Willjlevith's Blog

Big Star

#1 Record (1972) and Radio City (1974)

Produced by Big Star

Remastered by George Horn (Fantasy Studios, Berkeley)

Street Date: June 16, 2009

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I’m sure there’s a scientific term for the chill you get up your spine when you hear a fantastic song for the first time. I don’t remember the exact moment I heard the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” but I’m sure it was on the long-since-defunct oldies station where I grew up in upstate New York (I think it was called Electric 99.5). Anyhow, if you’ve ever heard the song, you know right off that it’s a good one. There’s this driving desperation in the lead singer’s gruff vocals—and that lovely, horn-blown backbeat. Sure, the airplane noise at the end is as campy as you can get, but after you hear that song for the first time, it requires several more spins.

Some 15 years after I heard “The Letter” for the first time, three successive years saw three happy accidents in this order: (a) I fell hard for Yo La Tengo’s Summer Sun (2003), (b) I had a coworker burn me Big Star’s #1 Record/Radio City (in 2004) and (c) I read a Big Star biography by Rob Jovanovic (2005). I had recently moved to New York City and scored a coveted internship at Rolling Stone magazine, and my intern coordinator let me burn a bunch of her albums, including YLT’s Summer Sun. Top to bottom, it’s a delightful little album, with some signature trippy jams, as well as melodies only the intimacy of a husband/wife team can produce. Not known to me at the time, but the final track on the album, “Take Care,” is a Big Star cover—from the least Big Star of the Big Star albums, Third/Sister Lovers (this is the perfect example of why buying CDs is a must for the true music fan; if you don’t have the liner-notes, then most likely, you have no idea what you’re listening to. I could’ve gone on for years believing that “Take Care” was a Yo La Tengo song had I not stumbled upon Jovanovic’s biography a year later. An interesting side-note: The “sister lovers” name comes from a line in a Byrds outtake written by the then increasingly-obnoxious-but-highly-talented David Crosby for the Notorious Byrd Brothers album in 1968. The song is called “Triad” and is about, in the words of the next door neighbor from Office Space, “doing two chicks at the same time.” Supposedly, Roger McGuinn, chief Byrd, was none too pleased about the song and left it off the final album track listing, much to Crosby’s dismay. McGuinn also fired Crosby [or Crosby quit?] shortly thereafter. You can hear it on the Notorious Byrd Brothers reissue with bonus tracks or solo acoustic on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Four Way Street. It’s a fantastic song, but definitely didn’t fit on Notorious.).

In between the time when I found out about “Take Care” and reading the Big Star biography, I received the burned copy of the first two Big Star albums and proceeded to immediately upload them to my first iPod. Now, when you listen to anything—including people speak—in the streets or subway tunnels of New York City, you’re bound to hear very little, because everything is so fucking loud. Everywhere you go there are jackhammers pecking away at the street, 18-wheelers whoosing by belching out god-knows-what and people yapping on cell phones and BlackBerries. For the first year or so I had those albums on my iPod, I heard very little of what I listened to, even with the levels cranked all the way up. I would sometimes listen to the albums at the gym, but Big Star is not the type of music you should go pump iron to; it’s the type of music you should sit at home with a beer or a joint and allow to fill up the empty spaces.

It wasn’t until immediately after I’d read the Big Star book that I really fell desperately in love with the band, and it took just two songs, initially, to do the job: “When My Baby’s Beside Me” (with “Thirteen” coming in at a close second) from #1 Record and “O My Soul” (with “Way Out West” coming in at a close second) from Radio City.

I would suggest going out and buying the book first—it will give you a great springboard from which to leap into the band. And now let’s leap into the reissue.

First Impression (#1 Record): I’m not entirely sure what it means to “remaster” an album. Does it mean the album is supposed to be different in any noticeable way? Is the album supposed to be of better quality than the original? Most likely, it means that a new producer sat behind the board and twisted some knobs slightly and adjusted the levels to be just so.

The remastery certainly isn’t that noticeable, but there is definitely a crispness to this version compared to the one I still have on my iPod. Definitely noticeable on “Thirteen,” with the second guitar (are the levels slightly higher?). Or maybe it’s just the damned prettiest song on the album, and my mind is telling me it sounds different.

What can I say? I love the fact that I’ve given myself a second first chance to listen to this album. It’s like turning back time but being a hundred times wiser this time around. It’s like an out-of-body experience, to say the least. It’s like I’ve gone back to 2004 and tapped myself on the shoulder and said, “Listen, motherfucker, listen.”

