Big Star
“Big Star is an alt-rock fan’s wet dream.” – Capn Marvel
“I could either finish college and go lead a more or less normal life or I could drop out and go on tour with a band I'd been in several years that had yet to make a red cent. Tough choice! I was tired of being broke.” – Andy Hummel
Albums Reviewed:
Big Star are one of those bands whose current popularity depends largely on their original unpopularity. A “cult band,” if you will, like Television or REO Speedwagon. As with many of these “cult bands,” they acquired a legendary sort of cache that makes you think they’re the great lost secret of rock and roll until you finally get around to listening to their albums are summarily marginally underwhelmed (Television are an exception, of course, because Marquee Moon is one of the ten greatest albums ever made and all). You know…this is it? This is the legendary Big Star? It’s pretty good! But why is my mind not blown?
Big Star are the definition of a good, solid, very nice band. Their records are snappy, pleasant, consistently good, and sporadically excellent. They play nice, catchy, frequently jangly guitar pop that takes its cues from pre-Revolver sixties pop/rock and didn’t sell principally because their kind of basic, catchy guitar pop wasn’t the hotness in the early-mid seventies. I wouldn’t even call them “indie rock before indie existed” or some such thing like I labeled Television. For their first two albums, they were a commercial guitar pop band that just happened to come along at the wrong time for their perfectly pleasant, unpretentious, melodic type of music. Despite their purportedly massive influence on modern indie rock and the like, I don't even find them all that interesting either, and I find the degree to which Alex Chilton got all pissy when the band’s first two albums didn’t sell downright ridiculous. I very much like this band, but I don’t see how anyone could really love this band.
Big Star
started out as a four-piece with singer/guitarist/songwriter Alex Chilton (who
had been a one-hit wonder in the sixties with a band called the “Box Tops,” I’m
told), guitarist/songwriter Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody
Stephens. Chris got all pissy at Alex
and left after #1 Record, then Andy
decided he didn’t want to be poor anymore and left after
In your picture above are, from left, Andy, Jody, Chris, and Alex. I may have gotten Andy and Jody mixed up, but I’m pretty sure I’m good there. Also, Kobe Bryant sucks.
And, onto the reviews!
Mike Noto (thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:
These reviews were
interesting and good. You certainly took a different tack about them than
most. Four things I want to point out:
1) Regarding "Third" - I think that the story goes like
this: Chilton was already depressed during "Radio City" because
of how badly "#1 Record" had stiffed, due to one of the worst record
distribution schemes in rock history, and, since this was the '70's,
he had problems with booze and coke. When "Radio City" sold even worse
than "#1 Record" had, he went really hardcore into booze and
coke and made "Third" (as a solo album; the Big Star label only got
slapped on it when it was released, cause Jody Stephens was on it) with
the attitude that "fuck it, no one's going to hear this anyway"
and was really really angry. He'd actually intended it to be a double
album, if you can believe that, but money ran out before he could
realize his original intentions (though everyone who worked on that
album was so wasted while making it that I doubt Chilton remembers
what his original intentions were). Before Big Star, as a
teen he'd been the lead singer in a little teen-idol band called
the Box Tops that got manipulated by their managers left and right...so I think
that "Third" was a culmination of a lot of things and that he
basically made that album as a gigantic fuck off to everyone, including
himself.
2) "O My Soul" is a fucking awesome and funky guitar-pop
song. I know the solos aren't flashy or anything, but come on, they sound so
good! Possibly my favorite Big Star song from possibly my favorite Big
Star album.
3) I actually like "Kanga Roo" a lot. There is a beautiful song
hidden underneath the Mellotrons and feedback, and Alex's vocals are great. (At
least to me, I know it's all subjective.)
