Big Star should have been famous. The Memphis group wrote power pop that foreshadowed alternative rock. The bands they inspired are some of the most successful in history.
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Alex Chilton and Chris Bell were a songwriting duo modeled after Lennon and McCartney. Big Star’s debut album, #1 Record, was released in 1972. The album received little promotion from Ardent Records, and the label’s distributor, Stax Records, failed to make the album widely available in stores. Singles like “Thirteen” and “When My Baby’s Beside Me” are ’70s pop gems that faded into obscurity due to multiple failures by Ardent and Stax.
Bell left the band a bit later in 1972. Chilton, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens returned to Ardent to record the follow-up album, Radio City (1974). As with their debut, critics gave Radio City high praise. A new distribution deal between Stax and Columbia Records ended in a dispute where Columbia refused to distribute the catalog—another Big Star album, another music biz casualty.
With the news that Hummel was returning to college, Chilton and Stephens began sessions at Ardent with a revolving group of musicians. It’s debatable whether the record thought of as Big Star’s third record, Third, is really a Big Star album. Stephens has called it “an Alex solo record,” and its overall mood continued the pervading darkness that accrued around the group over three releases. It’s a stark album. The smooth, radio-friendly pop of the early efforts gave way to a more experimental approach. Third is the sound of everything falling apart. It’s a slow-motion car crash with a brilliant and darkly beautiful soundtrack. It failed commercially, but eventually became a cult classic. It is Chilton’s haunting masterpiece. The bands below owe much to it, as well as to Big Star’s other output.
5. R.E.M.
Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry formed R.E.M. in 1980. The Athens band pioneered alternative rock, or “college rock.” They listened to albums by Patti Smith and Television and rejected rock clichés. R.E.M. reflected the garage rock soul that foreshadowed punk rock. “Radio Free Europe” is a garage pop song Alex Chilton would have been proud of. “Talk About the Passion,” also from Murmur, sounds like a Big Star outtake from Radio City.
4. KISS
This one may surprise a few people, but it shouldn’t. Paul Stanley, aka The Starchild, said to Rolling Stone, “Give me the Raspberries. Give me Small Faces. Give me Big Star.” KISS released their self-titled debut in 1974. Big Star released Radio City the same year. After you read this article, immediately listen to Big Star’s “Mod Lang” and imagine Gene Simmons singing the song. The first KISS album is garage rock, glam, and camp. But it’s a power pop album. “Love Theme from Kiss” sounds like a band trying to find a song. All they needed was Alex Chilton.
[RELATED: Behind the Song: Big Star, “Thirteen”]
3. Wilco
Jeff Tweedy is a kind of mad professor of songwriting. He’ll take the subtleties of a record and make them the main thing. Big Star’s Third is the sound of a band falling apart. It’s the madness of the outside world renting space inside someone’s head. Tweedy hints at it with “Misunderstood” from Wilco’s second album, Being There. He perfected it on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—where he pulled his own band to pieces. “Holocaust” or “Kanga Roo” from Third could have been on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And the ghost of Alex Chilton lives in Wilco’s “Radio Cure.”
2. Primal Scream
Primal Scream followed their acid house masterpiece, Screamadelica, by chasing American blues and soul. Bobby Gillespie and company traveled to Ardent Studios in Memphis to record Give Out but Don’t Give Up with Tom Dowd. With the addition of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, Primal Scream alienated fans with the reinvention. “(I’m Gonna) Cry Myself Blind” is a Big Star descendant. Like Big Star did on Radio City, Primal Scream used a William Eggleston photo on the album cover. The photo depicted a neon Confederate flag. Eggleston’s photo was part of a collection glimpsing at roadside life in the South.
1. The Replacements
Alex Chilton produced early sessions for The Replacements’ definitive album, Tim. Their follow-up, Pleased to Meet You, was recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis with producer Jim Dickinson—producer of Big Star’s Third. Alex Chilton was often present at Ardent while The Replacements worked. Paul Westerberg wrote “Alex Chilton” as a homage to his idol. The lyric, “I’m in love. What’s that song?” references Westerberg’s first time meeting Chilton. Making conversation, Westerberg said, “I’m in love with that one song of yours—what’s that song?”—forgetting the title of Big Star’s “Watch the Sunrise.” During the late-’80s, college rock radio was bringing underground alternative music to the surface. A renewed interest in Big Star had formed. The Replacements—one of the scene’s brightest—are the most direct descendants of Alex Chilton and Big Star.
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