{"id":2185,"date":"2009-05-29T00:22:31","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T04:22:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-29T07:53:12","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T07:53:12","slug":"showdown-big-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/showdown-big-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Showdown (Choose One): Big Star’s #1 Record<\/em> or Radio City<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Big Star, 1972: Can someone mess up that coffee table?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Even those Townspeople bold enough to choose one<\/strong>, in our current poll, between the first two Big Star<\/strong> albums, #1 Record<\/em> and Radio City<\/em>, would probably agree that both albums are fine additions to any rock fan’s collection. But simply choosing is not enough, and as a Townsperson you know it!<\/em>
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Don’t go there!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Some of you who have carried over from our humble origins as a Yahoo Groups<\/strong> list have been through this difficult decision-making process. I apologize in advance for putting you through this, but just as likely you will be thanking me in advance for giving you a chance to reconsider your original opinions, especially if they differed from the basic case I made back then and plan on making again today.<\/p>\n

To me, the highs of Radio City<\/em> are as high as Big Star could get, but I find the sloppy playing and lack of focus a drag compared with the pop perfection of #1 Record<\/em>. Although I usually rail against jangly power pop with tight many harmonies (see<\/em> The Byrds<\/a>), I find the unified team effort of #1 Record<\/em> to be just what the doctor ordered! The album’s got most of the band’s biggest “hits,” it’s concise, it was a legendary flop… The whole failure myth plays a big role in Big Star’s discovery in the ’80s and beyond. The fact that their first album flopped is all the more resonant considering how much effort the original quartet put into crafting it. What’s not to prefer?<\/p>\n

I’ve got some thoughts about the more-often stated (at least in the Halls of Rock) preference for Radio Ctiy that I’d like to share. Before I do that, I went back to a post on the old “Chess” version of Rock Town Hall, from November 2005. I can’t remember all the details, but we must have already been entering the #1 Record vs Radio City Wars when I posted something called Gut Check: Radio City<\/strong>, in which I “showed my hand” by reviewing the album on a track-by-track basis. It was pretty heavy stuff, and a week’s worth of debate followed. I’ll apologize in advance to those who have already been through this harsh look at the album’s songs and who dread confronting this analysis once more, but here goes:
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Gut Check: Radio City<\/strong> (originally posted 11\/8\/05)<\/em><\/p>\n

Straight from the gut, brothers and sisters. I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve forced my hand. Please put aside your personal preferences and see if what I’m saying makes any sense on its own merits.<\/p>\n

“Oh My Soul”: Unfocused song with good ideas that goes on a good 3 minutes longer than necessary, at least considering the execution.<\/p>\n

“Life Is White”: Some appealing ideas and moments, but another song with more wasted measures than I have time to care about. The song sounds like it was written and recorded pretty much on the spot, and
\nnot in an AMAZING way. The harmonica wheeze gets annoying, and Jody Stephens’ sloppy and sometimes counterproductive drumming – as happens on so many songs on this album – is exposed.<\/p>\n

“Way Out West”: OK, but again, a lot of time is wasted on arpeggioed chords that seem to be played to fill time until they figure out where to go next with the song.<\/p>\n

“What’s Going Ahn”: First of all, points off for the spelling of the title. How precious! Second, there goes that one forceful strummed rhythm followed by some time-wasting arpeggios again! “Keep working
\nat it boys, you’ll eventually settle on a melody!”<\/p>\n

“You Get What You Deserve”: Cool intro. All around a listenable song with a snaky feel. I’m down with this one.<\/p>\n

“Mod Lang”: Candy-ass attempt at sounding bad-ass. Next!<\/p>\n

“Back of a Car”: Starts strong but drags like hell as it goes along. Generally, though, one of the songs I like listening to on this album.<\/p>\n

“Daisy Glaze”: Another song with a title that turns me off from the git-go. This song is terrible. There’s that little rocking guitar part that gets cooking, if you can hang in there long enough, but again, this sounds like a band making a song up in the studio. Couldn’t they sleep on it for a night?<\/p>\n

“She’s a Mover”: Weird enough that I’ll excuse all the funky, “wrong” things about it. Pretty cool track, although again, it goes nowhere in its efforts to sound like a funky song from Rubber Soul or Revolver.<\/p>\n

“September Gurls”: You think I’m not human? I like this song a lot despite the precious spelling in the song title.<\/p>\n

“Morpha Too”: Nah…<\/p>\n

“I’m in Love with a Girl”: Nice, short, and understated. No beefs.<\/p>\n

There you have it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Next, my thoughts about what’s really behind the oft-stated preference for<\/em> Radio City…<\/em>
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\nA few of you know my thoughts regarding the mythology that has carried The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street<\/em> from its rightful place as rock’s greatest ep to an acknowledged classic double lp. To summarize, it’s my belief that the album cover imagery fully brought to life the possibilities of the rock band as a band of brothers, as exiled revolutionaries. Jimi Hendrix<\/strong> and some of his late-60s compadres initiated this myth, but the hippies couldn’t shake their dandyism. Delve further inside the freak-show front cover shots and glimpes of The Stones in the act of creation—creation from the rubble of personal destruction, no less—capture the imagination. Any shot of The Stones in action that I’ve seen from these sessions stirs the rock-making mythology in ways shots of the cerebral, tripping Beatles at work never could. The Beatles didn’t create like this, maaaannn!<\/em><\/p>\n

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“Paul and John got nothin’ on these guys!”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On the record sleeve for sides 3 and 4, there’s an iconic shot of Keef and Mick at the microphone, casually belting out backing vocals while sharing swigs of hootch. As soon as the first young rockers saw that image and got into the studio to lay down their own backing vocals with bandmates, they had already constructed a life-size cardboard cutout of Keef and Mick in their minds. They would sing arm-in-arm with the Glimmer Twins, taking their own sloppy pulls from the bottle of Jack! These first young rockers in the wake of Exile on Main Street<\/em>‘s wild cover imagery would go through this ritual as would members many bands that followed. I know I’ve spent many a wasted take in the studio with my arm around this cardboard cutout, and I bet some of you have too.<\/p>\n

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“Roll tape!”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Speaking of these first bands that rallied ’round the cardboard cutout of Keef and Mick at the mic, bottle of Jack in hand, I’d venture to guess that a large part of the appeal of Big Star’s Radio City<\/em> ties into the Exile<\/em> myth! Radio City<\/em> is one of the first albums to have been made with the Exile<\/em> cutout shot, and for some, perhaps the commercial failure of the band’s second album is enriched because of<\/em> the downbeat backstory of Chris Bell’s departure and the devil-may-care partying that was captured in 1974’s velvety red and brown tones. Any band of dreamers, some of you may think, can craft a perfectly realized shot at the big time (suckers!), but only the strong survive when one brother’s down and the surviving members are carrying on with no victory in sight and nothing left to lose. Or something like that, right? It’s not really about the music, is it?<\/em><\/p>\n