#434

Big Star, #1 Record

Impressions:  I don’t care if this is indie-hipster bait, this album is amazing. I probably like it too much to look at objectively, but I’ll try my best… “Feel” chugs in with a great riff building toward a ’70s power-pop groove. It’s super catchy, but still seems like the whole song is going to fall apart, just like Chris Bell vocal ( “I feel like I’m dyin!”) After that, the gorgeous heart-rending Alec Chilton ballad “The Ballad of El Goodo.” Everyone knows “In The Street” as the theme song from That ’70s Show, but the song is much better than merely that. Initally sparked by teenage melancholy, songs like “Thirteen” and still hold up over the years. I think side one is as perfect a record side as can be made. Some of this vaguely Brit-pop guitar rock might come off at first glance as too familiar due to the countless bands that were inspired by this album (REM, Cheap Trick, The Posies, The Replacements, Matthew Sweet, Wilco, Goo Goo Dolls, Nirvana, and tons more bands…) but when I dig in, it really is fragile, beautiful, rocking music. Mythos aside, these songs alternately break your heart or lift your spirits. So vivid, evocative lyrically. “Thirteen” really gets to me. Gorgeous chiming guitars and keening voices of “When My Baby’s Beside Me” and “My Life is Right” just get under my skin. The second half slows down a little, but ends with an uplifting, acoustic number “Watch The Sunrise”  and the weird, Beatleesque coda “ST 110/6.” I feel like losing Chris Bell after this album made Big Star unable to top this record and, in fact, I’m not sure any other band playing in this style has either.