Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers

For Howard, my favorite Big Star and one of the most depressing albums ever made.

"Recorded a year later in 1974, with producer and fellow Memphis musician/producer Jim Dickinson and backed with a host of friends and flunkies, the album, which has three working titles, Third, Sisters Lovers, and Beale St. Green, wasn't released until 1978 when it sold fewer records than probably Skip Spence's Oar, an album it resembles. Sister Lovers was re-released on CD by Rykodisc in 1992 to near universal acclaim (except in Afghanistan. Humorless Taliban shitheads, they would have dug the misery). If the first Big Star album is the greatest pure pop album of the last thirty years, and if the second is the finest record made between Exile on Main Street and Hüsker Dü's New Day Rising, Sister Lovers is one of the top twenty albums of all time. And don't care if it's predominantly a solo or band venture; I look at the label and it says Big Star, and in the same way that the Byrds, Yardbirds, and The Move radically changed personnel, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and is called Big Star, then it's a god damned duck.

And it is a very strange duck. To start with, it prefigures some of his solo albums in its self-absorption, disturbing solitude, sloppiness of musicianship, lack of a coherent song placement, and in its brutal disregard for convention or commercial prospects. Half the time, I want to sell it right after playing it, but then I proceed to drive a steak knife into my lower colon and play the album again. Most of the songs lack an introductory phrase: not merely in media res, but more like in the middle of hell, Chilton's songs are the songs you'd hear as Charon ferries you across the River Styx. And instead of money stuffed in your mouth to pay for the ride, your ears are stuffed with bleakness, radical song structures collapsing upon themselves, and relationships that end worse than the Holocaust: in Holiday Inns; on downs; or simply wishing to "shoot a woman." To be sure, as a singer/songwriter album full of quirky asides, declarations of hopelessness, and dark ramblings on the failure of America, Sister Lovers shares a similar greatness, ethos, and virtuosic intensity with other albums of the period, several of them nearly as great and dark as this one: Mayfield's Roots, Gaye's Here, My Dear, Wyatt's Rock Bottom, Young's Tonight's The Night, Cale's Paris 1919 and Hazelwood's Requiem For An Almost Lady. But Sister Lovers documents a great mind and a great talent at both the apex and the nadir of his career/life and, even if he begs "I want to white out" himself on the scary opening track, 'Kizza Me', he doesn't mean it – he is as proud to be our Cassandra, self-accused and accusatory, his fingers chained to a guitar of shimmering beauty. He proposes confessions here hoping for forgiveness. He is wrong. It is we who are sorry, guilty, miserable, former believers no longer living with certitude." - Michael Baker

I would add Reed's "Berlin"and Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man" to the list above, among others. But that's just me. Enjoy

Holocaust

Big Star - #1 Record/Radio City

For Sean: Essential listening for Teenage Fanclub & Elliott Smith fans.

"The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll. Originally led by the singing and songwriting duo of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, the Memphis-based group fused the strongest elements of the British Invasion era -- the melodic invention of the Beatles, the whiplash guitars of the Who, and the radiant harmonies of the Byrds -- into a ramshackle but poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pop's past even as it pointed the way toward the music's future. Although creative tensions, haphazard distribution, and marketplace indifference conspired to ensure Big Star's brief existence and commercial failure, the group's three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics, and their impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic is surpassed only by that of the Velvet Underground." [AMG]

Tell him what we said 'bout 'Paint It Black'

The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic (2003)

This is one of those albums you can't stop thinking about. I listened to it all day, every day. It made me quite happy but then I found out about the tragic end of this amazing band. Now, there's a melancholic feeling every time I listen to it which in some sort of way has grown on me. If you're a fan of rock n' roll and punk, this is a must have. My personal favorites are "Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades" and "Rumours in Town". Here's some info on the band and their tragic end.

"The Exploding Hearts were a young punk band who had released just one album – the exceptional Guitar Romantic. On this 2002 disc, the Hearts eschewed those first-album hints of brilliance and went straight there. They were like a young Clash, blasting out powerful, poppy punk with a purpose. Only their purpose wasn’t the hopeless social conditions of working-class kids in England – it was the romantic, emotionally fragile psyches of American youth today. “Throwaway Style” and “Sleeping Aides & Razor Blades” below serve as two standout examples. It was songs like these that made you wonder what might come next – a London Calling for the romantically crippled?"

"During the early 2000s the band rose to prominence in the US Pacific Northwest scene with a combination of energetic live shows and extremely well received singles. The band drew their influence from early British punk bands like The Undertones, Buzzcocks, The Jam, The Boys and The Only Ones, as well as pop acts like Nick Lowe. The Exploding Hearts led a revival of 1970s-era power pop and new wave in the Seattle and Portland area along with bands like The Briefs and the Epoxies on the then-Seattle-based Dirtnap Records. They released only one album, Guitar Romantic, during their existence as a band.

On July 20, 2003 the band was in a car accident which claimed the lives of three members. Their touring van flipped over on Interstate 5 just north of Eugene, Oregon while en route from San Francisco to Portland. Jeremy Gage and Adam Cox were thrown from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, Matthew Fitzgerald, died at a hospital. Terry Six and band manager Rachelle Ramos both survived with minor injuries.

The band ceased to exist in the aftermath of the accident. Their popularity has continued to grow through word of mouth, however."

rest in peace