big star - radio city POLL and your favorites in order because where would we be without measuring things?

oh man too tough

I'm in Love vs September Gurls vs Life is White vs What's Going Ahn vs omg Daisy Glaze

And actually O My Soul rules

The cathartic bit of Daisy Glaze ("Now I'm in a bar") might be the best moment on the whole album so I might vote that.

Well they've got it on the jukebox in a pub I frequent, and I always put on "What's Going Ahn". But I baulk at choosing just one song.

And "Daisy Glaze" is the other one I occasionally put on too!

I always put on "September Gurls" in my local, so that.

1. Back of a Car
2. Life Is White
3. O My Soul
4. She's a Mover
5. Mod Lang
6. September Gurls
7. Way Out West
8. You Get What You Deserve
9. What's Going Ahn
10. I'm In Love With a Girl
11. Morpha Too
12 Daisy Glaze (never liked this so much for some reason)

xxxxpost!

Back of a Car is the best song R.E.M. never wrote, thank god

Perfect album. Jesus, and Morpha Too is one of the great song-fragments of all time.

I don't even think I could pick a worst song. Especially 'cause the 'obvious' choice, "Way Out West," I've got a ton of love for.

the rockers on this album > acoustics?

wherewas the acoustics on #1 record > the rockers

yah morpha too is great

I don't even think I could pick a worst song. Especially 'cause the 'obvious' choice, "Way Out West," I've got a ton of love for.

Eh? That's not obvious at all!

certainly the rockers on this album > the rockers on the first

naw 'way out west' is like a ringo song but so much better

xxpost

xxpost I love love love the song, it's just a different style than the rest of the album, no?

this album's in my top 10 of all time, definitely

woot

this was inspired by the third / sister lovers thread, they're kinda equal in an apples + oranges way imo

I definitely prefer the 1st album to the 3rd. "Radio City" obv. the best.

oh you're an ass. (j/k).

in some xposts... way out west as a hummel track is infinitely greater than the india song, which everyone hates, but which i still <3!

still the same kind of style and still the third reason why i'm still all about beatles comparisons?

chilton = john
alex = paul
hummel = george
stephens = ringo

except jody was a HUUUGE drummer, so much better than ringo in all scenarios possible (challops)

i wonder right now without any information or a google search before i post this if andy hummel did anything after big star?

god i'm drunk

alex = john
bell = paul

alex < john
chris > paul
hummel = george
stephens > ringo

there we go

daisy glaze
september gurls
mod lang
you get what you deserve
morpha too/i'm in love with a girl (tie)
life is white
o my soul
what's going ahn
way out west
back of a car
she's a mover

...ordering sux bcz you always have to have a 'bottom 5' & at least with this album, there's a bit of remorse there...

"O My Soul," because it sounds like they made it up as they went.

YES! and i seriously should have rated daisy glaze so much higher.. it's like the 'stay hungry' of big star songs.

One of my fave albums. I guess i'd go foe 'O My Soul', though it feels like a canonical pick, but it is so awesome for all time.

that's a pretty phenomenal list of tracks.

i have to give it to 'what's going ahn' i think. does such a good job of keeping philosophical and on top of things, and then we get the heartbreaking flood of oh no's at the end. this song really runs the gamut of emotions in a very short span of time.

Life Is White.

Clearly the best Big Star record, and one of the best of the entire 1970s. I'd be happy with anything winning except Morpha Too or Mod Lang.

Back of a Car is the best song R.E.M. never wrote, thank god

― matt p (Matt P), Thursday, January 15, 2009 6:30 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this makes no sense unless you mean that this is your favorite song not by R.E.M. because c'mon, it sounds nothing like R.E.M.

it was the first song I heard off this album, the one that finally motivated me to actually buy a Big Star CD, and still by far my favorite, though.

"September Gurls" is by far the best song Alex Chilton ever wrote while generally "#1 Album" is a much better album with lots of songs way better than on this one. So this is easy.

certainly the rockers on this album > the rockers on the first

There weren't really rockers on the first at all. Which is part of the reason why the first is better.

Don't Lie to Us, Geir

"Daisy Glaze" is my favorite Big Star song by such a wide margin it's not funny.

1. Daisy Glaze
2. What's Going Ahn
3. Back of a Car
4. September Gurls
5. O My Soul
6. Life Is White
7. I'm In Love With a Girl
8. Morpha Too
9. Way Out West
10. Mod Lang
11. You Get What You Deserve
12. She's a Mover

Can hardly understand how anyone can not go for "September Gurls" here. I mean, it's such a perfect pop song. The only thing that would have made it even better is Chris Bell's beautiful vocal harmonies in the background.

