the best "big star" song from the 3 official 70's lp's

have to say that the production of "o, my soul" is the best power pop they ever recorded.

You can say that again!

You Get What You Deserve.

Very easy, this one. "What's Going Ahn" hands down. Give or take DeBarge's "A Dream" or Ariel Pink's "Good Kids Make Bad Grownups," it's the most beautiful song ever recorded in the English language.

Great poll, btw.

That should be "Good Kids Make Bad Grown Ups"

Is everyone just resisting the obvious? it's September Gurls, has to be...

"Blue Moon", which never fails to give me chills.

Anyone else up in this bitch votin' for Life Is White? hellls yeah

Is everyone just resisting the obvious?

Funny, I was about to say the same thing, but about "Back Of A Car."

Back of a Car!

Ballad Of El Goodo

"Back of a Car" is the best song, I voted. These days I mainly listen to the third record, though, because that contains the best singing Alex Chilton ever did (up there with the Box Tops' "Soul Deep" and "Neon Rainbow" and "Fields of Clover").

My husband just asked me to put their first two albums in iTUNES after I played him one of the BS songs. Can't remember which one. I dunno which to pick, really, so I went with the one that has the most *memories*, namely Thirteen.

O DANA

should the Chris Bell album be included in this poll?

My love for the band decreases which each rekkid, in that I'm more of a Bell (the Robert Johnson of power-pop) man than a Chill-town one…but geez: the chillingly beautiful "Thirteen"? KJB's accurately described pick? fuck, 8—12 is about the most heart-rending sequence of songs of which I am aware…

a tough mu'fugger indeed…I'll go with "Out in the Street" right now, but it could change later today…

I've always thought that the first rekkid is Bell and Chilton singing to each other: Bell was gay and obviously was unhappy about that, and I've been told by someone who worked with AC that he dabbled…there are no gender-specific nouns, pronouns or details used on the record…I think Chilton fooled around with Bell and Bell got his heart broken…

and does anyone know, between the two, who played the solos?

Feel as though I ought to go with September Gurlz or Way Out West, something universal. But Blue Moon.

I first saw you
You had on blue jeans
Your eyes couldn't hide
Anything

I saw you
Breathing, oh

I saw you staring out in space

I next saw you
You was at the party
Thought you was a queen
Oh so flirty

I came against

Didn't say excuse
Knew what I was doing
We looked very fine
'Cause we were leaving

Like Saint Joan
Doing a cool jerk
Oh, I want you
Like a kanga roo

"Holocaust" has always been my favorite--if only just 'cause I love the dessiccated mood Chilton evinces so convincingly.

*desiccated* even.

Holocaust is the actual-wrist-slitting version of Blue Moon's maybe-considering-wrist-slitting vibe. So, much as I love it, I keep my distance.

I hear ya talkin'.

solos on the first Big Star record? I'm pretty sure it's Bell playing the wah-wah gtr on "Baby's Beside Me."

That's interesting: Bell was the Robert Johnson of power-pop. Because he died early? His material is frustrating, because some of it's so poorly recorded--relative to the Ardent stuff Big Star did--and because there's a certain clunkiness to it. Most folks cite "I Am the Cosmos" as his greatest song, and it probably is. But for power-pop I choose "I Don't Know," which is about as tense a goddamned thing as anyone has ever committed to tape. It's fantastic, but at the same time it's sort of ill-conceived as a recording and performance. something about the way the drums define the song is off. so I don't know...Bell seems to have gotten a lot of stuff right, but the big virtue of Big Star is the way the music swings, at least for rock and roll of the era. there's an ease to it that contrasts with the tension of the songs themselves. this is why I think their records are superior to virtually all other power-pop records. not to say that the Raspberries or any of the million other power-pop groups aren't great in their way. and I'm not sure Bell had a lot to do with that aspect of the music. I think in some ways he was a purer talent than Chilton, but at the same time, Alex is probably the better musician, overall, or at least he had and has a sense of humor about the whole thing that Bell seems to have lacked. so I guess it comes down to the usual thing of whether you worship stuff because it's supposedly so haunted and doomed--and that's not why I like Robert Johnson, by the way, and blues scholarship in the last decade has kinda dethroned Johnson, since we now know he was the summation of a tradition and not the starter of same--or whether you take a slightly more sane view of stuff. which is not to discount the real emotion in Bell or Big Star's music, or the creepiness therein. I mean, Robert Johnson and the whole thing of selling his soul to the devil is just so puerile, about as puerile as worshipping a guy like Chris Bell because he was fucked up. (which I don't think anyone on this thread is doing.) when you divorce a lot of that stuff from the actual music Bell made, some of it is distressingly pedestrian. I could say the same thing about virtually all Alex's stuff since 1979, altho he is (was) a great performer who in my opinion cut virtually anyone I ever saw play guitar and sing on a stage. the problem was, you had to have a sense of humor to appreciate a lot of it and that doesn't jibe with the worship of doom, death and creepiness that the Big Star cult has engendered. I've certainly indulged in that worship myself, and yeah, I think that the third record remains one of the few genuinely worthwhile examinations of...extreme states of mind...pop has produced, and that's at least partly because the people who made it seem to have retained some vestige of their sense of humor even as they were falling down fucked up making it.