4) I know you must be sick of Big Star by now, but seriously, check out
the Chris Bell compilation of solo material called "I Am The
Cosmos," which he made before dying in 1978 in a car accident. I'm in
the minority on this, but it's definitely better than "Third",
mainly cause it combines the structure and pop melody of "#1 Record"
with at least as much depression and rage that "Third" had
(Bell's problems made Chilton's look like small potatoes - he was in the
closet about being either gay or bi, and he was also a devout Christian
with addictions to bourbon and heroin). The song "You and Your
Sister" has Chilton singing backing vocals on it and it is
truly spectacular.
thanks for reviewing them.
#1 Record (1972)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “The
Ballad Of El Goodo”
It’s amazing how I have just as
little time to review records right now as I did during the semester. How is that possible, you ask? Well, it’s easy. I’m a soccer fiend! So I have to watch every match of Euro 2008
live and in its entirety, right? Of
course! And I’m also a
The upshot of having no time amidst my many time-consuming waste-of-time hobbies (not including the relationship, which is most definitely not a waste of time), as well as living in LA and driving everywhere in my smog dust-covered car, is that I think I’ve listened to this album (and its follow-up) more times prior to review than any album ever reviewed on this site (not counting stuff like Nirvana that I’ve had in my possession since I was 10). The reason for this is that the CD burner on my computer basically doesn’t work anymore, and it stopped successfully burning CD’s around the time I had just finished burning the first two smoking hot Big Star records of meaty pop-rock stew onto one delicious CD-R, which means that everything I’ve downloaded after these records is stuck on my computer and therefore not on a CD in my car! And so I listen to Big Star any time I go anywhere! I swear I’ve listened to this album at least 6 million times. Thus, I’ve never been more prepared to make a judgment about an album than I am right now to judge Big Star’s famous #1 Record, and so my epic pronouncement: it’s pretty good.
Seriously! I defy anyone to say anything more earth-shattering than that. Big Star aren’t indie-rock cult gods because they were one of those greatest pop bands of all time, but because no one bought their records. Who knows, maybe Alex Chilton would’ve turned into Elton John or Bono if #1 Record had sold five million copies instead of five hundred. Not likely, but the point is Big Star are a perfectly regular Beatles/Byrds/etc.-influenced pop-rock band that happened to sell records to no one not related to them, and thus they’re a cult act now. This is not meant to criticize Big Star in any way, since I think both of their first two albums are pretty sweet and definitely worthy additions to one’s record collection. It’s just that anyone going into #1 Record or Radio City expecting some sort of life-altering experience is gonna be disappointed. If you like sixties pop-rock and jangly guitars and have always wondered what R.E.M. like to listen to, though, Big Star are pretty aces.
And so, the songs. This record seems pretty neatly divvied up into a chunk of hot pop-rock sweetly melodic jangle guitar action and another of pretty acoustic balladry. Except for “Thirteen” (the best of the acoustic numbers), which is jammed between “In the Street” and “Don’t Lie to Me” a third of the way through the album, the rockers start the album and continue through its mid-section, while the balladry brings it to a close. In theory one could also consider the totally out-of-place “The India Song,” but no one else seems to, due mainly to its not being good at all, and so I’m just gonna go ahead and skip over it.
The label most often applied to Big Star is “power-pop,” but to label this album in its entirety as such would do it a disservice (and this is before considering whatever the hell “The India Song” is supposed to be). The opening “Feel” seems like glam-rock to me, all honking saxes and tinkly pianos and confident swagger and whatnot (strangely, it’s also the only song in the Big Star catalog to contain honking saxes and tinkly pianos), and so does the stomping “Don’t Lie To Me” (which adds to its glam credentials by having a grand total of one lyric). Much of the rest is simply lovely, melodic guitar pop. I’m not sure how appropriate the term “power”-anything would be to “The Ballad of El Goodo,” but considering it’s one of the best songs Big Star ever recorded, I don’t think I mind. It’s very deliberate in its charms, in its subtly melodic jangle guitars and great drum fills in the chorus (*Ba-da-da-da…da-dum*). It’s amazing to think that there was no room on radio for such a perfect pop song in 1972, but oh well. I guess pretty guitar pop wasn’t hot shit anymore? “In the Street” (you know, the theme from that show about the seventies?) is not quite as pretty but nearly as good. Just a great riff there (and by the way, the cover the show uses is 10 times as bombastic and one-tenth as good). Good, simple guitar pop! Pretty, interlocking jangle lines. The kind of music it’s difficult to imagine people not liking, you know?
