Thoughts on Big Star

Big Star is one of my favorite bands and has been for nearly forty years. I consider all three of their studio albums essential--#1 Record, Radio City, and Third/Sister Lovers. All three albums sound very different, and I like them all. They are not audiophile recordings, but they are also not "lo fi."

If you like those songs, there will likely be others you will also enjoy, but since these things are ultimately subjective, it is really impossible to say for sure.

You can get the first two albums on one CD for less than twenty bucks. That's a place to start. But the surreal, dreamy strangeness of the third record also needs to be experienced. I've never heard another record quite like it.

Take the plunge!
 

Yes, virtually everything they ever recorded is on Tidal, the three studio albums, as well as live performances and the Keep an Eye on the Sky box set, which has a ton of demos and outtakes for true fanatics.

@sbank 

I sent you a PM, Spencer. Needless to say, you got my attention!

One thing I have learned over the decades is that there is just no way to predict or account for personal taste in music. You either get it or you don't--or somewhere in between. That can even vary among albums by the same artist. For instance, I adore the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty," but I cannot make it all the way through a single one of their 10,000 concert albums to save my life, nor do I care about a great many of their other studio albums. But "American Beauty" has been ringing my bell for thirty years or more.

My wife loves Dave Matthews, but to me he's as boring as a bowl of warm milk. I love Ornette Coleman, but his music sends her screaming out of the room. And so it goes.

I love Big Star with all of my heart, but their music is, well, stranger than most of the Beatles catalog, and Alex Chilton has that tremulous voice that does not exactly translate easily to pop the way John Lennon's or Paul McCartney's do. In that sense, maybe they are an acquired taste for some. It knocked me right out from the start, but I get that they may not be for everyone.

Radio City will always be a deserted island album for me, and the other two are not far behind.