474. Big Star, "#1 Record"

 


Just a hugely important influential album if, like me, you love power pop or just rock in general.  There's a famous line about Velvet Underground (who I'm sure we'll be getting to later) that goes like "they only sold a thousand records but everyone who bought one started a band" and that's probably doubly true for this record.  I mean, Cheap Trick went out and basically copied this sound to the note and became huge stars while Big Star, despite the winking-at-themselves name, toiled in obscurity and disappeared, only to be rediscovered in the 90's by record store clerks like Jack Black in "High Fidelity" and music geeks like me.  I mean, how important do you have to be be to have another band record a (truly kickass song) titled with the name of one of the guys in your band?!?!  (It's "Alex Chilton," by the Replacements.)

And Alex Chilton didn't just appear out of nowhere.  Before Big Star he was already famous for being in the Box Tops and recording songs like "The Letter," which is another fucking gem of a song.  He was 16!  (Alex Chilton just died in 2010, btw.  Absolute legend.)

You probably know at least one song on this album, even if it's "In the Street," which was later covered by the aforementioned Cheap Trick and used as the theme music for "That '70s Show."  Or maybe "Thirteen," a paean to adolescent crushes that's been covered so many times that you're bound to have heard it somewhere along the line.  Just go listen to it.

IN OTHER FUNERAL TO FINISH NEWS, since I wrote a somewhat or maybe very dismissive piece on Harry Styles' "Fine Line" there has been a development in my house and that development is that my Charming Wife has become a Styler, which is what we learned Harry Styles fans call themselves, and that means I have heard "Fine Line" and all of Harry's other recorded output quite a bit since I wrote my piece!  I still don't think it should be included in any Best of Ever list, but maybe the album is SLIGHTLY better than I originally gave it credit for or maybe I'm just Stockholm Syndroming after being locked in a room with Harry Styles for a few weeks.

IN YET OTHER FTF NEWS please feel free to leave comments.  I got one comment on my very first post and I was like "OK here we go I'm off to the races" and then ZIP since then.  I know you're reading this, and I know you have opinions, so do share.  I would be commenting all over this place if I wasn't already writing it.  I know this is a naked and obvious plea for attention but HEY THAT'S MY LIFE so humor me.  Do I have some setting turned on that makes it hard to comment or something?  I don't know.  

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