Not all the electric bits are as nice as the opening three tracks, but, outside of “The India Song” (which isn’t an electric bit at all, but bear with me), you can’t find a real stinker here. I’d describe stuff like “With My Baby Beside Me” and “My Life is Right” as “functional.” “Solid.” “Workmanlike.” They get the job done, I mean. Plenty of nice jangle guitar meat to sink your teeth into, but nothing to standard of “Feel,” “The Ballad of El Goodo,” or “In the Street.” I’ll also go on record as (outside of the aforementioned “Thirteen”) not being the hugest fan of the acoustic tracks, despite their quality of being generally fine. They’re pretty, and Alex’s voice sounds nice, but they seem a bit cliched at times. Like “Give Me Another Chance.” “You feel sad 'cause I got mad and I'm sorry!” Does that lyric sound retarded or is it just me? And yeah, I’m nitpicking (it is, you know, “pretty”), but I don’t find nearly as much to grab onto in the last third of the album. “Watch the Sunrise” is the probably the best in this stretch, as it picks up the pace and shows off a bit of energy, but it’s still not gonna make me forget “El Goodo.” So #1 Record starts with a bang but peters out a bit toward the end. Perhaps Alex Chilton really did have something in common with Bono.
And yet I digress. Good record here, as anyone who’s ever listened to it could tell you. The first, oh, fifteen minutes or so are fantastic, and then it settles into a nice but not amazing groove that stays pretty consistent until the last chords of “St. 100/6” (except for “The India Song,” which sucks). It won’t change anyone’s world, but you’ll certainly have a very nice time with it.
Radio
City
Rating: 8
Best Song: “September
Gurls”
Chris Bell’s departure leaves Alex Chilton as the sole songwriter on the second very good and perfectly nice Big Star album that no one bought. I suppose the one noticeable change from album #1 to album #2 is that (except for the teeny tiny one at the end) all the acceptably OK acoustic songs from the first one are gone (perhaps those were all Bell songs?), which means that, if one does not enjoy melodic jangle guitar pop, one will likely not enjoy this record. Diverse it certainly is not, though it also may be more consistent than its predecessor, if only because it has more songs that sound the same. One thing I’ve always found odd about it (and something which is really of no consequence whatsoever) is that the opener “O My Soul” is like six minutes long, whereas everything else is in the 2-3 minute range. And it’s not like they’re trying something at all different from what they usually do, either. It’s just a guitar pop song. It may have a bit more energy than much of the rest of the material (“languid” and “subdued” are how I’d describe a lot of this record), but it’s not like it’s throwing out anything we’re not gonna see everywhere else beyond a few ill-conceived keyboard blasts. I don’t understand it, and I will not tolerate it! I suppose it has parts where it seems that Alex Chilton attempts to do something better guitarists would call “soloing,” but it sounds more like an awkward bridge or something to me. Whatever. It’s catchy. I like the “I can’t get a license!” chorus bits a lot. I should stop whining. I’m being a bigger bitch than Laker fans.
