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| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: Big Star - In Space |
| Date | Wed, 28 Sep 2005 03:17:43 -0400 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@ameritech.net>
> 2. That being said -- is there anything wrong with
> expecting a record called Big Star to sound like Big
> Star, as opposed to something more in line with Alex's
> solo stuff? Stewart seems to imply that there is
> something misguided about that -- I'm not so sure
> about that. However, what I've read about the disc is
> what I did expect. I honestly didn't think Chilton
> would get back to writing pop songs.
In that event, you might be surprised. Of the twelve songs, Chilton
wrote and sang six, Jody Stephens wrote and sang two ("February's
Quiet" and "Best Chance We Ever Had"), Jon Auer wrote and sang one
("Lady Sweet," perhaps his most overt Chris Bell homage yet), Ken
Stringfellow wrote and sang one ("Turn My Back on the Sun") and there
are two covers (the Olympics' "Mine Exclusively," which sounds just
like the Young Rascals, and if you think sounding like the Young
Rascals is a bad thing, you're just lame, and "Aria, Largo" by the
obscure Baroque-era composer Georg Muffat) that have Chilton's
fingerprints all over them.
So eight of the songs are Alex's, and of those eight, "Aria, Largo,"
"Love Revolution" and *maybe* "Do You Wanna Make It" wouldn't pass the
Pop Stalinist definition of "pop songs." ("Love Revolution" is the
one that's going to piss off the PS's the most, since not only is it
not power pop, it's...shock horror...an R&B dance tune along the
lines of Archie Bell and the Drells' "Tighten Up." It's also one of
the best songs on the album, and certainly the one on which the band
sound like they're having the most fun.) So again, 12 songs total.
One instrumental that sounds a little bit like early Van Dyke Parks.
Two R&B songs. NINE POP SONGS, five of them written and sung by Alex
Chilton. This is not that far removed from Big Star, but it's a
version of Big Star in which Chris Bell's influence is severely
diminished, and because Alex is simply a stronger personality (and
singer, and songwriter) than Jody and neither Ken nor Jon is going to
try to dominate the proceedings, then clearly that means that IN SPACE
is going to sound more like solo Alex than either #1 RECORD or RADIO
CITY did.
Can you compare it to THIRD? Well, in the sense that TONIGHT'S THE
NIGHT and FREEDOM are both Neil Young records, sure, but THIRD is so
clearly an album of its time and place -- neither Alex nor Jody are in
that headspace these days, and for the sake of their mental health,
that's undoubtedly a good thing -- but I listened to IN SPACE again
this evening after a listen to the PVC version of THIRD, and I don't
think it sounds like a stretch to me. It's 30 years later, but this
still sounds like a logical follow-up to me.
> 3. Insofar as Chilton rewriting "September Gurls",
> that point is well taken. But then the question
> becomes -- how many good songs has he written since
> the original end of Big Star? Seriously -- his output
> as a composer post-Big Star leaves a lot to be
> desired.
I'm not going to claim that he's written three dozen great pop songs
since the days of Big Star, but since Bobby Sutliff has already told
me that I'll never write a song as good as "Stroke It Noel" -- a fact
that would be patently obvious to anyone who has ever heard me sing or
attempt to play an instrument, much less write a song -- I'll simply
say that as far as I'm concerned, Bobby Sutliff will never write a
song as good as "Free Again," "Bangkok," "Hey! Little Child," "My
Rival" or "Guantanamerika." (And incidentally? That's five songs.
Alex Chilton wrote a total of six songs by himself on the first two
Big Star albums. Perhaps the question isn't "How many songs has he
written since Big Star?" so much as it is "How many songs has he
written, period?")
> 4. In that regard, I didn't include the excerpt, but
> Stewart notes Chris Bell's contribution/influence on
> the Big Star sound -- basically stating that it's the
> dominant part of the sound of the first two albums.
> This gets to the big question -- had Chris Bell not
> passed on years ago, would Chilton get as much credit
> as he does for Big Star? Could it be possible that
> Chilton is really a modestly talented fellow who found
> his mojo with Bell, and then watched it dissipate over
> the years?
Or...and this is the point that I've been trying to make about Alex
Chilton off and on now since I was in high school...could it be
possible that Big Star was an unlikely aberration in Alex Chilton's
career?
Maybe I'm weird because I was fairly familiar with Alex Chilton's
music quite literally YEARS before I ever heard of Big Star -- as I've
mentioned round these parts before, the very first LP I ever bought
was the Bell-label Box Tops anthology SUPER HITS, which I bought from
my dad's store when I was 5 because I was in love with my older
sister's 45 of "The Letter," and I was a high school junior when the
Bangles' cover of "September Gurls" sent to Ralph's Records to
discover the unauthorized Line reissue of THIRD -- but if you've ever
got a slow afternoon to kill, try this: Start with the Box Tops, go to
the recordings later collected on 1970, skip over the first two Big
Star albums, pick up again with the Ryko reissue of THIRD/SISTER
LOVERS and go from there through BACH'S BOTTOM, LIKE FLIES ON
SHERBERT, FEUDALIST TARTS, etc. I guarantee you that if you do that,
Alex Chilton's career will make a hell of a lot more sense. The
throughline is much more obvious. While I would certainly argue that
what Alex Chilton has been doing since 1967 has been pop music, his
music outside of the first two Big Star albums has got basically
nothing to do with the standard Audities definition of "power pop."
All I'm saying is that this doesn't mean he's "modestly talented,"
merely that his talents lie in different directions.
Which, naturally, raises the question of "Why call this a Big Star
album?" Well, my hunch is that, like all of us, Alex enjoys having
dinner on the table on a regular basis. And since he's constantly
hounded by people who insist that he should always sound like he did
for a four-year period that ended 30 years ago, even though that
period has little to do with the music he's made before or since, he
probably finds it amusing and financially renumerative to occasionally
take their money for long enough to give them what they want, so that
they'll leave him alone and he can go back to what he really wants to
do.
"Gee, isn't that awfully cynical of ol' Alex?" you might be wondering.
Well, by this point, what do you expect? Start your career in your
mid-teens by getting royally screwed by Dan Penn on one side and Bell
Records on the other, move directly into the company of a
self-destructive emotional wreck in a band making completely
unfashionable music that's stuck recording for a slowly disintegrating
label that has NO idea what to do with you, hit rock bottom thanks to
your own addictive personality, and then spend 25 years playing the
music you love and that you grew up with in front of an audience that
gets overtly hostile whenever you play anything that doesn't sound
like "In the Street." I daresay you'd be feeling a little cynical
too.
> 5. If this is the best Alex Chilton material in 20
> years, do I really need it?
Depends. I think anyone who truly thinks that Alex Chilton has done
absolutely nothing of interest since 1975 has probably already made up
his mind. If that's you, then don't bother. Otherwise, you might be
surprised. All I know is that I was fully expecting to hate this
record, and I've listened to it quite happily three times in the last
six hours.
S
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