The Day the Music Died: Alex Chilton is Gone
The brightest star has left us alone. Alex Chilton never achieved fame, neither any of his bands or solo work was universally aclaimed as it should, yet you can hear the profound influence of Big Star’s power pop in almost every contemporary pop band. Out of time and place, plaged by bad management and promotion but critically aclaimed: wich fame would you choose? Chilton chose none: he kept playing, producing, an ocasional special appearence on stage and, recently, a re-formed Big Star that would be playing on 2010′s South by Southwest’s main venue. Alex Chilton now joins Chris Bell, the friend and guitarrist/composer from Big Star that died in 1979 in a car crash. That’s the beautiful and tragic thing about music, the people die but the songs live on. And what great songs.
Chilton was also the singer from the Box Tops, the 60s pop outfit that had the no.1 song, The Letter. After their end, Chilton tried to go solo but his bad luck seemed to follow every footstep. In 1971 he formed Big Star with Chris Bell, Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens, a reformation of Bell’s Icewater. The “quintenssencial power pop band” was born.
What’s so special about Big Star? The crafted melodies inspired by The Beatles and the British Invasion, carefully constructed around their painfully melodic guitars, too soft to be just rock and too deep to be just pop. #1 Record is the most accomplished record of the three 70s albums Big Star gave us; it’s more sober than the beautiful Radio City and less fractured than Third/Sister Lovers. Bell and Chilton playing their hearts out, after all they were very young. This is the record that also gave us Thirtheen and September Gurls.
After Radio City, the band’s second album, the trio split for good, Bell was already gone after a depression and several fights between the band mates. Chilton took Stephens, the remaining Big Star, and recorded their final effort by himself. The resut, Third/Sister Lovers, is a deranged yet beautiful showcase of emotion. It’s the record that gave us Holocaust, probably the most heartfelt song ever recorded. A perfect moment that truly sums Chilton’s career: playing music against blank walls.
What’s so wonderful about the music Big Star gave us? Their pop sensibility with an edge, these guys were having fun. They produced their records all by themselves, and the result is raw but lush, intricate yet poppy, always with a certain tension and sadness in every chord. The songs are imortal.
They say that the despair, sadness and depression always makes the better music; if everything is okay why bother?, but that can be quite misunderstood. Playing music with the heart is more than a therapy and Big Star saved our lifes. Alex Chilton was the one that made three Big Star records possible, and his legacy is untouchable. The low-profile guy, always witty in his dark humour: a man with so much to give achieves a cult status that is the synonim for Big Star, a secret you almost want to keep to yourself.
Below is a selection of songs from Big Star’s three studio albums, from the 1970s. Thank you, Chilton.
Big Star - The Ballad of El Goodo (from #1 Record)
Big Star - Thirteen (from #1 Record)
Big Star - Try Again (from #1 Record)
Big Star - What's Going Ahn (from Radio City)
Big Star - You Get What You Deserve (from Radio City)
Big Star - Jesus Christ (from Third/Sister Lovers)
Big Star - Holocaust (from Third/Sister Lovers)
