Anyway, get this album, and hear the band that influenced R.E.M., the Bangles, Teenage Fanclub and all of the other cool bands that I love.

I must admit that I like #1 Record better than Radio City. Two reasons: (1) The great harmonies of #1 Record is almost totally absent on Radio City, and (2) Chris Bell is gone, and he was the best thing about the band. YEAH, I KNOW, ALEX CHILTON IS GOD! :) Alex is always the one that gets all the credit for Big Star, and sure, he's great, but I prefer Bell's songs. And Chilton's ragged vocal style makes me sometimes wish for Bell's voice. #1 Record was tight, masterful pop. Radio City swerves all over the place and sounds like a band on the verge of disintegrating (which was true). Both are great for different reasons, but I find myself listening to songs 1-12 in this collection a lot more often than the rest.

Power Pop originals
At 37 I'd gotten back into the music that was on the radio when I was but a wee lad. Groups like Badfinger, the Raspberries, Todd Rundgren, and others all of a sudden sounded kind of cool again. But I kept hearing all the college rock bands I loved in the 80's and 90's refering to Big Star. I'd never heard of them; how is that possible? I had the feeling that all the praise the group had gotten may have just been hype created by bands trying to establish their indie credentials. And then I heard #1 Record/Radio City.....................and was completely blown away. Forget the songs you may have already heard, like September Gurls and In the Street. Almost every song on both albums is a classic. And the weird thing is that, unlike the Raspberries and Badfinger, the music doesn't sound dated at all. These songs could have been recorded yesterday. In fact, I was so impressed that I actually wrote Jody Stephens at Ardent records and THANKED him for having been a part of what has to have been one of my best listening experiences. That guy is so cool that he even wrote me back and told me that Big Star might tour the states next year. So, awesome music, and the guys that did it are still down-to-earth enough to care about a fan. What else could you ask for?

They'll Show You Somehow
Anyone familiar with the mid-sixties pre-psychedlic Beatles is no doubt going to get a kick out of this stuff, especially given that one of its main singer-songwriters, Alex Chilton sings so much differently than he had in the Box Tops. Never the conformist, Chilton actually walked off the stage of a Box Tops gig saying he didn't want to be controlled as the sixties came to a close with so many creative artists making an impact. Later in the seventies, when questioned by a Long Island Radio jock about making "anachronistic music" and what his career had become, Alex summed it up with a curt "pretty scummy". Before this revelation, Big Star blessed the few with #1 Record, a culmination of the very best both he and a spaced out Memphis Anglophile named Chris Bell could muster in the way of perfectly crafted songs. While progressive rock became snottier, more lugubrious and about all that would play on FM radio, Big Star made a record of melodic sheen (In the Street, India Song, Ballad of El Goodo), gloriously juxtaposing sentiment in the lovliest of adolescent ballads, Thirteen, followed by the nuclear holocaustic Dont Lie to Me. It is there where #1 Record is fully realized. They perfected the experiments by earlier similar bands like the Nazz, Raspberries and Badfinger by making the acoustic guitars sound that much more earnest and crisp and making their rockers snarl that much louder. They even address their apparently deep spirituality in El Goodo, My Life Is Right, Try Again and Watch the Sunrise without the clockwork zealot righteousness found in most clergical music. They capture genuine and desperate human conflict of not being holier than thou. With Bell's tortured spirituality coming unglued as the second side of the record came to an end, chronicled on Try again and ST 100/6, Big Star ends their one perfect Pop rock masterpiece on a forboding note.
To make matters more interesting, they actually make there next record Radio City better by making it more haphazard and slightly deranged. Given that their next and last record Third/Sister lovers is basically down to Chilton falling to pieces, we have the 2nd record, in subsequent listens, sound like the last gasp for sanity with loads of sinister slop creeping its way in to their pop. While the Beatles melted into psychedlia, Big Star chose a more downward spiral in Radio City attributed in large part to booze and narcotics rather than hallucinogens. Chris Bell had minimal imput and was out of the group to cope with drugs, depression and suicide, while Alex continued to chronicle their personal mess. One gets an inebriated feel from the rollicking stop-start number O' My Soul and the crunchy She's a Mover, then descend into an almost completely bottomed out feel of the Third Album with Daisy Glaze, only to watch it explode as if the song was Stairway to Heaven with a Mandrax prescription. The best cuts on Radio City are the closest to #1 Record. Both Back of A Car and September Gurls have a candid sexual tension in the lyrics and some of the most perfect melodies and hooks committed to rock n'roll. The very moment when Chilton sings "OOOh when she makes love to me!", on September Gurls and launches into an orgasmic jangling guitar run is pop perfection. These two records combined for an affordable must buy for anyone with a rudimentary understanding of popular music. With virtually no distribution by their original label Ardent, many who own this treasure may have otherwise never heard it. Now it's your chance to do the right thing when you go to the record store to buy Hoobastank, the Calling or Ashlee Simpson; get this record instead and while you're at it, buy those other acts a copy. Chances are the ones responsible for grooming these acts may have been trying to replicate Big Star's craft ever since. Oh that's right, Big Star didn't have a stylist. But they had a need to paint their hearts on anyone's ear who heard them instead of their nails by someone making 6 figures to do it. They didn't really need it, they were Big Star!

