Big Star - Columbia: Live at Missouri University 4/25/93 (1993)

By all means a failure that the listener can't deny the multifaceted success of- i) Big Star's  perfect 60s English pop through the lens of 70s American youth through the lens of ii) Chilton's decline and so fascination with imperfection and avant-garde fuck ups through the lens of iii) alt rock's embrace of Chilton's pop mastery and avant-garde fuckuppery (The Posies make up half the members). Facet (iii) makes it all dirtier, garagier, heavier than he allowed himself to go even during his (ii) period, with songs from his (i) period, and some nice covers too. Chilton fans rejoice, Big Star fans beware. Nothing's sacred, etc

A

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Big Star - Radio City (1974)

#1 Record might be 60s english pop/folk/ideologies as heard/relayed by young men from Memphis full with false nostalgia for a colonial India with pools, sun, and gin and tonics, and rebellious rock and roll is here to stay rebuttals to parental worry. The follow up, Radio City, somehow manages to look forward to both new wave and 90s alternative rock. The guitar sound kills. The harmonica/piano jams make sense because the pop is so straightforwardly pop, but also don't at all, then drawing attention to how perfect the pop is and also suggesting that it could all collapse at any moment. The sound of pop falling apart where #1 Record promised the listener that it never would.

A+

stream
here

Alex Chilton - Like Flies on Sherbert (1979)

1. Boogie Shoes

2. My Rival

3. Hey! Little Child

4. Hook or Crook

5. I've Had It

6. Rock Hard

7. Girl After Girl

8. Waltz Across Texas

9. Alligator Man

10. Like Flies on Sherbert

11. No More The Moon Shine On Lorena

A strange album from Alex Chilton, master of perfect pop songs. Intentionally terrible in every way: production, musicianship, what is and isn't being recorded. I'm unsure whether he's deconstructing and leaving imperfect rock & roll like Neil Young did on Tonight's the Night to expose a song's constituents and capture the artist's anguish, or whether he's being chaotic and punk rock just for the sake of it. Either way I like it. True, nobody would care about Like Flies on Sherbert if it didn't have someone like Chilton behind it, but it's interesting because it's someone like Chilton being so unlistenably amateurish

B+

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