what about "stroke it, noel"???

i knew something was misiing...

Damn it, I forgot about Stroke It. Vote went to "You Can't Have Me" but it could've easily been about five others.

It's "Daisy Glaze," you guys.

Bell was gay

Um, what??

I've been told by someone who worked with AC that he dabbled

Um, what????

I think Chilton fooled around with Bell and Bell got his heart broken…

Oh holy hell, WHAT???? How the freak did I not know all this? I need references. Gimme something to read (Edd, I'm looking in your direction too). I'm soooooooooooo having a Chris Bell/Big Star evening when I get home tonight.

but the big virtue of Big Star is the way the music swings, at least for rock and roll of the era. there's an ease to it that contrasts with the tension of the songs themselves.

Can you give examples, Edd? To my ears, "O My Soul, "Life is White," "What's Going Ahn?" etc. are pretty plodding on the bottom despite the fact that Kenny Loggins stole the opening riff from "O My Soul" for "Footloose."

i voted for "life is white" in the absence of noel...

By no means am I a blues scholar, but I am quite aware that there has been a debunking of Johnson as the be all and end all of Delta blues. But does said scholarship (which I have only read about and am aware of key points) say that Johnson was not haunted? he can still be so without being the ultimate bluesman. Having listened to him alot 20 years ago, I think that it would be disingenous to say no—unless you want to be reflexively contrarian.

As for Bell, there is an unfinished quality to a lot of the tunes on IAtC: "I Don't Know" is the finished version of "Get Away," which is the one with dodgy drumming and Bell sounding like he's having a breakdown. But to me, Bell sounds like he cared, whereas I don't really get that imperssion from any Chilton music I've heard post-BIg Star. In that respect, Bell also had the benefit of dying…he seemed genuinely tortured in a way that reminds me of Johnson.

In no way am I fixated with the relative fucked-up-ed ness of Big Star or any other artist. I like the first one best: the tension between trying really hard to make the best record they can and being very troubled really makes it for me (also, that they consciously tried to sound as British as they could but couldn't help but have a creeping soulfulness, due to proximity to Stax-Volt, that they tried to suppress). As Bell recedes, the already hardened cynic Chilton takes over, and the records become sloppy and sloppier…I never have much of a desire to listen to Third…

"I think Chilton fooled around with Bell and Bell got his heart broken…"
this is purely conjecture on my part…

"Bell was gay"

this is well known…

"I've been told by someone who worked with AC that he dabbled"

this was a professional acquaintance of mine who I should not name. Suffice it to say that he worked with Chilton after Big Star; they fell out pretty bad, but I believe him…

"Bell was gay"

this is well known…

I honestly had no clue.

Is it me or does Chilton, on Big Star's first LP, sound like Stephen Stills at times?

8. Kangaroo

^^^^^^^THIS

"September Gurls"

Not to derail this into a Chris Bell thread, but knowing that Bell was gay and still trying to be a Christian makes it yet more heartbreaking to listen to than it already is. In particular "You and Your Sister" just rips my heart out, especially coupled with "There Was a Light".

