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| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: Big Star - In Space |
| Date | Tue, 27 Sep 2005 18:55:55 -0400 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg York" <yorkgreg@hotmail.com>
> A really good 5-6 song EP, packaged into a 12 song suit.
>
> At least they loaded all the strong songs up front so I don't have
> to hit the skip button so much.
>
> IMHO, the good stuff is really good, and the other stuff borders on
> awful. 12 bar boogie, lame Stax/Memphis soul tunes, an instrumental
> that brings little to the table, etc. etc.
>
> I wanted it to be great, but that probably shouldn't have been
> expected.
I'm about three-quarters of the way through my first listen now, and I
have yet to delete anything off the iTunes playlist, although "Do You
Wanna Make It" probably isn't gonna last long. I do think that "A
Whole New Thing" could stand to be about 60 seconds shorter, but
that's true of about 2/3s of the songs on the average power pop album,
so there you go. Anything that stands up to the best half-dozen or so
Big Star songs? Not yet, but I'm also not hearing anything that
"borders on awful," as you say.
I guess the question is, what were you expecting? Because to my ears,
what this sounds like is the best Alex Chilton record in the last
quarter-century, as well as his most overtly pop-oriented work since
RADIO CITY. People always forget that poor Chris Bell was pretty much
singlehandedly responsible for the overall sound of the first two Big
Star albums (Alex has said repeatedly in interviews that his goal in
Big Star was to write songs that sounded like Chris Bell songs), but
Chris has been dead for coming up on 30 years now. IN SPACE doesn't
sound much like the first two albums, but it *does* sound like prime
Alex Chilton. The fact that I seem to be one of the very few
Auditeers who finds much musical value in Alex's post-Big Star work --
as opposed to those folks who consider it some kind of personal insult
that he hasn't stuck to writing "September Gurls No. 238" -- probably
means that there's going to be a very large subset of folks around
here who are bitterly disappointed, but so far, I like it a lot.
> Stronger than the recent Posies release, but not a top 20. I now
> pin all my hopes on the upcoming db's reunion disk. Optimisim keeps
> me going....
Me, I prefer optimism mixed with records by bands who have formed in
the last decade and a half.
S
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