Top Pop Music Artists
 

Artist & Band information for:Pop music artists | Big Star | pop stars



RollingStone.com: Big Star
Includes a biography, discography, articles, links and message board.
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/default.asp?oid=178
Nick Johnstone's Alex Chilton Site
News and info about Alex Chilton (though it hasn't been updated since last November)
http://members.aol.com/dammarie/alexchilton.html
Plastic.com: Alex Chilton
Profile and photograph.
http://www.plastic.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/09/1659204
Radio City
Yellow backgrounded web site dedicated to Alex Chilton
http://www3.sympatico.ca/rasp.arsenault/
Big Star - A Fan Page
Fan page with photo gallery, discography and lyrics.
http://www.angelfire.com/mn/local651/bigstarpg.html
Alex Chilton and Big Star
Features pictures and information.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8994/bigstar.html
The Unofficial Big Star Homepage
Interviews, liner notes, lyrics and pictures.
http://bubblegum.uark.edu/bigstar/
PopMatters - Big Star
Review of "Record City."
http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/b/bigstar-1record.html
Sonicnet.com: Big Star
Features news, album reviews, audio downloads, biographies, discography, links, and bulletin board.
http://bigstar.sonicnet.com
Box Tops: Home Page
Alex Chilton's first band.
http://www.boxtops.com/
Amazon offers Third/Sister Lovers (Audio CD),21 February, 1992
Pop music artists |  Big Star  | pop stars List price $11.98
Sonic perfection of an unmatched order, your ears are not worthy / 5
This is the record that saved rock and roll from self parody, influenced three generations of independent musicians, and became the grandfather to new romanticism, shoe gazer, emo, and a host of lesser classifications in the rock-pop constellation. Irreplaceable, necessary, and far-reaching, it is imperative that any thinking person own this album.

It is perfect in every way.

There are two records that marked a paradigm shift in the construction of pop songs that have had enduring influence for decades and whose force cannot be overstated: The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and Big Star "Third"/"Sister Lovers." Others may point to "Pet Sounds" or the sheer endurance of the Rolling Stones, without recognizing that these artists are derivative listeners rather than a neglected pioneer like Alex Chilton. The modern exemplar proof of this statement is no less than Coldplay's Chris Martin at the London Live 8 concert in 2005 when introducing Richard Ashcroft/The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" as "the best song in the world." Both bands-and that song in particular-owe every note they ever played to Lennon/McCartney, but especially to Alex Chilton.

For Alex Chilton is simply the Robert Johnson of his age: virtually unknown, yet influential beyond all description, and this album is his master achievement for which he deserves a place in the rock and roll Pantheon. It has been said of David Bowie that he was always one step ahead of his contemporaries, anticipating shifts and initiating musical trends before other artists could catch up. If this is true, then with "Sister Lovers" Alex Chilton was thirty years ahead of his time.

Before "Big Star Third/Sister Lovers" there had never been an album that recorded so completely an artist's true self expression, intimacy with the unknown listener, liberty, and achingly beautiful compositional skill that was breaking new ground each hour it was recorded. These songs haunt like the shadows of old girlfriends. Perhaps only Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" is of comparable magnitude in being both a memorable and singular artistic achievement.

It behooves us to examine the hit songs released in 1974, and see where rock and roll could have gone without this album and the intelligent fan base of aficionados and critics which have sustained its legendary status until the consciousness of the world could catch up. Here then is a list of top radio hits from 1974; it is not a pretty picture: "Smokin' In The Boys Room" - Brownsville Station, "Waterloo" - ABBA, "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" - Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, "Already Gone" and "Best Of My Love" - The Eagles, "Kung Fu Fighting" - Carl Douglas, "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" - Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "Can't Get Enough" - Bad Company, "Shang-A-Lang" - Bay City Rollers, "Midnight At The Oasis" - Maria Muldaur, "I Honestly Love You" - Olivia Newton-John, and of course, the most horrific cloying noise that vaguely resemble music ever recorded..."(You're) Having My Baby" by Paul Anka & Odia Coates.

Utter waste.

If these bands and their records had ascended and became elder gods, we currently would live in a musical lake of pain the likes of which not even a sociopathic synthesis of Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, and Dante could conceive. Horror upon horror would assault us from the radio. We would envy the deaf; stabbing out our ears with knitting needles.

Instead, we thank God that Alex Chilton had no money, was leaving his extended adolescence, and had developed a painful distaste for the promises of the record industry and a sublime discrimination in musical influences. And that he had nothing to loose.

He was embarking on that slow painful trek to middle age while retaining a slender light of the hope of youth, and he recorded a priceless masterwork for which anyone under thirty who has ever listened to a pop song unwittingly owes their deepest thanks. This is beauty rarely achieved in 10,000 artists' lifetimes, and by the grace of God, Jim Dickinson was there to put it down on vinyl.

