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| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: Big Star - In Space |
| Date | Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:44:50 -0400 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@ameritech.net>
> Agreed -- Stewart and Greg had great responses.
> However, I'm going to go back to one of my questions,
> and answer differently then they did. That question
> was -- do Big Star fans have a right to be
> disappointed in an album that doesn't fully conform to
> Big Star's classic sound?
>
> Stewart's answer targeted my notion that Alex isn't
> writing pop songs by noting that he is, but not
> necessarily Big Star-like pop songs -- my language was
> a bit loose, because Stewart is right -- but by pop
> songs, I meant pop songs in the Big Star mode. Greg
> was more in the vein of, if that's what Alex and Co.
> want to do, fine with me.
>
> Both make valid points. But I do think that fans have
> a right to carp a bit if a record branded Big Star
> strays from what made Big Star Big Star. I don't
> think it's an indictment of Big Star fans to have that
> expectation. If you're going to call it Big Star,
> then you accept the brand name benefits and must
> accept the backlash consequences.
Well, that's not quite what I said, though. What I said was that IN
SPACE doesn't sound much at all like the first two Big Star albums
(barring Jon's Chris Bell homage), but that to me, it *does* sound
like a logical follow-up to THIRD. Specifically, I said "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."
The thing is, I don't see how we can expect IN SPACE to sound like
either #1 RECORD or RADIO CITY, because Chris Bell's influence was so
dominant on those two records. (I mean, think about it: Chris only
actually appears on, what, like one or two songs on RADIO CITY, yet
that album still sounds far more like #1 RECORD than it does THIRD or
IN SPACE, and I think that's proof of Alex's contention that in the
original Big Star days, his writing was being heavily influenced by
Chris.)
I think the comparison to the Byrds is perfectly reasonable -- that
band sounded different after Gene Clark and David Crosby left, and
more different still when Gram Parsons joined. THIRD sounds different
from the first two albums, and while IN SPACE doesn't sound all that
much like THIRD, it sounds more like that record than the first two,
and that shouldn't be that surprising.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not that IN SPACE doesn't
sound like Big Star, it's that IN SPACE doesn't sound like Chris Bell.
S
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