Big Star is one of my favorite bands and has been for nearly forty years. I consider all three of their studio albums essential--#1 Record, Radio City, and Third/Sister Lovers. All three albums sound very different, and I like them all. They are not audiophile recordings, but they are also not "lo fi."
If you like those songs, there will likely be others you will also enjoy, but since these things are ultimately subjective, it is really impossible to say for sure.
You can get the first two albums on one CD for less than twenty bucks. That's a place to start. But the surreal, dreamy strangeness of the third record also needs to be experienced. I've never heard another record quite like it.
Take the plunge!
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Walter, thanks for your response. Time to search for some used CDs.
The dynamic range database shows decent recordings of all three of these! |
Big Star and Radio City are also available on recently remastered vinyl. The next major band that wasn't to be, due mainly to record company mis-management. |
I heard "September Gurls" many years ago and liked it a lot. Its was on an old compilation CD from a music group over at the old Audio Review Forum. I've still got that compilation CD, from back in the late '90's. It's since been part of my regular playlists rotation.
Good stuff and I'll have to check out the albums from Big Star. |
@n80,
If you can find "Complete Columbia...Live at the University of Missouri 4/25/93" it's well worth it. Mine is a RSD issue but I believe it's out there as a regular issue.
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"Thirteen" is one of my all time favourite songs.
Agree, all three of their albums are excellent! |
radio city is one of my all-time top ten, although at various times i prefer "third"---all the studio records are brilliant. i would also pick up chris bell's solo record, "i am the cosmos", which is just as worthy.
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Excellent responses guys. Just what I was looking for. |
I saw a great documentary on Big Star a couple of years ago, should be easy to find somewhere. There are quite a few Pop groups who are cult legends, never achieving much commercial success, but inspiring a lot of members of groups/bands who did. Big Star were one of those. Their dual frontman/songwriter/singer dynamic was also found in Uncle Tupelo, The Jayhawks, The dB's, a few others. |
I've been a fan of Alex Chilton for years. He is creative with a bit of an edge. Last year I bought all three of the third album reissues which I thoroughly enjoy. It includes the demos & rough mixes as well as obviously the final version. Funny thing is I've noticed this with other bands as well (Sonic Youth comes to mind), that often I prefer the stripped down versions better than the final cuts. There is something very organic about those versions. |
The (live) lp I mentioned earlier should make everyone very happy! |
Great group with great songs. You may also want to check Alex's prior group the Box Tops. I also thought that Bad Finger had a somewhat similar sound. |
Think I can safely say you will find the complete output of Big Star on Tidal. |
Yes, virtually everything they ever recorded is on Tidal, the three studio albums, as well as live performances and the Keep an Eye on the Sky box set, which has a ton of demos and outtakes for true fanatics. |
i forgot about the "keep an eye" set--it's got excellent versions of most of their best songs + its live tracks cut the sorta sloppy "live at missouri university" and "big star live" discs, altho the latter has a killer version of the loudon wainwright song "motel blues"
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Thirteen is one of my favorite songs ever, simple but brilliant.
There's also a nice relatively new reissue of Third with many alternative versions, demos etc. Not the place to start, but a winner for fans.
If you are a huge fan, PM me with you email and I will send you something truly special. @waltersalas I am talking to you! Cheers,
Spencer |
@sbank
I sent you a PM, Spencer. Needless to say, you got my attention!
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The gems of BigStar are to be found on Radio City and my favorite tracks are Way Out West, What’s Going Ahn and Daisy Glaze. Of course, September Gurls rocks too, but those three are complex and unlike any others written in the 1973 timeframe. |
Big Star is an American Treasure. Church!
Once you hear one of their albums you will want them all. Problem is, they weren't around long enough to record much material.
There is no risk in this. Just do it. |
Alex Chilton: complex, talented, flawed, brilliant, difficult, creative, genius, never to be forgotten. |
Its funny, William Eggleston is a photographer I've admired for some time. One if his signature photos is the cover of Radio City. I've never been sure on which side of the camera Eggleston's genius exists as getting people to like and admire his spare, stark and often seemingly meaningless compositions might be where he real talent is. Either way, his stuff is compelling to me. |
Big Star is another band with two visionaries/songwriters/singers, each very different from each other in some ways, similar in others. Others have included The Beatles, The Stones, Rockpile, The dB's, Uncle Tupelo, The Jayhawks, and The Move. Though Alex Chilton gets more attention, Chris Bell was just as interesting, as well as troubled. He died at only 27 years old. |
The brief combination of Chilton/Bell was unique and special. Their voices together were wonderful, their musical collaborations sublime. Alex sang harmony with Chris on his You and Your Sister from Bell's I Am The Cosmos, which, I believe, was the last time the two recorded together. Chris is greatly missed. |
I have that song! It also came on one of the Oxford American Southern Music CDs. I did not know Chilton sang on the song.
I have been exposed to tons of great music that I never would have heard otherwise through those CDs. I’ve been getting them for close to 20 years. Some of the few that I’ve missed are selling for over $100 on eBay. |
I am surprised no one has mentioned the sound quality of their records ? The three cd's I have from Big Star I would rate as the worse I have , in a 10k + collection. |
The three separate albums released recently (within the last couple years) as demo's, rough cuts, finals of their 3rd album, are all recorded well (on vinyl at least). |
I picked up the re-issue of "Radio City" today at my LRS. I'll be giving it a spin later tonight and let you know what I think. I've only heard "September Gurls", so most of it will be new to me. |
Listening to #1 Record right now (iTunes). Did not realize that the theme song from That 70’s Show was "In The Street". I’ve led a sheltered life. |
OK, I've been through my new copy of "Radio City" twice. I'm not really feeling it yet. I'll give it another couple of listens and see if it grows on me.
