This is not a reissue of an album, but of a product. In 1992, Ardent/Fantasy released the first two Big Star records-- #1 Record (1972) and Radio City (1974)-- on one CD, which at the time seemed like a generous rescue project for two influential cult albums that were out of print in every format. Included were liner notes by pop historian Brian Hogg and journalist Rick Clark, along with a couple of fuzzy black-and-white photos of the band and a tear-off mail-in survey. For a Big Star newcomer with limited cash but a voracious musical appetite, it was a dream-- not simply more bang for your buck, but an instantly immersive introduction to the band.
However, the decision to re-release this "2 Complete Original Albums on 1 CD" set is questionable, not least because it is a slavish reprinting of the original. There's no mail-in survey this time around, but the reissue preserves the crowded layout of the original, except the digital printing is just above Xerox quality and the images even fuzzier than before. Just how little effort went into this re-release? The running time for both albums is still listed in the little red box as 73:00, despite the addition of two bonus single mixes that push running time closer to 80:00.
If this double release once benefited the first-time buyer, it ill serves the music itself, compacting two very different albums into one long, awkward retrospective. #1 Record showcases the collaborative songwriting of Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, who fashioned themselves as Memphis' own Lennon-McCartney. They alternate vocals between Bell's sandpapery rasp and Chilton's smooth falsetto (which doesn't even sound like it emanates from the same throat as those Box Tops vocals), and the result is one of power-pop's defining records. "The Ballad of El Goodo" takes as its refrain a line from an old spiritual-- "There ain't no one going to turn me 'round"-- which had become locally prominent as a civil rights slogan. The Big Star song is both tough and tender, communal and individual-- and genuinely moving without knowledge of its origins. #1 Record is shot through with an adolescent romanticism that kicks off in the restless energy of "In the Street", with its infectious guitar lick and rebel poetry lyrics and culminates on the Chilton-sung "Thirteen", an aching acoustic evocation of teenage angst.
Despite the reported hostility between them, Bell and Chilton are both strong presences on #1 Record, but their partnership was short-lived. Bell left the band shortly after the album's release and commercial failure, which made Big Star essentially a solo project for Chilton. So Radio City is a very different record. The transition between #1 Record closer "ST 100/6" and Radio City opener "O My Soul" was always jarring, but it's made worse by the addition of the single mix of "In the Street", which was originally the B-side to "When My Baby's Beside Me". Like the shortened mix of "O My Soul" that ends the new set, it's more interesting historically than musically.
On Radio City, Chilton, bass player Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens emphasize rhythm as much as melody, especially with the snaky guitars of opener "O My Soul", which hint at the singer's later fascination with old R&B sounds. It's still a pop record, and "She's a Mover" and "Mod Lang" might be their most Anglophilic moments ever. And then there's "Back of a Car", "You Get What You Deserve", and "September Gurls"-- one perfect pop gem after another that blur the line between album and singles band. In fact, Radio City is simultaneously a grab for airplay and sales and the beginning of Chilton's musical entrenchment that would continue through Third/Sisters Lovers (a Big Star album in name only) and into his solo career. More than that, it is the adult counterpart to its adolescent predecessor, forgoing the debut's single-minded intensity for a more nuanced mix of emotions ranging from jaded ("You Get What You Deserve") to resigned ("Back of a Car") to sentimental ("I'm in Love with a Girl").
For many listeners-- including, for a few years, me-- Big Star were more legend than band. They were the beloved patron saints for struggling musicians: These albums were inspired and inspiring but never found a wide audience, yet the fact that they eventually became so revered offered encouragement to young songwriters with their own dream of big stardom and No. 1 records. Even if you never found an audience in your prime, you could always hope for later cult success. And to some extent, of course, the myth overtook the music, which means these two albums tend to be slightly overrated. #1 Record begins to lag on side two, and Hummel's "The India Song" remains imminently skippable (I once tried to convince myself that it was a parody of Beatles mysticism, but that's wishful thinking). Similarly, the complexity of Radio City often masks an elusiveness that dogs Chilton even today. Even so, I would argue that such flaws make these albums all the more fascinating and endearing: "ST 100/6" is surely someone's favorite Big Star song, and Chilton's evasiveness made him a cult figure apart from Big Star.
That only makes the redundancy of this set all the more egregious: there's no sense of engaging with these records anew, no attempt to determine what they might mean now as opposed to what they meant 16 years ago. It may still be a useful introduction to Big Star, but it still stings as a major mishandling of a cult-canonical catalog, especially when Stax/Concord is releasing such handsome and informative reissues of Isaac Hayes' contemporaneous albums. On the other hand, the label is also issuing both Big Star albums individually on vinyl, which seems intended for those one-time newcomers who've grown to cherish both #1 Record and Radio City as totems of lost youth but who will view this shabby set as merely a relic of the CD Age.
