Alex Chilton
19 Years: A Collection

THE REVIEW

Anthologies do not fully depict an artist in their musical evolution. A handful of tracks taken here and there from various albums represent a musician with a long career in a partial way. They are welcome if the artist's albums are no longer available, or if their production has had ups and downs. This is the case with "Alex Chilton - 19 Years: A Collection," a collection created to listen to many of the most beautiful tracks of his solo career, a few covers, and some songs recorded by the legendary "Big Star".

Who Alex Chilton is, what this unusual figure of singer, songwriter, and producer has represented, is not a mystery for those interested in rock, trying to look beyond what is advertised by major record labels. Chilton was almost always on the fringe of the "million-seller" rock, but at the heart of the music played by pioneering and unruly musicians. A discoverer of talents like the "Cramps" or "Tav Falco", showing that the rockabilly revival was not only that of the "Stray Cats" or the "Blasters." His style, evolved over time through various experiences, is vibrant, original, nostalgic, and progressive at the same time; it doesn't recall anything already heard, characteristic of a tradition like that of Memphis, rich in musical history. After the experience with the "Box Top", he founded the "Big Star," a band that anticipated the sound of the eighties by about ten years. Once the band was dissolved, he devoted himself to a solo career.

"19 Years: A Collection" confirms that Alex was working on his personal style, fully capturing the artist's lucid madness. Chilton, in his own way, anticipated new trends, without renouncing tradition, remaining faithful to the fifties and sixties sound, from soul to r&b, to the sparse r'n'r of Memphis, without forgetting the power pop. True to the image of a wandering yet rational character, he produces a dirty, evocative rock with deformed melodies, left to age in the big belly of r'n'r. It ranges from songs with a chaotic, delightfully extravagant sound like "Make A Little Love", to "Bangkok", filled with sharp and anarchic energy, the Barrett-like "Kanga Roo", flighty and psychedelic, the country rock of "Free Again", up to the sad melody of "Holocaust". Some covers are not missing, from "Volare" sung (badly) in Italian, or "With A Girl Like You" by the "Troggs". An ideal album to get to know a great character, still semi-unknown, an artist as brilliant as he is modest. Chilton never became a star because he was unable to manage success, or perhaps he was indifferent to the laws that govern showbiz. To understand the character, it is significant that in the early eighties, disheartened by negative situations, he preferred to be a dishwasher in a restaurant.