Well, there’s hope for us all I suppose. In 1972 Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel made one of the greatest guitar-pop records of all time with Big Star‘s ‘#1 Record’ and for at least twenty years everybody ignored it. Timing was probably one of their issues – too late to be filed alongside The Beatles and The Byrds, too early for the ’60s revivalism of the mid ’80s headed up by the likes of R.E.M. Still, alongside probably-even-better follow-up ‘Radio City’, it eventually found its audience and now appears in a new edition for its 50th anniversary.
It takes a lot of gusto to name your debut album “#1 Record”, but when you’ve got it you’ve got it. Big Star broke through the Memphis scene they came up in and made a bona-fide masterpiece right out of the gate. It was the first power pop album to really hone in on the groundwork The Who had laid down the decade prior, and you can feel just how magnetic the songs would remain for years to come. The singular balladry of “Thirteen,” the raucous, raw energy of “In the Street,” the magic of “The Ballad of El Goodo”—Alex Chilton, Chris Bell and company were on another level. “#1 Record” would go on to influence artists like The Replacements, R.E.M. and Nick Lowe and cement its place as the primitive power pop LP. They’d come roaring back two years later with “Radio City“, building on their already masterful oeuvre.
The Fat Angel Sings 