white dwarf music
when i first heard this music, i was so excited. here, then, was the greatest rock 'n' roll band of them all. maybe not the best hard rock band, or the best pop rock band, but as far as rock 'n' roll went, who could top this? it was genuine, simple, catchy, anthemic, well-produced-but-not-overly-produced...but just a few years later, i never EVER listen to it anymore. i realize now that what impressed me so much was the purity of it. a purity that, let's face it, could also be called "middle-of-the-road". it's TOO simple, TOO catchy. there's just not enough here to keep me coming back. it's predictable, and that's a shame, because in a lot of ways, this was a great band. they just didn't have many great songs...

big star
i have lived in memphis tn.for many years when i first heard of big star about 1985 they were all ready mythical band.i seeked out jody stephens who works for ardent records today i called him and my jounery with big star began,i attented thier first reunion in columbia mo.in 1993 with john hour and ken stringfellow along with jody and alex it's was some experience ill never for get it seek out the live lp on zoo recoreds might be avaiable on amazon.com?
there is rumor that the show was video taped along with 5 songs from that show that was never released sound board quality.
anyhow any one thinking of this lp should but it and enjoy one of the greatest bands ever.i have all the big star stuff in my car it is a fresh today as it was when it was written.the song watch the sunrise beautiful song most don't know that there is a alternative to that song called country morn.written by chris bell,all instro sound beautifull seek out back of a car magazine
the second issue has a felxy disc of that song worth seeking out.
so allll enjoy lay back listen t oa wonderfull band once you listen you will be hooked forever!!!
by the way big star is mixing a new lp right now first in 25 years should be great and rumor is that the orginal bass player(andy hummel)might be playing on a few tracks now if only chris were here.by the way chris has a lp on zoo records also solo stuff look for it amazon .com might still carry it
enjoy all
A two-for-one combo of the first two Big Star albums (they only recorded three). Heard side by side, #1 Record and Radio City only add further testament to Big Star's seminal greatness. On the first album, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton share songwriting credit, though each brings a remarkably different sensibility to the band: Bell creates pure pop nuggets ("Feel") while Chilton swaggers with reckless melancholy ("Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen."). After Bell's departure, Chilton took control of the helm for Radio City, and what a ride it is. While not abandoning Bell's penchant for pop, Radio City careens wildly through some of the most exhilarating music ever created, from the rave-up opener, "O My Soul," to the pure pop masterpiece "September Girls" to the whimsical ditty "I'm in Love with a Girl." It's too bad that Big Star didn't create more albums, but thank God they made the ones they did. --Tod Nelson