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| The inventors of harmony-drenched power-pop, Memphis-based Big Star were hugely influential. Led by the supremely talented Alex Chilton, the three albums they released during the 70s - #1 Record (1972), Radio City (1974) and Third/Sister Lovers (1978) – remain as fresh today as when they were recorded. |
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Chilton had tasted success with Memphis band The Box Tops when he was only 16, their single The Letter becoming a worldwide smash in 1966. A year after The Box Tops' 1970 split, Chilton teamed up with three members of anopther local band, Ice Water: Chris Bell (guitar/vocals), Andy Hummel (bass) and Jody Stephens (drums). Taking their name from a grocery store, Big Star were born.
Their debut album, #1 Record, was released in 1972. However, distribution problems with their label's parent company, Stax, meant that despite a warm critical reception it was largely unavailable in shops, and thus failed to sell. Meanwhile, simmering creative tensions within the band, with Bell wanting to make the band a studio-based project and Chilton preferring to play live, came to a head and Bell quit, with the band splitting shortly afterwards. Despite his undoubted talent, Bell would only go on to release one solo single - the stunning I Am The Cosmos - before he died in a 1978 car crash.
After the split, Chilton resumed his solo career, but Big Star reconvened as a three-piece within months and in 1974 released Radio City (although uncredited, Bell was involved with the writing of some of the material, according to Hummel). Distribution problems again hampered the album and Hummel quit.
Now reduced to a core of just Chilton and Stephens, Big Star went back into the studio in late 1974 and recorded a session of beautiful but impossibly bleak songs, but before the material could be released, the band imploded. The album finally appeared in 1978, known variously as Third or Sister Lovers (Chilton and Stephens had been seeing sisters at the time).
During the 80s, Big Star became one of the names to drop among indie bands, with R.E.M., The Replacements and Primal Scream all citing them as an influence. And in 1993, there was a long-awaited reunion, with Chilton and Stephens being joined by two members of The Posies for a tour. But it wasn't until 2005 that the fourth Big Star album - In Space - finally got a release, 27 years after their third.
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#1 Record
Ardent, 1972
Stunning debut reimagines The Beatles.
Modelling themselves very much on Lennon and McCartney, the songwriting team of Chris Bell and Alex Chilton hit the ground running on Big Star's debut album. From the proto-power-pop of opener Feel and the strident When My Baby’s Beside Me to the jangling Watch The Sunrise and Thirteen's tale of young love, the material is uniformly excellent. Best of all is the epic The Ballad Of El Goodo, which with its “at my side is God” refrain showed that the Devil doesn’t quite have all the best songs.
Download: The Ballad Of El Goodo Customer
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Radio City
Ardent, 1974
Guitarist quits; inspiration doesn’t.
Although Chris Bell had quit the band after the commercial failure of #1 Record, he still had some songwriting input on Radio City, particularly on Back Of A Car. While not as overtly poppy as its predecessor, the album doesn’t suffer any for his absence, with the harmony-drenched September Gurls – their best known song and a very obvious inspiration for Bandwagonesue-era Teenage Fanclub – Way Out West and the delicate I’m In Love With A Girl all standing out. Elsewhere What’s Going Ahn introduces a darker side that would be more fully explored on their third album.
Download: September Gurls
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Third/Sister Lovers
Rykodisc
Desolate yet beautiful posthumous affair.
By the time their unfinished third album finally surfaced in 1978, Big Star were long gone, having split in 1975. With the band down to a nucleus of two – Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens – Third/Sister Lovers is not a coherent listen, with no two releases agreeing on the album’s tracklisting or even the name (it’s also sometimes known as Beale Street Green). But it does contain some of the most harrowing songs ever recorded, with the despairing Holocaust, Kanga Roo, Dream Lover and Nighttime in particular standing out.
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In Space
Rykodisc
Not worth the 27-year wait.
Despite having re-formed in 1993 (with Posies Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow joining Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens) for sporadic touring, it took until 2005 for Big Star to get around to releasing their fourth album. Sadly – perhaps inevitably - it was no match for their 70s output, coming across far more in the style of Chilton’s patchy solo material. Only Best Chance and February’s Quiet hark back to past glories. Elsewhere, Love Revolution is a horribly misguided disco number. An album best avoided.
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» CONTENDERS 30 TO 21
» CONTENDERS 21 TO 10
» CONTENDERS 10 TO 1
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