Big Star
#1 Record

THE REVIEW

The project started in 1971 in Memphis from the meeting between the band Ice Water, led by guitarist/singer/songwriter Chris Bell, and the enfant prodige Alex Chilton, lead singer of the Box Tops… they immediately decided to change the acronym to Big Star and a year later released their debut “#1 Record” for the small label Ardent.

In Chilton’s (somewhat off-kilter) mind, there is the ambitious project of reviving the glory of power-pop, through structures that draw directly from the tradition of the “British Invasion” groups, which less than a decade earlier had brought a breath of fresh air into the stale American music market. Thus, the Beatles' melody, the Who's bluesy constructions, the Kinks' sophisticated pop, blended with the Byrds' airy harmonies; these are the characteristics through which Bell and Chilton chase the dream of writing perfect pop songs, in order to achieve the (enormous) success that the latter had with the Box Tops in 1967 (at only 16 years old).

An astonishing sequence of genuine pop gems unfolds through the grooves of this vinyl, with a glam undertone, which however does not allow the band, despite the excellent reviews received, to climb the charts as hoped; also thanks to poor distribution, due to the limited resources available to Ardent. But dreamy ballads like “Try Again” and “ST 100,6” or robust power-pop songs like “In The Street”, “When My Baby’s Beside Me” or the acoustic “Watch The Sunrise” make this work a benchmark for a whole series of bands that will blossom in the years to come, where you can hear the seeds from which projects like Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, R.E.M., The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, The Posies… just to mention a few of the most influential, will sprout.

The band is in constant hysterical balance, and from this first work, the tensions and quarrels between the two protagonists are vehement, so much so that Chilton never misses an opportunity to remind his friend/rival of his previous success, which also allows him greater credit with fans and the specialized press. This tension would last until 1975 (the year of the realization of the second work “Radio City”), when Bell, exhausted, would definitively leave the entire project in Chilton's hands (he had left once before after the release of “#1 Record”), only to leave for good in '78 due to a car accident. Chilton would progressively enter more and more into a state of paranoia from missed success, until the making of the third episode “Third/Sister”, left unfinished and printed only years later, like Brian Wilson’s “Smile” a decade earlier.