I've heard a lot of claims in passing that Chris was gay, but where does this idea come from? Semi-definitive source, that kind of thing.

I don't think Alex is, or ever was, 'a hardened cynic' ; rather his self- image as a musician is entirely at odds with the pop process. His Modus Operandi is much more that of an old style Jazz/ RnB performer; he's not baring his soul anymore than Dr. John or Ray Charles ever did; he's an entertainer with a solid talent, and what he does and the way he does it is as far from indie autobiog of a tortured soul or smart-ass self- consciousness as it can be.

Even at the time of Sisters/ Lovers as noted above, there was a distance; this was a record about extreme emotional states, not a set of symptoms thereof. Part of this way of working has to do with Memphis and a certain insularity; respect at home maybe more important to musicians there than anything more global, add to that the high culture of his parents and his early immunisation from the temptations of stardom, and his career seems less accidental (or cynical) and more the single minded expression of a particular aesthetic, the carving out of a stubborn space of his own. Put it another way; none of his later work - after Flies on Sherbet - is particularly essential the way all the Big Star records are, but its all enjoyable, whereas, if a 50 year old tried to endlessly recreate the fragile intensity of S/L the results could not fail to be grotesque.

So many great songs. I'll probably go with Take Care, always lurved that song. but other favourites include: 13,O Dana, Blue Moon.

lucky me, i'm listening to #1 and Radio City for my first time today.

lucky me, i'm listening to #1 and Radio City for my first time today.

Wow......

I'd heard Bell was gay, for years. I honestly can't address what it means to be "haunted." I mean I'm haunted by things--my mother's death haunts me. But what that means for art is quite another thing. Why people love Robert Johnson is, in large part, because he was such an amazing guitarist. So, perhaps I could substitute "tried hard" for "he was haunted." It is sort of a matter of technique.

In that regard, the Big Star records are certainly examples of technique: in the playing, and in John Fry and Terry Manning and Chris
Bell's studio expertise, and in the mastering.

Listen again to "O My Soul." the riff is a chromatic major sixth. the ending is straight out of an early-'60s James Brown recording. soul music. it's brisk and to my ears it swings. ditto "Life Is White," listen to the piano break in the middle. there's space in the performance, and sure, it shambles. but again, the question of technique--subverted by people who, perhaps unconsciously, have a sense of tradition they're playing against--is there for us to ponder. I mean I have nothing against the Raspberries and love much of their stuff, and I like Cleveland, Ohio just fine. but the tradition of Memphis seems to me something altogether bigger and more complex than Cleveland's musical tradition.

of course, maybe I'm wrong, and Cleveland expresses itself thru Pere Ubu and Peter Laughner and all those cool Ubu-esque bands, just as Memphis does in Big Star and the Grifters and so forth.

that's what Big Star records really do, is subvert tradition and received wisdom. hell, let's just dispense with the adornment on Third's "You Can't Have Me," and break it all down to the drums and a guitar that seems to reference any number of Brit Invasion tropes--the song could be the Who drowning in the Mississippi River, right?--and make that our statement on how rock is dead and all that.

this definitely has something to do with the idea of "haunted." cf. William Eggleston's Miss. Delta photos and his photos of Memphis, too.

a lot of the credit for Big Star's stuff has to go to Jody Stephens back on the drums. he manages to combine the wildness of Keith Moon's shit with the Who with some kind of Bonham overstatement, yet it's crisp and it never intrudes. so, perhaps think of "O My Soul" as swing interrupted. another virtue of the Big Star records is that they're never overdone, they sound like the work of people whose frame of reference is somewhat broader than the average rock fan's. I myself have no desire to live in a world where Radiohead (to choose a random example) carries more weight than Count Basie. that seems like a needless repudiation of culture, and part of what makes Big Star records better and different from any number of power-pop records is that you get that sense from them...there's a world of culture lurking out there they seem to know about, even as they kinda want to be the Byrds or Moby Grape or, yeah, Stephen Stills. who never came up with anything as good as "In the Street," because he was too cynical already.

