Big Star

This two-for-one collection of the first two Big Star records (from '72 & '74) is probably one of the finer musical documents of the '70s, as well as pop music in general. There is such a fine array of great pop songs, cock-of-the-walk rock, and blessed ballads on here that to list them all would be redundant. If you even think you like music, you should hear this.

#1 Record In the late Sixties, a Memphis teenager named Alex Chilton won moderate fame
and fortune as the lead singer for a sometimes inspired, sometimes insipid recording unit
known as the Box Tops. The group was a vehicle for the ideas of producer-writer Dan
Penn, and Chilton's raspy, young punk voice was the focal point. After several erratic
albums and a couple of downright classic singles, "The Letter" and "Cry like a Ba... More >

Alex Chilton's voice is changing. When he was a teenage Box Top, his deep, soulful, bullfrog whopper was the biggest freak of nature since Stevie Winwood sang "I'm a Man," but now that he's formed his own group he gets to be an adolescent, complete with adenoidal quaver. Appropriately, the music tends toward the teen as well, but that provides brand new thrills. Special attraction: a fantasy about India with gin-and-tonic in it. (Grade - B+)