Big Star
Third: Sister Lovers
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If you "never travel far without a little Big Star," as Paul Westerberg puts it in "Alex Chilton," then rejoice, for here is a bumper crop of Chilton to go on CD. The Big Beat pairing of Big Star's first two albums on a single disc is certainly value for money, although two tracks from "#1 Record," including the brilliant Byrds-like stomp "In the Street," have been left off to facilitate the squeeze. Musically, it effectively contrasts the shimmering cohesion of the original quartet's 1972 power-pop debut with the darker moods of '74's "Radio City," when Chilton's idiosyncratic signing and songwriting started to dominate. "Sisters Lovers," which was cut in '74 but not released until four years
Read More later, completed Big Star's slide into the black night of Chilton's soul, made even more terrifying here by CD clarity. A solo effort in all but name, it is a grim but compelling smorgasbord of lyric torment, folkie beauty and crazed garage rockin' --~Lou Reed's "Berlin " meets Elvi's "Sun Sessions" -- with an extr
The template for the let's-try-anything aesthetic of Beck and Badly Drawn Boy. Fans of this shambling masterwork tend to confuse Big Star's biography with the actual music: remembered as despairing, it's actually full of eccentric, defiant, life-affirming pop rockers like "Thank You Friends" and "You Can't Have Me," as well as tracks entitled "Holocaust.
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