Tag Archives: Number 1 Record
CHRIS BELL’S PURE POP COSMOS: Big Star’s Other Bright Light
Speaking (as I so often do here) about great musicians and music, I’d like to take a moment to remember and honor Christopher Bell, the co-founding singer-songwriter of the seminal 1970s outfit Big Star. Although in the years since the band’s initial demise and subsequent discovery by new generations of listeners, much of the credit and attention […]
MAYBE IN A BETTER WORLD: Alex Chilton Comes Clean
Alex Chilton still doesn’t get what all the fuss is about. Well, most of the fuss, anyway. Chilton concedes that his celebrated band, Big Star, had “a *few* good songs”, but he also makes a distinction between what he calls “good music and good songs.” The pair of albums the band recorded during its lifetime, […]
HEY 19: Memphis’s Second-Favorite Son Flips The Box Tops and Flies Free Again
To put a cap on the starry sparklers of our July 4 weekend tribute to Big Star, here’s my review of Alex Chilton’s “1970,” an album that was a eureka moment for me when I first heard it. To me, it offered a gaze through a kaleidoscopic looking glass; a peek through the window of transition between Alex’s stint as […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 