The shot at Alex Chilton’s guitar “wizardry” is only directed at his attempts to “solo,” by the way, which is something he’s just not very good at (thankfully, the short length of everything else means he generally doesn’t try to). I actually love much of the guitar work on this album, which is the main reason I like it as much as #1 Record despite most of its sounding the same and its not having much energy. I don’t even think (with a glaring exception or two, of course) that the melodies on many of these songs are all that spectacular. Take “Way Out West,” for instance. Now, this song was actually written by Andy Hummel, so of course I’m not expecting “Penny Lane” to come out of my speakers, nor should I be expecting vocals with much personality (or lyrics better than the opening “she’s a schemer and she makes me mad!”). As expected, I get none of these things, but the guitars here are absolutely fantastic. The same kind of interlocking, slow, languid jangle lines we saw on #1 Record, but somehow better. Honestly, this is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s mostly just for the melodic prettiness of the guitar lines (I will say the chorus provides a nice melody, though I always wonder if it’s great by itself or just enhanced by guitars). The tracks that I always see mentioned from this thing are “Back of a Car” and “September Gurls,” and again it’s the guitars with both of them. I don’t even think “Back of a Car” is that ace of a song at its heart. The structure is kind of iffy, and I’m still not sure I can hum the melody even after listening to it 50,000 times (see above review for long-winded reasons why), but the guitars are just so f’ing pretty in their jangle. I could listen to them all day! They’re not even complicated at all (this band is not Yes). Just pretty. These guys do best when they keep it simple, which is why “September Gurls” is probably the best song they ever did. It sounds like they wrote it in 5 minutes! It has like two lines and three slowly strummed jangle chords, plus that extra layered guitar on top, and that’s it. Nothing else happens, except that it’s one of the most mind-numbingly catchy songs I’ve heard in my life. Just that, though.
I suppose we do get more than “pretty jangle guitar pop,” but the “diversity” on this one isn’t all that different from its bread and butter, nor does it differ much from what we’ve seen Big Star do already. “Mod Lang” sounds a lot like the wannabe-glam tracks from the first album, for instance, and the only reason “She’s a Mover” sounds different is that it’s a lot more blatant in wearing its influences on its sleeve. It sounds like an early Who single! Like, exactly like an early Who single! I dig it, though. It’s fun. “Life is White” is pretty interesting, too, in its blasting harmonica and generally odd part with the piano and loud drum fills (sort of little preview of some of the “anti-catchy” music Alex would be writing after he got more pissed that his records weren’t selling). Of the rest, if I haven’t mentioned something so far, it’s not especially unique or interesting, but it’s probably decent anyway. “Daisy Glaze” is pretty nice in its buildup, and “I’m in Love With a Girl” is what the last four tracks on #1 Record probably should have sounded like. There’s a really short one with piano at the end that might have been good idea for Alex to keep to himself. The others have their moments, but not like “September Gurls” has its moments. I love that song.
Anyway, you can probably re-print my little concluding cap-off from the last album here. It would apply just the same. I like both of the records about equally. I’ll say that their coming together on one CD makes that particular disc a pretty good purchase, since you can get pretty much all the Big Star you need for like $15 or whatever. Or you can download it like me. It’s a free country.
By the way, fuck the Lakers and their fans. Their team got pantsed on national television (I mean, 131 points? Really?), and those whiney, frontrunning, classless assholes deserved every second of it. You have no idea how much living in LA makes you hate the Lakers. I almost like Yankee fans now (note: I did say “almost”). I’m 100% certain I will not see a single Laker flag again until about April 2009. Fuckers.
Also by the
way, I won the Champions League! Go
Third/Sister Lovers (1992)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Thank You
Friends”
So, as quoted above, Andy Hummel left after Radio City when presented with the choice between going on tour with the band or registering for his senior year in college. This should tell you how much Big Star’s first two albums sold. In any case, Alex and Jody (along with too many extras and session people to count) soldiered on and recorded a bunch of stuff for the third Big Star album that was being eagerly awaited by like fifteen people. The cache of the band was so great that the 1974 recordings were released a full four years later in 1978, and were apparently repackaged several times on several different labels before the 1992 version I’m reviewing here became the “standard.”