I don't have time to plow through references, but his Wiki entry (yeah, yeah hardly definitive) mentions Bell's homosexuality.

I myself have no desire to live in a world where Radiohead (to choose a random example) carries more weight than Count Basie. that seems like a needless repudiation of culture,

OTM so much (whole piece, actually)

Nature Boy - (bonus track)
16. Till The End Of The Day - (bonus track)
17. Dream Lover - (bonus track)
18. Downs - (bonus track)
19. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - (bonus track)

Not from the "official" 70's LP </pedant>

I don't know if it's my favorite but I've always had a soft spot for "Watch the Sunrise". so simple, so beautiful

I mean I have nothing against the Raspberries and love much of their stuff, and I like Cleveland, Ohio just fine. but the tradition of Memphis seems to me something altogether bigger and more complex than Cleveland's musical tradition.

of course, maybe I'm wrong, and Cleveland expresses itself thru Pere Ubu and Peter Laughner and all those cool Ubu-esque bands, just as Memphis does in Big Star and the Grifters and so forth.

your ruminations on memphis and big star are cool, but I don't think they should be at the expense of poor, old Cleveland! sure, memphis has played a much bigger role in the development of rock, jazz, soul, country, etc. No doubt about it. But not to know how deeply Cleveland expresses itself through RFTT, Pere Ubu, Dead Boys, Mirrors, etc. is not to know much about Cleveland and its music. in the end its apples and oranges and both cities have some wonderful mythology surrounding them.

Holocaust.

Watch the Sunrise. I really wish I could play guitar to that song.

Good poll.

Lots of good writing on this thread.

Anyway, I voted for "You Can't Have Me," which is the best Who song of the seventies.

I'm pretty much with you, Ed, on what you said about Big Star and their consciousness of culture. I read Robert Gordon's It Came From Memphis, which helped me get where Big Star was coming from much better.

But about Big Star's swing: on the 1970 record Chilton covers "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and I think it's better than the original, exactly because of what you're pointing out: that swing. You can dance to it---it's hard not to. Chilton's reworked the riff, giving it a bit of a bend (I don't know how to describe it better). It's very tempting to say things about the river at this point, but I'm using too many cliches as it is. Having that swing means that when they go all stately, like on "Blue Moon", the song is striking for how different it sounds than the rest of the record: it's like you can feel the life draining away on the record, after the death throes of "You Can't Have Me".

the lack of consensus is comforting. went for life is white.

So, perhaps I could substitute "tried hard" for "he was haunted." It is sort of a matter of technique.

Can you? John Mayer tries hard and is technically talented, but he sounds (to me) calculated, empty and cloying. Chris Bell -- who is less technically talented than Mayer, I guess -- sounds (to me) fragile and his music sounds so vulnerable that it's heart-wrenching.

It raises the question of what makes an artist "haunted" and whether being "haunted" makes someone a better artist. An article I read recently argued that emotionally grounded, happy people make art just as compelling as the "tortured artists." It depends on what you want in your art, I suppose.

Speaking of "haunted," Blue Moon gets my vote in the poll. If his solo stuff was included in the poll, I'd vote for You And Your Sister in a heartbeat.

ah, OK. you darn well know what I mean, and are just trying to be difficult. John Mayer indeed. "Fragile" and "vulnerable" are just not very exact words. did I forget to add that it helps to make music that is about something? what makes Chris Bell good has little to do with subjective things like how haunted you think he sounds--try listening to the actual music itself. also, Cleveland is no paradise but believe me, Memphis has got it beat for broke-dick shit. I am well aware of all the fine, if rather thin-sounding, Cleveland bands who arose in the late '70s with Ubu connections--who are compiled on the last disc of Terminal Tower. I have spent a good bit of time in the Ohio city--the only tolerable place in that fine if woozy state--and I have great affection for it. so maybe I should expound on my subjective impressions of what makes it so rock and roll a city--geez, maybe it's even "hainted."

