#1 Record/Radio City

There's a lot of truth to the statement that the art lives on, long after the artist has gone or changed directions. This is certainly the case with Big Star, a Memphis band forged out of a willful vision, whose brief existence profoundly affected scores of artists spearheading the post-punk/alternative power pop schools of music throughout the eighties and nineties. R.E.M., The Replacements, The Posies, Teenage Fan Club, Wilco, and The Bangles, are just a few of the artists who have acknowledged a huge debt to Big Star. This newly remastered version of #1 Record / Radio City features enhanced packaging and two unreleased bonus tracks!

A two-for-one combo of the first two Big Star albums (they only recorded three). Heard side by side, #1 Record and Radio City only add further testament to Big Star's seminal greatness. On the first album, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton share songwriting credit, though each brings a remarkably different sensibility to the band: Bell creates pure pop nuggets ("Feel") while Chilton swaggers with reckless melancholy ("Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen."). After Bell's departure, Chilton took control of the helm for Radio City, and what a ride it is. While not abandoning Bell's penchant for pop, Radio City careens wildly through some of the most exhilarating music ever created, from the rave-up opener, "O My Soul," to the pure pop masterpiece "September Girls" to the whimsical ditty "I'm in Love with a Girl." It's too bad that Big Star didn't create more albums, but thank God they made the ones they did. --Tod Nelson