Since Big Star are indie rock gods because they never sold any damn records, this album is sometimes lauded as a total masterpiece (the All Music Guide review describes it as “among the most harrowing experiences in pop music”) because it was fucked with and forgotten about so badly even for Big Star. This, of course, is bullshit. The reason it’s described as so “harrowing” is that Alex Chilton was really depressed when he wrote it and made a bunch of the songs depressing, ugly things that take the lovely pop sensibilities of the first two albums and flush them down the toilet. This is retarded because the only reason Alex was so upset was that Big Star wasn’t selling any records! Were Alex Chilton especially good at writing slow, ugly dirges with no pop leanings whatsoever, then I suppose I’d cut him a little slack. As he is most definitely not good at doing such things, I feel I must tell him retroactively to sack up. Your band are gonna be worshipped as gods in 20 years! Just fucking chill out and write something that sounds like “September Gurls.” You’ll be fine, don’t worry.
Anyway, thankfully it’s not like the entire album sounds slow and ugly. There are songs here that are “pop,” and the fact that they’re kind of depressing and mean-spirited and biting doesn’t make them sound any less good. Witness “Thank You Friends,” which is must be one of the most sarcastic songs I’ve ever heard in my life (and if it isn’t…well, fine then), including the pretty much absurd fat black woman backup vocals and everything, but the song totally kicks! Just well written and catchy as all hell. Big Star are a pop band. That’s what I want from them. I don’t want “Big Black Car,” if only because “Big Black Car” doesn’t actually exist. I want “Jesus Christ,” which I’m gonna go ahead and assume is just as sarcastic as “Thank You Friends” (it has fucking sleigh bells in it! Come on!), but which can’t help being plenty catchy anyway. I find “Kizza Me” interesting because you can tell it would’ve been a really pretty song about a year or two ago, but instead the guitars squeal off-key, the cello is menacing, the pianos bash away at nothing, and Alex yells “I WANT TO FEEL YOU…DEEP INSIDE!” This is not the Big Star I know, but the pop song at its heart squeaks through just enough that all the stuff Alex tries to do to make it suck doesn’t quite work. “O, Dana” is kind of weird to listen to and is probably one of the more depressing songs I’ve heard with such a dumb, bouncy chorus, but again Alex’s unconscious desire to write songs that actually sound good comes through.
Too much of the time, however, the record’s tendencies to destroy itself succeed in going Kobe Bryant on the competing tendencies toward writing nice, simple pop songs. One can see this partially in how the lovely jangle guitars that were all over Radio City are completely absent here, which is odd because that had become by far Big Star’s best attribute. I don’t think the bassist’s leaving to go to college would have had a big effect on that, which means it must be depressed Alex trying to make his album sound like crap. How can someone listen to “Holocaust” (wow, lovely song title there) or “Kangaroo” and get much out of it if they’re not really depressed? This isn’t like Joy Division where the songs are incredibly tight, interesting and well-written while also being depressing. This is a depressed guy who’s good at writing happy guitar pop songs purposely (or not…not like I fucking know) sabotaging his own product. The one time the slow, ugly, depressed sound works is on the cover of “Femme Fatale,” where it somehow fits that particular Velvets song to a tee. By the time the record moves into its second half, there’s just so little to grab onto. There are isolated moments of good stuff, like the string lines in “Stroke it Noel,” but a lot of the last part is just subpar. Jody Stephens’ “For You” is about as amateurish as you figure the drummer’s first song in three albums would be. The wah-wah things in “You Can’t Have Me” are silly. The last three songs just aren’t interesting, though I suppose the closing “Take Care” has a promising string line for twenty seconds before Alex Chilton reminds us all how depressed he is. The bonus tracks aren’t any better. “Dream Lover,” according again to the All Music Guide, “distills the album’s messiest themes into less than four minutes of psychic torment.” What psychic torment? The guy’s records didn’t sell! The song blows, too. Alex Chilton is good at writing pretty guitar pop songs that sound like Big Star. He is not good at writing music for depressed people.
So no, Big Star do not go out with a bang. This album has its nice songs and good moments (mostly in the first half), but overall it’s a very unsatisfying experience, especially coming on the heels of the sprightly pop of #1 Record and the jangle guitar meat of Radio City. It’s just silly. A couple albums that tank shouldn’t make someone so pissed off that they write “Kangaroo.”
