BIG STAR
#1 Record (1972)
Stax/Ardent
Produced by JOHN FRY

Big Star was explosive. What remains so startling about them is the almost chemical perfection of their music, a hybrid of impassioned precision resulting in something that never loses its pertinence and power. This is perhaps the most exhilirating music of its time, and it was not only ignored but almost shunned. Today it sounds so much better than every single mainstream rock band of the '70s it's a wonder that their audience remains so small. A popular modern PR story at Geffen has Rivers Cuomo of Weezer as a dedicated student of pop music, who keeps notebooks full of diagrams studying the structure and execution of pop songs. If this is true, which I doubt, all it proves is that mathematical observation does not create wizardry. Whatever passing hits he accumulates, whatever legend he acquires, Cuomo isn't worthy to clean Alex Chilton or Chris Bell's toilet. And all these guys knew was what they loved.

Chilton was not a stranger. He had been the lead singer for one of the few success stories in late-'60s teen-idol pop, the Box Tops, who made a few dandy records, played the festival circuit, and then disappeared, outlasted by numerous less interesting peers, from Sha-Na-Na to Tommy James. The Box Tops' secret would become Big Star's: whatever the origin, they weren't bland and they didn't talk down to their audience. In theory, the Tops may not have been far in terms of substance from the Starland Vocal Band, but they sound a hell of a lot better. Big Star, likewise, could easily have been a one-hit Beatles/Who/Byrds knockoff; instead, they were a no-hit wonder with as much talent and magnificent music as any of their forerunners. Chilton, who knew firsthand the injustice of the pop world, was not resentful -- he bent over backwards to make music that was commercial, and when it was greeted with ambivalence from a world that would rather listen to boring cokeheads, he just gave up. It's amazing that, with the number of acts that have become millionaires robbing him since then -- some good and some bad -- he is not extremely bitter. He has become withdrawn and has stopped creating anything but music he feels like making, but I don't think he's betrayed his potential. He's just realized that the whole setup is bullshit and that it's probably not even worth it. Better for him that he realized it when he did instead of well into his career like Ray Davies, and of course, not better for us.

Hailing from Memphis, Chilton, the multitalented Chris Bell, Andy Hummel, and Jody Stephens agreed on at least one point -- that the only good hits coming from America by the late '60s were from black musicians. As a result, their southern roots -- a commercial asset in those days -- were contradicted by their complete Anglophilia. Their music is entirely based on a logical progression from the sound of the early British Invasion, maybe rock & roll in general back when adults didn't pretend to understand it and drugs hadn't yet ruined it. Their urgency and sincerity is something you just don't see anymore, and to be fair, you hadn't seen it for a long time then either.

I don't apologize for thinking as highly as I do of Chilton. In rock music, you walk a fine line in terms of communication with an audience. I don't think it's music for just teenagers but I think it should aspire for a lyrical simplicity that is as universal as the music it supplements. Some people are better at speaking in this voice than others, but there are a few that have a trancendence that I find extraordinary. Did you hate guidance counselors in high school? Of course you did, because they pretend they understand; they may be correct about how naive you are, but they can't actually see the humanity in that. They can't find the part of themselves that would say the supposedly foolish things you are saying. Without condescension, and speaking in ways that are incredibly perceptive (the way Charles Schulz did), certain people in rock music I think did more for youth than any ad campaign simply because they offered understanding. "Feel," "In the Street," "The Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," and later work like "Life is White" have that sensibility that is so rare. They seem real. They may be easy to pick apart superficially, but you still identify with them because they don't wrap anything in a neat package. Buddy Holly did this ("Not Fade Away"). Boudleaux Bryant did it ("Problems"), Brian Wilson ("I'm Bugged at My Old Man"), Martin Gore ("Somebody"), and Paul Westerberg would inherit it from Chilton ("Sixteen Blue"). It's a rare and wonderful thing. "I told my dad... and now I'm telling you: DON'T PUSH ME 'ROUND!"

Chris Bell's songwriting is just as good, as is Andy Hummel's, and this is the one album on which Big Star has the synergy of a real band. Bell left before the sophomore effort, and on each subsequent record the band would lose a member. RADIO CITY and THIRD belong to Chilton; this is Big Star, and it's quite different. On RADIO CITY it's individual songs that rock with you, on #1 it's the overall effect, the rollercoaster of pop bliss. The Cars' GREATEST HITS, which is like a huge pile of cotton candy, has fewer hooks than this album.

Bell dominates the second half with a set of acoustic ballads that rival Side Two of the Beach Boys' TODAY! for emotional intensity and dumbfounding beauty. If Side One's "Feel," "In the Street," "Thirteen," "Don't Lie to Me," "The India Song" are the band grabbing their audience, then "My Life is Right," "Give Me Another Chance," "Try Again," and "Watch the Sunrise" show them with the listener in the palm of their hands.

For all the noise, it wouldn't count if the loud songs weren't passionately loud, if the quiet ones weren't genuine. But Big Star is a perfect rock & roll band, always one step ahead, and there's not a false note in here, so when it melts you, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever you do in your life, I don't care, but even if you hate me and everything I enjoy, buy the twofer of this album with RADIO CITY. That's all I ask.