things right, or thinking things clearly, the same sort of quirkiness that inhabits Barrett or Alexander Spence's work. Chilton wasn't that far out there, but compared with their previous albums, he's on the moon. The album was never really finished (how could it have been?) and was released in 1978.

Chris Bell: I am the Cosmos (rec. 1970s, rel. 1992)
Solo recordings, assembled postmortem.

Alex Chilton has released a bunch of solo albums, which I don't feel like listing, because I have not heard them.

Big Star: Columbia: Live at Missouri University (1993)
The first of two albums with Posies for Bell and Hummel.

1Although Big Star covering the VU is enough to make a coolness meter explode, in theory it could be topped if Big Star had covered Syd Barrett's version of Joyce's "Golden Hair."