Saddled with the most ironic name in rock history, Big Star is the greatest band you’ve never heard. Well, perhaps you have heard them. Thanks to a bevy of praise from alternative rock bands (The Replacements even named a song after leader Alex Chilton), Big Star has garnered an impressive cult following in the last two decades. But the band was largely ignored when they burst on the scene in 1972, releasing three excellent albums in three turbulent years, three albums that aurally mirror the trajectory of a band that should have been a headline but somehow became a footnote in the annals of rock-and-roll.
Big Star’s debut album #1 Record (1972) is a brilliant synthesis of early 1970’s hard rock and Beatlesque pop that belongs on any halfway valid list of greatest rock-and-roll albums. Songwriters Chilton and Chris Bell flex their melodic muscles with such gems as “Feel,” “The Ballad of El Goodo,” “Watch the Sunrise” and “In The Street,” which was later used as the theme song for That 70’s Show (Cheap Trick’s version, that is). “The India Song” wafts down on a blanket of gossamer guitars and enchanting flutes, and “Thirteen” sets an achingly nostalgic lyric against a simple, sturdy and gorgeous acoustic-based melody. In a daring bit of sequencing, the album ends with four acoustic numbers, something you would never see in today’s cookie cutter music industry. The best is the incredibly moving “Give Me Another Chance,” a heartfelt plea for redemption that gives me goose bumps nearly every time I hear it. The early 70’s soundtrack that never was and a masterpiece by any measure, #1 Record is essential listening for any fan of rock music.
With the departure of co-songwriter Chris Bell, Big Star’s second album Radio City (1974) lacks the nostalgic longing of #1 Record’s best songs, but that in no way negates its quality. Chilton’s predilection for experimental song structures and shifting melodies (which would be taken to hyperbolic lengths on the band’s final album) are evident from the opening song “O My Soul,” a raucous rave with stutter-step timing and tour-de-force guitar work. “What’s Going Ahn,” is almost impossible to peg down, mixing a haunting melody with seemingly out-of-sync drum shots and choppy acoustic guitars. But if the album doesn’t quite reach the level of #1 Record, it does boast some of Big Star’s best songs: the snaky “You Get What You Deserve”, McCartneyesque “Back of My Car,” and shoulda-been teen anthem “September Gurls,” a breathtaking piece of pure pop bliss.
And then there’s Third/Sister Lovers, the sonic equivalent of a streaking asteroid hitting earth. Nothing on #1 Record or Radio City can prepare you for Third/Sister Lovers, an album that stands with John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Beck’s Sea Change as one of the darkest personal statements ever committed to vinyl. Filled with unresolved melodies, scattershot arrangements, apathetic singing and bleak, almost static soundscapes, Third/Sister Lovers is a challenging album to say the least. But once you peel away the surface oddities, it contains some of Chilton’s most indelible, beautiful songs and emerges as a fascinating bridge between rock and the forthcoming punk/new wave movement. From the stop-and-start opener “Kizza Me” to the searingly sarcastic “Thank You Friends” to the defiant “You Can’t Have Me” (so atypically tuneless it’s almost an anti-song), Chilton’s refusal to adhere to standard song structures can be aggravating upon first listen, but becomes rewarding in the long-term. “Big Black Car,” “Femme Fatale” (a cover of the Velvet Underground classic) and “Holocaust” are painfully despondent and virtually motionless, extraordinarily bleak songs for a major studio album from the mid 1970’s. But the album also contains some of Big Day’s most beautiful work (“For You,” “Nightime,” Stroke it Noel”), and Chilton’s melodic sensibilities can’t be held in check for the duration. No matter your religious affiliation or lack thereof, the soaring hooks of “Jesus Christ” will have you singing along in no time.
Big Star’s first two albums are now available on one affordable CD, and Third/Sister Lovers is available separately.
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