In Space (2005)
Rating: 5
Best Song: “Dony”
More or less useless reunion album that’s not really a reunion album at all because “Big Star” is apparently now Alex, Jody, and two members of the Posies. The odd thing is that this “reunion” actually took place originally in 1993, which means it took these guys twelve years to sit down and record another Big Star album nobody bought. The reviews I see of it around are generally positive, but I’m gonna say right now that I don’t understand that at all. Sure, the album starts out pretty well (sounding all poppy and nice and “Big Star-y”), but after about track four or so I find very little to enjoy and much to point to as subpar and sometimes downright annoying. The opening slow guitar popper “Dony,” as well as the lovely “Lady Sweet” and light-as-air “Turn My Back on the Sun” (complete with opening line that rips the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t it be Nice,” but in such an obvious, winking way that it’s clearly not malicious)…these are strong songs. Well-written, interesting, melodic, etc. My pick is “Dony,” but only for its slightly darker tone, “surely you’re aware…” line, and sax solo. Either of the other two you can go ahead and pick instead and I won’t argue with you. They’re all very much in the mold of “classic Big Star.” Which is funny because the Posies guys actually wrote two of them.
Part of me wonders how much Alex Chilton really gave a crap about recording this. Only three of the songs are really all that good to me, and he only wrote one of them (“Dony”). Granted, all of his solo albums may completely suck, and thus the mediocre quality of this particular record may be right in line with his songwriting abilities (it’s not like he was tearing it up on Third/Sister Lovers, remember, and that was three decades before this). So maybe he gave a really big crap and he just couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know. But then I listen to something as monumentally retarded as “Love Revolution” and I just wonder. And yes, I know the song is supposed to be “funny.” That’s a great story. I only give songs credit for being funny if they’re decent in the first place. An old white guy performing a terrible funk jam while calling attention to how old and white he is is not something I would characterize as “decent.” Other total misfires include the classical-on-rock-instruments “Aria, Largo,” which is an intriguing idea and may have worked in the hands of a band that was able to make it sound better than the noodlings of a couple of teenagers, and the closing “Makeover,” which I would describe with words more descriptive than “awful” if I knew what style it was supposed to be lampooning. But I don’t, so it’s “awful.” I probably should like the energetic cover “Mine, Exclusively,” but for some reason I find it incredibly annoying. Perhaps it’s because the main “MINE, EXCLUSIVELY!!!!” massed vocals sound so fucking bad. Yes, perhaps that’s it.
The rest of the album is sometimes interesting in a “wow, how are all of these songs on the same album?” way (which is admirable, I suppose), but the mediocrity of it all is kind of a problem. Take “A Whole New Thing,” which I guess is supposed to be like a fifties garage rock rip or something, but the vocals (which consist entirely of “It’s a whole new thing! Yeah, baby, it’s a whole new thing!”) are so unenthusiastic it almost sounds like the band members are bored by the proceedings. This is not something I generally endorse on a record album. I suppose “February’s Quiet” is nice, simple, and pleasant, and thus I will grant it has a reason to exist (strong praise for the bulk of this album, really), but the rest I could take or leave. I mean, what is there in “Hung Up With Summer” that’s at all interesting melodically? And why is “Do You Wanna Make it?” yet another half-retarded vamp that may or may not be a joke and is bad either way?
I don’t know, I just don’t like this album very much. When it sounds like Big Star (“Dony,” “Lady Sweet,” “Turn My Back on the Sun,”), it’s pretty decent, but when it doesn’t (which, oddly, is nearly everything Alex Chilton decided to contribute), it’s just poor. Big Star’s early stuff didn’t sell because it wasn’t marketed properly (not that it was the best stuff ever or anything, but was pretty damn good). This didn’t sell because it wasn’t any good.