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Recording : Studio
AAD
Big Star: Alex Chilton, Chris Bell (vocals, guitar); Andy Hummel (vocals,
bass, piano); Jody Stephens (vocals, drums).
Additional personnel: Danny Jones, Richard Rosebrough.
NUMBER 1 RECORD recorded at Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee in the
Summer and Fall of 1972. Originally released on Ardent in 1972.
RADIO CITY recorded at Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee in the Fall
of 1973. Originally released on Ardent in 1974.
Includes liner notes by Brian Hogg and Rick Clark.
Big Star's level of influence is inversely proportionate to their sales.
Radio City, the second album by the band from Memphis, Tennessee, is the
greatest example of this phenomenon. When it was first released, practically
the only people who knew about it were rock critics. Today, it is universally
recognized as a major inspiration for the indie and alternative rock movements,
influencing everyone from R.E.M. to Teenage Fanclub. Although the term
'power pop' had been kicking around for a while, Radio City defined the
genre. Best-known (or least-obscure) of its tracks is the sparkling 'September
Gurls', which has been covered by many artists, including the Bangles and
the late-model Searchers. Still very modern in sound, it is a landmark
of the second pop era.
The commercial failure of Big Star is hardly an unsolved mystery--there's
plenty of blame to go around. It still remains one of the pop music industry's
biggest crimes, one that has been only mildly mitigated by the godlike
status conferred on the band by the indie-rock generation long after these
two records were made.
Alex Chilton, a soul fan who had been the gruff-voiced teenaged lead
singer of the Box Tops, and high school friend Chris Bell, a Beatles freak,
pooled their singing and songwriting talents on #1 RECORD. It was an audacious
debut that aspired to the melodiousness and perfectly arranged feel of
the mid-period Beatles, the raw rock kick of the early Kinks and the jangly
country-rock beauty of the Byrds--all, it turned out, terribly unfashionable
influences in the post-hippie, pre-punk era of the early 1970s. "Feel,"
"Don't Lie To Me" and "When My Baby's Beside Me" feature stinging guitar
licks, excited harmonies and hooks galore, and sound like someone discovering
rock 'n' roll for the first time. Chilton's "Give Me Another Chance" and
Bell's "Try Again," on the other hand, are acoustic ballads whose layered,
Beatlesque harmonies and other touches, like the melodic slide-guitar lead
and tambourine hits in "Try Again," are almost too beautiful. Chilton's
"The Ballad Of El Goodo," a nod to Gram Parsons' country-rock, has a memorably
optimistic chorus.
There was no need for optimism by the time of RADIO CITY, the only
other record released during Big Star's existence (BIG STAR'S THIRD, aka
SISTER LOVERS, wasn't released for several years). Bell had quit and the
band was going nowhere fast. Chilton, who favored a gruffer, soul-based
guitar sound, was now solely in charge. His most memorable chorus here,
"September Gurls," was a sad one; but it was also beautiful, one of the
prettiest in the entire rock canon. RADIO CITY also features "Mod Lang"
and "Back Of A Car" among a set of proto-power-pop tunes that would prove
to be a major influence on such later bands as the Replacements, Teenage
Fanclub and Nirvana. Children by the million never once waited for Alex
Chilton, as the Replacements tried to claim in their memorable tribute
"Alex Chilton," but they've been waiting ever since for all his descendants.
Style : American
Rock
Country : United
States of America
Label : Stax
Reference : 910
Description : CD Album
Price : 16.10
EUR (+/-
9.71 GBP)
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