It is a perfect pop song. But perfect pop songs are not the most important things in the world to some listeners. You've never gotten that, which is why you're a cartoon character.

i hear the kind of open-chord space that goes on wrt 'radio city' in 'murmur' a lot--especially the choruses. in 'talk about the passion' it happens everywhere: lots of folky verses way more than big star ever does, but then the chord progressions in the choruses are just huge and open-ended in a similar way? i could make it more explicit but i'd actually have to work. i agree that 'back of a car,' the rhythm, the plan, sounds nothing like r.e.m., but how loosely the chords come and go (major and minor in the same scale), how they relate to each other, how the vox lines just breathe.. idk, i think big star were more of an influence on early r.e.m than any other band, except maybe wire? the wire part idk cuz i haven't heard a lot of wire, but big star definitely

oh so many xposts to some dude

idk, i think big star were more of an influence on early r.e.m than any other band, except maybe wire?

http://www.stmclassof67.info/stmclassof67/Images/Music/1967%20Juke%20Box%20Images/The%20Byrds.jpg

There weren't really rockers on the first at all. Which is part of the reason why the first is better.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, January 15, 2009 7:05 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wtf are you smoking asshole? how is "don't lie to me" not a rocker? "when my baby's beside me"? "feel"? "in the street"? even like "watch the sunrise" ffs. god you're a dumbass, post to your dx-7 and make it sing, please leave everyone here alone.

ok nevermind, byrds makes me totally take back that last sentence!

yeah byrds more than big star re: r.e.m?

ha, i don't really hear that much Big Star in REM, esp. early REM. What is it I'm missing? I voted for Life Is White -- "I can't go back to that now" -- Chilton always slays me on that line. But literally I could've voted for any of these songs. When the DRUMMER'S vocal showcase is such a fucking unbelievably good song as "Way Out West" you know you've got a classic album on your hands.

I thought it was the bass player's showcase?

nah, that's jody stephens singing.

Probably, I know Andy Hummel wrote it

SHE'S A SCHEMER AND SHE MAKES ME MAD

1. September Gurls
2. Daisy Glaze
3. Life Is White
4. You Get What You Deserve
5. What's Going Ahn
6. Way Out West
7. O My Soul
8. Back Of A Car
9. Morpha Too
10. I'm In Love With A Girl
11. Mod Lang
12. She's A Mover

Apart from #12 I love the lot.

Back of a Car was always my favourite. Those chiming guitar chords.
This whole album reminds me of rural Iowa and Chicago in 1989.

I won't bore you but it involved a girl who i never saw again as I live In England.Oh, I listened to the Third album a lot back then too.Punishing myself.

The Chicago episode is thanks to some nerdy label owner who posts on here now and again. He was a great host and became a great friend.

What's Going Ahn ?

The whole album is stunning

1. September Gurls
2. Way Out West
3. Life Is White
4. O My Soul
5. You Get What You Deserve
6. Daisy Glaze
7. Back Of A Car
8. What's Going Ahn
9. I'm In Love With A Girl

I don't really appreciate these songs; after many plays, they still seem like filler to me:
10. Morpha Too
11. She's A Mover
12. Mod Lang

1. What's Going Ahn
2. September Gurls
3. Life Is White
4. You Get What You Deserve
5. O My Soul
6. Back Of A Car
7. Daisy Glaze
8. Morpha Too
9. Way Out West
10. I'm In Love With A Girl
11. Mod Lang
12. She's A Mover

Something like that. #1 and 2 are firm, though.

it's not the best song but i <3 She's a Mover
"she finds herself in catholic school"

I love it too but something had to be at #12.

Mod Lang is great! It's more like A. Chilton fathering The Replacements rather than R.E.M. (or Let's Active or whathaveyou)...anyways, there's something abt the fragmentary bar-band singalong that fits very well w/ this album's aesthetic...which reminds me...

I know the Big Star backstory by heart, but it seems there's something missing in every version, some elephant in the room that is only faintly alluded to... I know that commercial failure can be devastating, but it doesn't quite account for what happens on this album and Third, and how many writers talk abt them in terms of "dissipation" and Chilton "losing his grasp on structure"...the Rock Snob feature in one of the Da Capo collections comes closer to it, calling their songs "druggy"...

so what happened? Was it cocaine?

I just read a book on Big Star, and it says that Chilton was doing a lot of drugs, but it's more like pot, pills, and lots and lots of alcohol. If anything, alcohol seems to be the predominant drug. Apparently he was a borderline alcoholic for years, and most of Third was recorded drunk between the hours of 2-8am, after the bars closed and Alex had been spending all his Box Tops money getting loaded.

there's definitely a "bar" feel to Radio City, but for some reason when I hear shit like Kanga Roo, and Kizza Me esp. but even O My Soul and Life is White (diggit?, ) it reminds me of the demos that a very-coked-out Barrett Rude had made in Fortress of Solitude just before he died...

