Группа Big Star

Очень симпатичная команда в стиле The Beatles / Badfinger / Byrds. Как минимум два вещи с их сборника лучших вещей - просто замечательные. Я говорю о "September Gurls" и "The Ballad of El Goodo". ENJOY!

The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll. Originally led by the singing and songwriting duo of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, the Memphis-based group fused the strongest elements of the British Invasion era — the melodic invention of the Beatles, the whiplash guitars of the Who, and the radiant harmonies of the Byrds — into a ramshackle but poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pop's past even as it pointed the way toward the music's future. Although creative tensions, haphazard distribution, and marketplace indifference conspired to ensure Big Star's brief existence and commercial failure, the group's three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics, and their impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic is surpassed only by that of the Velvet Underground.

The roots of Big Star lie in the group Ice Water (also known as Rock City), formed in 1971 by singer/guitarist Bell in association with guitarist Steve Ray, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens. Ray left the group a short time after its inception and was soon replaced by Chilton, the onetime Box Tops vocalist who was just 16 years old when the group topped the pop charts with their 1967 classic, "The Letter." Chilton had recently returned to Memphis after attempting to mount a solo career in New York City; he first played with Bell years earlier in a high school cover band, and with his arrival Ice Water rechristened itself Big Star, borrowing the name from a local supermarket chain. Recording soon commenced at the local Ardent Studios, where Bell occasionally worked as an engineer and session guitarist; despite solid critical notice and some radio airplay, their brilliant 1972 debut, #1 Record, nevertheless fell prey to the distribution problems of the newly-formed Ardent label's parent company Stax — more often than not, the album simply never made its way to retailers.

In the meantime, Bell and Chilton continued to butt heads over Big Star's direction — the former envisioned a primarily studio-oriented project, while the latter preferred performing live; moreover, Chilton's past success in the Box Tops guaranteed him the lion's share of attention from listeners and critics, minimizing Bell's own contributions in the process. In late 1972 Bell finally left the band — his subsequent attempts to mount a solo career proved largely fruitless, with only a spectacular solo single, "I Am the Cosmos," receiving official release prior to his untimely death in a 1978 car crash. (A posthumous solo compilation, also titled I Am the Cosmos, was finally issued to unanimous critical acclaim in 1992.) Following Bell's exit, Big Star briefly struggled on as a three-piece before disbanding, with Chilton returning to his stalled solo career; months later, he reteamed with Hummel and Stephens to play a local music writers' convention, and the performance was so well-received that they decided to make the reunion permanent.

Big Star's second album, 1974's Radio City, remains their masterpiece — ragged and raw guitar-pop infused with remarkable intensity and spontaneity. It also contained perhaps their best-known song, the oft-covered cult classic "September Gurls." (Another highlight, "Back of a Car," bears the unmistakable input of Chris Bell, although the duration and extent of his return to duty is unknown.) Distribution difficulties again undermined whatever hopes of commercial success existed, however, and Hummel soon announced his resignation; Chilton and Stephens recruited bassist John Lightman for a handful of East Coast live dates, including a WLIR radio broadcast later issued as Big Star Live. Work on a planned third album soon began, but the sessions proved disastrous as Chilton, reeling from years of music industry exploitation and frustration, effectively sabotaged his own music — where Radio City teetered on the brink of collapse, the new songs tumbled over completely, culminating in one of the most harrowingly bleak pop records ever made. An album's worth of material was completed and shelved, and then Big Star was no more.

The story might have ended there, but in 1978 the third Big Star album was finally issued overseas — various titled Third and/or Sister Lovers, it appeared for years in essentially unauthorized versions containing neither the complete session nor the proper sequencing. Still, the record earned a significant cult following, and with the emergence of the nascent power-pop movement, it became increasingly clear just how prescient Big Star's music had been. Countless alternative rock bands — R.E.M., the Replacements, the dB's, and Teenage Fanclub, to name just four — cited the band's enormous influence in the years to follow, and in 1993 the Posies' Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow backed Chilton and Stephens for a reunion gig at the University of Missouri, a performance captured on the Columbia live disc. To the surprise of many, the Big Star reunion continued with tours of Europe and Japan, and — most shocking of all — even an appearance on television's The Tonight Show, although no new studio recordings were forthcoming.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:4q5tk6ax9kr0~T1

Since Big Star's first two albums, #1 Record and Radio City, are easily available on a two-for-one-CD, the wisdom behind compiling a best-of CD that draws only from those two LPs has to be questioned. This doesn't have anything from Third (aka Sister Lovers), or from the live and reunion discs, and it doesn't add any unreleased tracks. Even if there's any price difference staring you in the face when you come across these side-by-side in the CD racks, do you really need to save money that badly that you'll settle for 14 tracks taken from the first two albums, rather than all 24 of them? And even if you buy the argument that this is a well-selected program of highlights, are you so lazy that you can't program the #1 Record/Radio City CD whichever way you please? If so, this is still a reasonably well-selected chunk of tracks from the two LPs, including some songs ("September Gurls," "Mod Lang," "Back of a Car") that most Big Star fans would probably vote for unanimously when compiling a project such as this.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:8j67gjtr26ib

Несколько ссылок по теме:

Дискография The Big Star и Алекса Чилтона.
http://www.naptownamplifier.com/BigStarPage2.htm

Огромный сайт, посвященный группе:
http://www.frontlinearts.com/bigstar/

А мне не только The Big Star нравятся, но и The Box Tops.

Всем, кому интересно почитать рецензии дяди Миши (the Slider-а) на альбомы группы "Big Star", прошу сюда:

Big Star "#1 Record" - 1972
http://the-slider04.livejournal.com/114143.html

Big Star "Radio City" - 1974
http://the-slider04.livejournal.com/114839.html

Big Star "Third / Sister Lovers" - 1975
http://the-slider04.livejournal.com/115152.html

Я слышал у них две песни обе потрясающие... не знаю где найти.

On March 13, 2008, Big Star were confirmed to appear at Rhythm Festival in the UK. Before this they will play a London headlining show at Shepherds Bush Empire with Robyn Hitchcock.

А можно артикль в названии темы убрать? я совсем не уверен, что они когда-либо писались с артиклем.

2илюха:

>А можно артикль в названии темы убрать? я совсем
>не уверен, что они когда-либо писались с артиклем.

Готово.

Отличная группа! Послушал пока только первый альбом.