Not trying to be difficult. Admittedly, "fragile" and "vulnerable" are not exact words. But I do think that part of what makes Bell special is the subjective "haunted" quality of his work, however difficult the term may be to define. Look, if Bell was singing his lyrics with the inflections and cadence of the Maroon 5 lead singer, it wouldn't be the same, even if the actual music itself was unchanged.

I'm forever dissing Big Star on ILM, and I was doing so long before there was an ILM, for reasons both fair and unfair. But I respect so many of your opinions (and I wish I had a joint so bad) and I want to love them so much (I recognize their basic quality) and I like power pop (albeit in theory more than practice); so I'm gonna listen to that little-played #1 Record/Radio City CD in full a coupla times and see if I can't give a sincere thought-out answer.

Man, whisperineddhurt is on fire on this thread! Go, man, go!

Ok been listening to Big Star/Chris Bell all night and reading through the intriguing thoughts in this thread (and some smack too). Like:

Even at the time of Sisters/ Lovers as noted above, there was a distance; this was a record about extreme emotional states, not a set of symptoms thereof. Part of this way of working has to do with Memphis and a certain insularity; respect at home maybe more important to musicians there than anything more global

Assuming what you're saying about the insularity of Memphis is true, how does said insularity necessarily result in music with distance? Couldn't one just as easily play for an insular community and create music from a tortured soul? Why is this necessarily not the case with Chilton/Memphis?

Listen again to "O My Soul."...the ending is straight out of an early-'60s James Brown recording. soul music. it's brisk and to my ears it swings.

Ok I actually hear that. But it's much slower and (shock!) less funkier. The band jerks forward as if caught in molasses so much so that the subversion overshadows the adherence to tradition (obviously, if I had to be told after countless hearing that James Brown is going ahn here). In short, I'm still not sure how much it swings per se ("jerks forward" captures it for me).

Same with the piano interlude in "Life Is White." It's certainly the ONLY thing in that space swingin' which makes me wonder to what extent it's making the song overall swing.

None of which detracts from a ridiculously A+ record.

This is a difficult poll... maybe the most difficult yet! So I'll play safe and go for "September Gurls", and why not, there are few better songs around!! I've always thought Big Star was largely about Alex Chilton being influenced by Chris Bell... he's often seemed rather embarassed by Big Star, like it wasn't really his band or his type of music

Not sure if this is 100% appropriate for this thread but...

OK so eons ago, a guitar playing friend with whom I'm no longer in contact told me that the guitar solo in "Mod Lang" is just Chilton (or whoever) playing open strings (fingers not on the neck/frets). It soooo doesn't sound like it to me. But are there any guitar players/musicologists/Big Star psychos who know if this is true? If not, does it happen on another Big Star song? But I could've sworn it was "Mod Lang."

Assuming what you're saying about the insularity of Memphis is true, how does said insularity necessarily result in music with distance? Couldn't one just as easily play for an insular community and create music from a tortured soul? Why is this necessarily not the case with Chilton/Memphis?

Sorry, the point was a bit compressed.
What i was getting at was something like this; there is a tendency to slot Big Star into one or both of two histories; Power Pop and, on the basis of the third record, a nebulous damaged, druggy folkie terrain inhabited by Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and latterly Elliott Smith. Add to this a tendency to confuse them with the kind of band they influenced, and the roots and meaning of what Chilton was up to gets obscured.

Remember, at 24 - when he was recording SL - Alex was already a veteran, a very good singer and guitar player. He had worked with Penn and Moman through his Box Tops career and knew everyone in the Memphis studio community, a community that was solidly oriented towards making hit records, albeit hits with an intangible but recognisable Memphis sound, rather than art. He wasn't a shy lonely outsider like Syd or Nick with an uncertain view of his own talent, nor was he a self- conscious stylist in the manner of the Raspberries or the Shoes. As Whisperineddhurt put it, his was an art that worked in the full knowledge and appreciation of a local tradition that was also very close to being nearly all you needed to know - a weird sort of universalised localism.

The consequence of this is I think this; because his habits and work practices were formed in a professional, commercial environment, and because he had a taste and a hinterland wider than the average, but also, and crucially because he was an insider in a very sophisticated community that didn't expect to be properly appreciated outside but evinced huge mutual respect from within, was to allow him to work in a way that brought humour and playfulness - and hence distance - to what in other hands might have been grim material.