In closing, I offer a list of bands that would not exist if this record had not been recorded: Radiohead, The Swans, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, Oasis, Coldplay, Blur, Husker Du, The Replacements, Mazzy Star, REM, The Bangles, Lush, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, The Smashing Pumpkins, The White Stripes, The Gun Club, The Boo Radleys, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Galaxy 500, Curve, Jesus & Mary Chain, Moby, Catherine Wheel, Pale Saints, Ivy, and They Might Be Giants.

In short, without Big Star "Third"/"Sister Lovers" modern alternative rock simply would not exist.

The Cocteau Twins "Heaven or Las Vegas" album would not exist. Roxy Music's "Avalon" album would not exist. Sigur Ros would not exist.

I think that is explanation enough.

Song "You Can’t Have Me"
Espionage, the words to come back to me
Sidewinder, you clepto,
You do steal things
Unawares, but i don't care

You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me, not for free.

Gymnast, working out on the parallel rails
Cuttin' trails, screams and wails
Face go pale, never fails
You do steal things
Unawares, but i don't care

You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me, not for free.

The drummer said you were not very clean
The drummer said you were not very clean
And i know what he means
And i know what he means

You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me
You can't have me, not for free.


Rolling Stone : Big Star
Rolling Stone gives you total Big Star coverage including free music, videos, photos, ... Everything:Big Star. Main | Articles | Album Reviews | Discography ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bigstar
Big Star Reference
eBay Auctions, Big Star Links Major Sites, General Pages, Live Reviews, Album Reviews, Guitar Tabs, Message Boards/Clubs, ...
http://www.frontlinearts.com/bigstar/
Amazon.com: In Space: Music
And, nice horns! 1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:. 3 out of 5 stars Sounds influenced by Big Star, February 26, 2006 ...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000ALLLRK?v=glance
Yahoo! News Search Results for band "Big Star"

Out of the woods Will Grass Roots Record Co. become the Sub Pop of the foothi...
A few years ago and about 50 miles south of here, an old roommate came home from the county library with something called the Oahspe Bible.
Take It Easy (Salt Lake City Weekly)
Stressed? Chicago?s Autumn Defense will help you chill out. It?s kind of strange to hear Pat Sansone worry about drawing a crowd.
TROMBONIST TAKES LONG VIEW OF HISTORY, JAZZ (San Francisco Chronicle)
The audience for a Latin jazz concert at Berkeley's Jazzschool on a recent Sunday afternoon seems all wrong. These aren't club hoppers, but graying middle-aged folks who seem as if they could have drifted downhill from the Cal psychology department....
Search Results (Los Angeles Weekly)
For links to gallery shows, museum exhibits and movie times, see the Go box at right or click the links.
Spin control (Chicago Sun-Times)
Proteges of the Beastie Boys, the four underrated women of Luscious Jackson were perpetual also-rans in the alt-rock sweepstakes of the '90s, but they deserve to be remembered for one brilliant, sexy, funky effort -- the Daniel Lanois-produced "Fever In Fever Out" (1996) -- and two good but not great discs, one preceding their masterpiece and one following in 1999 after keyboardist Vivian Trimble ...
With a song in his heart (Chicago Sun-Times)
The shoeboxes used to be chin-high in my closet -- every one of them packed with scuffed cassette boxes and a few loose, unwound tapes.
Rock Picks (Los Angeles Weekly)
Justin Broadrick has a lot on his mind, and it?s not pleasant stuff; thus he makes music so dankly damp that no demon could withstand the stench for more than five minutes at a stretch.
Music Review: The Gories - I Know You Fine But How You Doin' (Blogcritics.org)
One of the great (and lesser known) musical travesties is that The Gories ? the best bass-less garage band to ever come out of Detroit and maybe anywhere ? have been critically buried by a clownish, image-obsessed, meticulously-managed duo who mainly sound like a neutered Led Zeppelin. They also eschew the bass-guitar and have a girl drummer. I will not name them, but you must know which ...
Current issue: (The Santa Clara)
You wouldn't have seen a half-naked trio of toned guys courting a rowdy crowd-surfing audience at a Ben Lee concert. Tuesday night's concert in the Leavey Center featured a band that's all about sex, love and reggae: Pepper.
DATE LINES / News, notes and updates from the Bay Area arts and culture scene...
Arresting reunion Just a day after their jubilant appearance at the Grammys, reunited rock trio the Police announced plans for a world tour, which kicks off on May 28 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The trek comes more than 20 years after front man...

Newsfeed display by CaRP