Random thoughts, brought to you by stream of consciousness: Does it bother anybody else that the “don’t cross me babe” parts don’t line up at that one part, two minutes and change into the song “Don’t Lie to Me”? It’s too bad that Andy Hummel penned just one tune on #1 Record: “The India Song.” What a lovely little kitch of a song, though! Nothing pretentious about it whatsoever. It’s just about a guy who would like to bring a beautiful girl to India and live there. I would like to go to India, too, but whenever I eat Indian food these days, it really gives me a bad stomachache. I really like chicken tikka masala—christ, if I could have a big, heaping sloppy portion of that with a piece of naan to sop it up with (without the repercussions afterward), I would give my left foot. I wonder if that’s what Andy Hummel was thinking when he wrote that tune? [While I was writing those ruminations about "The India Song," I totally missed "When My Baby's Beside Me." I just skipped by disc-changer back.] What a juicy riff to start this one off. It’s like a big steak topped with melted cheese and bacon (you can actually get said-steak at Dylan Prime right here in New York City). Songs like “My Life Is Right” really make you miss Chris Bell on that second record—but make his solo album I Am the Cosmos that much more special. It’s basically Chris Bell’s All Things Must Pass; it has all the Chris Bell stuff on it that didn’t make the Radio City. I never really noticed this before, but after “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” the album really takes a turn towards the depressing and introspective. Is that Bell’s influence coming out or Chilton? Funny I should bring up All Things Must Pass, because that slide guitar solo in “Try Again” sure sounds like something George Harrison might do. “Watch the Sunrise” is what happens when a guitar player discovers an open tuning for the first time—and when he tries to come up with a song based on it. (I’m pretty sure that the opening riff is in an open tuning.) Not quite sure if the 12-string acoustic is in an opening tuning once the verse kicks in, though. Another pretty tune. It really sounds like classic Tea for the Tillerman Cat Stevens. Just so simple, so pretty. There’s a story behind “ST 100/6,” which I can’t remember from the Big Star book. But if you read it, you’ll find out. Read it.

Bonus Track: “In the Street” single mix. A cool new take on the song—more moving lead guitar lines, slightly different arrangement, still a spectacular cut. Different guitar solo! More countrified! Woo-hoo! Take me home! Great addition.

First Impression (Radio City): Wow, now I think there’s definitely a difference to “O My Soul.” I think Mr. New Producer Guy cranked up the bass, to great effect. I never realized it was there under that great jazzy Chilton guitar riff. The song sounds like a circus, a joyride and a lay all at once. Is that even possible? Not to mention the trillion different riffs that are packed into this one song. Most songwriters would kill to have one of those riffs in one song—Chilton has got literally a trillion going on in one (well, not exactly a trillion). I always thought the song name “Life Is White” sounded sort of like “My Life Is Right,” and was a kissoff to Chris Bell. “I know what you’re like/and I can’t go back to that.” I’m not entirely sure what “your life is white” means, either. Does it mean that it’s lacking color? Would that make Chilton a rainbow? Hooray! Here we go with Andy Hummel’s second song, “Way Out West.” What a simple, weird little song. First, let me state the obvious: It’s about a guy who loves a girl who’s gone away (out West). And he wants her back. Now, the not-so-obvious: Is it just me, or does that riff sound like just about every single the ’90s alternative band the Gin Blossoms put out? I bet the GB’s were big Big Star fans. I dig how “What’s Going Ahn” starts out in a major key and goes minor-ward within seconds (not sure about the alternate spelling of “On,” though). It sounds weird at first to the untrained ear but really makes for different, cool little song. “Get What You Deserve”: Do you think The Screaming Trees may have been listening to this one when they crafted that fantastic ’90s hit “I Nearly Lost You”? Maybe. Some similarities. “Back of a Car” could’ve been on the first record and leads me to believe that it has Chris Bell on it somewhere—had he been connected in any way to Radio City (there are rumors that he was, briefly). Or maybe Chilton was just thinking about the good old days when he wrote it with Andy Hummel. Never noticed the talking in the beginning of “She’s a Mover.” Then there’s “September Gurls,” which is just pure Byrds/Kinks fallatio, with awfully nice results. Again, what is with the alternate spelling, Chilton? Does that make it “December Boyz got it bad?” That might be the first time “boys” was ever spelt “boyz.” “Morpha Too” finds Chilton tickling the ivories in that sinister sort of way that he does—hear the nod to “Rhapsody in Blue” in there? I sure do. “I’m In Love With a Girl” is a lovely way to cap the album off, which compared to the first one, is all over the place stylistically. This is another track that could’ve easily been on #1 Record.

Bonus Track: “O My Soul” single mix. Sounds pretty similar to the regular mix, save for the tiny cut in the beginning between the opening riff and the verse (which makes it shorter, i.e. more “single” worthy). There is really nothing different about this track, which is sort of a letdown, even though it’s a fantastic song.

Roundup: I skipped the Song(s) of Note section, because this was pretty much covered in the First Impressions and introduction sections. By way of reissues, there’s really not much difference between these albums and their original counterparts. Sure, if you want to add in that great “In the Street” single mix, which really is a breath of fresh air on the album, you could say there is a reason for purchasing this album, but I say go out and buy the vinyl on eBay or burn it from your friend, read the Big Star book and discover the albums/band that way. This is an album that didn’t really need a reissue treatment and is getting one to make the surviving members of Big Star and their families a little extra bread from the diehard fans that they know will go out and slap down the money for this “reissue.” Wait until the boxset comes out.