Dang, mang. That long post from yesterday (-- whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 6:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link) is the single best thing I've ever read on ILX. Fucking go.

Jeez Louise, this thread has made me desperately want to listen to my Big Star records repeatedly until I either drop from exaltation or exhaustion. Sadly, I only have them on vinyl, which I cannot listen to presently. Sniff. Guess I'll have to wait for the CDs I ordered from Amazon this morning instead. Thx a heap, thread!

this is the hardest poll yet ... I went with Thirteen

have to say that the production of "o, my soul" is the best power pop they ever recorded.

WORD

I've always thought calling Big Star power-pop didn't make much sense, especially after comparing them to a band like the Raspberries. Big Star operated far beyond power-pop; they were just a great American rock band.

OTM. Especially true if we consider 3rd/Sister Lovers an "offcial LP".

Or something spelled right.

Not sure if this is 100% appropriate for this thread but...

OK so eons ago, a guitar playing friend with whom I'm no longer in contact told me that the guitar solo in "Mod Lang" is just Chilton (or whoever) playing open strings (fingers not on the neck/frets). It soooo doesn't sound like it to me. But are there any guitar players/musicologists/Big Star psychos who know if this is true? If not, does it happen on another Big Star song? But I could've sworn it was "Mod Lang."

Maybe the bit near the end of Daisy Glaze which sounds like a repeated open string arpeggio? (not sure of the tuning) - don't think it's Mod Lang anyway

"the drummer said you were not ver clean x 2, and i know what it means,oh!!!"

the best 15 seconds or so ever in "big star" discography ("you cant have me)

I do know what you mean, but I've never been able to unreservedly embrace that lyric.

Note to self: candy-ass.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

alright, after listening to them both quite a bit for the last two days, the one that strikes me the most is..

'Daisy Glaze'

had i voted for something off 3rd, 'Holocaust'

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

WRONG!

I'll defend the Bangles' cover of "September Gurls" and hope that it got Chilton some dough.

unfortunately, i don't even think their version sold all that well. it was on the band's debut EP, right? it is pretty good though. the bangles had really good taste in pop. they also covered the Merry-Go-Round.

Nope -- on the multiplatinum Different Light.

"Oh My Soul" is such a fucked-up song. It goes in all these different directions, like they're making it up as they go (like the movie, "Field of Dreams").
Of course, it's great.

um, how is it like Field of Dreams?

Nope -- on the multiplatinum Different Light.

thanks for the info. so yeah, hopefully they did get some green from that.

here's another big star question. my wife says that after the first season or two of That 70s Show, it started using the original version of "In The Street," instead of Cheap Trick's version. I, of course, debated (but I'm probably wrong about this, too).

Shit, I missed poll's end by mere hours! (I was thinking in EDT.) Not that I woulda really changed anything - "September Gurls" didn't need another vote. (Altho the gorgeous "Watch the Sunrise", my alternate choice, would've been elevated a few notches.) But I found those records more enjoyable than I remembered, they really do grow on you.

here's another big star question. my wife says that after the first season or two of That 70s Show, it started using the original version of "In The Street," instead of Cheap Trick's version. I, of course, debated (but I'm probably wrong about this, too).

nope, on the first two seasons it was done by session musicians. after that they used the cheap trick version (retitled "that 70s song"). but the original big star recording was never used.

i remember stumbling across the first episode of "that 70s show" and literally falling out of my chair when i heard "in the street." "it's a big star song! on tv!" i shouted to my roommate. he just stared at me blankly.

thanks. i always thought it was kind of odd considering the odds of those kids listening to big star in the '70s was slim. they probably should've been driving around to Alice Cooper, Kiss, or Foghat (then again, Dazed and Confused used "Slow Ride")

I didn't get to vote in this, but I am surprised the landslide for "September Gurls" wasn't bigger. I am a big fan of "#1 Record" myself, but even though the album is a lot stronger than "Radio City", there is no way any single track on that album can possibly be better than "September Gurl".

(so count me in as the 17th vote for "September Gurls" then)