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Are you referring to the sound quality or the music/songs in general?
I've been listening to all three via iTunes and find Radio City my least favorite. Third appeals to me most with #1 Record coming in second.
I find myself wanting a 'best of' collection but not fond of those in general. I think there is enough there to keep me listening and I'll probably buy all three in some format or other. But overall the jury is still out with me. |
@n80 - The sound quality is OK. I bought the vinyl re-issue and its not bad. Typical Pop/Rock SQ. It's the content that I haven't warmed up to yet. I will give it another couple of listens before I write it off.... |
@reubent, I didn't want to be a negasaurus, so didn't say anything. But upon finally learning of Big Star in the late 70's via Greg Shaw's fantastic Bomp! magazine, I fully expected to love them. Try as I might, I just don't hear it. "September Gurls" deserves to be considered a Pop classic, but other than that, much ado about nothing. Okay songs, okay singing, okay musicianship, nothing really great. But then I feel that way about quite a few cult bands and artists I'm "suppose" to like more than I do. The Velvet Underground, for instance. One man's ceiling is another man's floor. On the other hand, I like quite a few bands and solo artists who never achieved widespread notoriety, such as The Skeletons/Morells out of Springfield, Missouri. Other fans of theirs include Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, and Elvis Costello. Great band! |
i'm a little surprised at the polarized reactions--to my ears big star (unlike most "cult" artists) is all about melody and should have very broad appeal, like the beatles or the hollies. at the end of the day, though, either you dig it or you don't.
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Generally agree with your premise, but there are plenty of albums that had to grow on me over time. Some of them are among my favorites. I think about Astral Weeks this way. Working on Veedon Fleece right now. Both of these can be polarizing among Morrison fans. Neither appealed to me at first listen.
For me, Big Star seems worth working on even though right now I'm still ambivalent. I really like For You and Stroke It Noel a lot. September Gurls, Thirteen, O Dana (sp) also appeal to me. Just trying to get it to all fit together. |
@loomisjohnson and @bdp24 - Please understand, I don't dislike "Radio City" at all. I just don't yet get the gushing praise. I also didn't get it about Rockpile when I first heard them. But Rockpile did grow on me and I appreciate them for who, and what, they are. The same may happen with Big Star. |
One thing I have learned over the decades is that there is just no way to predict or account for personal taste in music. You either get it or you don't--or somewhere in between. That can even vary among albums by the same artist. For instance, I adore the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty," but I cannot make it all the way through a single one of their 10,000 concert albums to save my life, nor do I care about a great many of their other studio albums. But "American Beauty" has been ringing my bell for thirty years or more.
My wife loves Dave Matthews, but to me he's as boring as a bowl of warm milk. I love Ornette Coleman, but his music sends her screaming out of the room. And so it goes.
I love Big Star with all of my heart, but their music is, well, stranger than most of the Beatles catalog, and Alex Chilton has that tremulous voice that does not exactly translate easily to pop the way John Lennon's or Paul McCartney's do. In that sense, maybe they are an acquired taste for some. It knocked me right out from the start, but I get that they may not be for everyone.
Radio City will always be a deserted island album for me, and the other two are not far behind.
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Good points Walter. And isn't a good thing? If we all liked the same things I suspect the diversity of things would be far less!
Often times when I hearing nothing that pulls me in from a band I move along. But when they have a good song or two that do grab hold of me I try to give their other stuff a good long listen. |
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Generally agree with your premise, but there are plenty of albums that had to grow on me over time." I agree completely n80. There are several of those in my collection. For instance (& at an extreme) I have yet to meet anyone who liked Captain Beefheart the first time they listened to them... |
it's a pretty big leap from big star to captain beefheart (who i never got into; never was a zappa fan either despite earnest effort). what i suspect may be offputting to some about big star is how they pushed the boundaries of traditional melodic pop--there's an abrasiveness to some of their tunes + at least on the first two records they sing in such a high register as to sound unnatural.
as a related aside, check out "thank you, friends: big star's third live," a very nicely done tribute by various dbs/rem/posies, etc.
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The first songs I heard by Big Star (and my two favorites) are For You and Stroke It Noel. They sounded very unique to me. Strange even. I've found a few others that I like but just not getting the rest of their work....but still listening. |
Alex Chilton was a genius.
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I just won an auction for Big Star "3rd" OP. Can't wait to get it to compare to my re-mastered version which I always thought was kind of bright. |
I’ve been listening to Big Star this afternoon. I have "3rd" on 4 Men With Beards and now the copy I recently won is "3rd : Sister Lovers" on PVC.
Looking closer, it seems I have the 1985 Jem release, no bar code. The first release of "Sister Lovers" was apparently in 1978 on (Visa Records).
The only difference I can hear between these two pressings is the 4MWB is a little more open and lacks some of the warmth of the other pressing. IE: the 4MWB is slightly thin by comparison.
Right now, I like the PVC pressing better. One thing I do know is that I haven’t listened to this record near enough. Greatness!
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For Alex Chilton fans, look up the song "Make a Little Love". I've had it in my CD collection for years without making the connection between him and Big Star (because I didn't know anything about Big Star). You are probably aware of it, but if not, great song. Very unlike Big Star stuff though.
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n80 I agree, that is a great song. It's off the album "High Priest", also recommended. |