(the comma and the space are supposed to be after the closing parenthetical bracket if you dig what I mean...)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

re: drug use -- i dunno, i wouldn't deny that the album has a pretty druggy feel, but the whole thing seems pretty intentional to me. Like Tonight's the Night, say. It's got the wasted vibe, but that's exactly what they were going for, you know? The radio broadcast that's been bootlegged from around the time of Sister Lovers (feat. Chilton & Stephens) on the other hand is totally wacked out. I think Alex even lists the number of valiums he took before the performance ...

oh right on. i agree completely about the druggie, uneven-keel feel of the songs being a product of conscious decision making...if O My Soul sounds like it was made up as it went along, it's just bcz Alex is that good of a song-writer...my point is that when a band's first album (esp. when it's on an indie...Ardent was w/Stax but it was much more low-profile right?) flop, the usual tendency is not to go in an unhinged-experimental direction, but to try to fit in with current trends...I thought maybe the X-factor swaying Chilton & the boys was coke...

The x-factor, as far as I can tell, was a sort of self-sabotage (making increasingly insular and unmarketable music while drunk and drugged out) for fear of being rejected when 'really' trying.

right, well I think if anything makes the case for Alex being that heartbrakingly fragile, it's prolley Radio City and Sister Lovers.

Well, there's really not much else in his catalog to judge, really; his other albums are filled with obscure covers. Oh, I guess there's "Bangkok," a head-scratcher in which he manages to conflate nearly every major place in Eastern Asia the way only an American could.

right...what I meant was my first response to yr previous post was "so Alex's ego really was that fragile?" but then I thought abt those two albums, and I was like "duh..."

and I'm thinking, Christ...nullify my life...

have not heard any of Chilton's solo works at all, heard they were all fascinating disasters...

You should definitely check out "Like Flies on Sherbert." It's nothing like Big Star, really, but I love it. It's basically like listening to a semi-competent band practicing.

Back of a Car, but a couple others made this difficult

A lot of Chilton's solo work sounds undeniably cynical in a way that no Big Star music sounds -- but he still manages to be kind of lovably cynical somehow.

After much deliberation:

1. September Gurls
2. What's Going Ahn
3. Daisy Glaze
4. Life Is White
5. O My Soul
6. Back Of A Car
7. Way Out West
8. You Get What You Deserve
9. She's A Mover
10. I'm In Love With A Girl
11. Mod Lang
12. Morpha Too

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

Kind of an obvious/boring choice.

No votes for "Mod Lang" is kind of wtf. I voted "Life Is White" though.

Kind of an obvious/boring choice.

― WmC, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Said the ron paul supporters

HAPPY INAUGURAL DAY!!

compare with this results:
the best "big star" song from the 3 official 70's lp's

didn't I just post here?

Kind of an obvious/boring choice.

I wish that some undeserving song won.

Kind of an obvious/boring choice

Like Obama

and I'm thinking, Christ...nullify my life...

Whoa I had the lyrics to this song all wrong my whole life. I always thought it was "How to find my life". And (now looking up the lyrics online) "You're gonna die" as "You never try"!

Alex ripping off Lou there?

i do think there's some decent reasoning to support the premise that 'september gurls' is a pretty obvious choice, particularly given the margin it won by. i mean come on, 'daisy glaze' and 'what's going ahn' are the stuff of legend.

Yep! xpost

i mean obvious as in predictable etc.

September Gurls = overrated. I went for "I'm in love". After that probably "YGWYD" or "Mod Lang". I LIKE a lot of this album, but fall short of LOVE. Nothing of the standard of "Thirteen" or "El Goodo" or "Thank You Friends", anyway.

i do think there's some decent reasoning to support the premise that 'september gurls' is a pretty obvious choice, particularly given the margin it won by. i mean come on, 'daisy glaze' and 'what's going ahn' are the stuff of legend

wtf does "obvious choice" even mean? It's "obvious" because it's the song that everyone thinks of first, which probably means that it's the best one to the most people. why should a "non-obvious" song win simply so audiophiles can stroke their egos at how they like the more obscure song? only audiophiles like big star anyway, so it's not like "September Gurls" only won because everyone heard it on the radio and it's the only big star song that anyone knows. this is just audiophile snobbery rearing its head again, and i simply don't understand this weird recurring assertion that there's something wrong or troubling about the "obvious" song winning. besides, you could make the argument that "September Girls" more than the other two you mentioned, actually spawned entire musical genres. that shouldn't change how much anyone likes the song, but i think it is a testament to its greatness.

there's nothing "wrong" or "troubling with 'september gurls' taking the prize. it is after all a great song, as you say. that said, everyone likes to see their own personal favourite get a strong representation, and i was mildly curious as to whether there might be an upset, especially given that the results of these polls frequently come with room for surprise.