Big Star—Radio City

Big Star—Radio City

Radio City—When people speak of Big Star's legacy, they generally have #1 Record (1972) in mind. They like Radio City, of course, but Radio City didn't have "The Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," or "In the Street." The biggest difference between the two is Radio City's lack of Chris Bell, who was the band's founder, ironically, and the main reason for #1 Record's overall sound. Despite this, Radio City surpassed it; Bell's harmonies and arrangements glossed Alex Chilton's jaggedness with a bright, optimistic sheen, but the shared credits on the songs of #1 Record obscured an important detail: "The Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," and "In the Street" were all written by Chilton.

After #1 Record's absolute failure commercially, tensions ran high, and Bell left the group, which effectively disbanded it. Drummer Jody Stephens recalled (Perfect Sound, December 1996) that some time after, "We got back together at the request ... rock writers ... It was a low pressure sort of thing because we were all doing it for the fun of it. We weren't promoting anything. So we got to get back together and play for the critics who were basically our only audience. We had a great time so the band got back together and immediately started working on Radio City." Bassist Andy Hummel explained (Perfect Sound, July 2001), "We started Radio City when we were still a foursome. We had four songs, a couple that we all three [Chilton, Hummel, Stephens] co-wrote at Alex's house one night ... We were looking for new, different things to do so we decided to record in mono ... It was the tightest, hottest music we'd ever done. Unfortunately those tapes were subsequently lost or stolen so we had to rerecord the ones we used later as a threesome. And of course we didn't use much of Chris's stuff because he subsequently left the group."

Soon after, Bell left the band for good, leaving Chilton in complete control of the group. The result was an indurated affair: guitars were the new spokesmen for the band, the characteristic irresolution of Chilton's lyrics serving only to give focus to the music as they had done before, but now without the pretense of optimism. The chord changes of "O My Soul" are protracted, allowing for Chilton's miniature yet rife hard-blues solos to take the forefront. On "Life Is White," he slows to a crawl, letting the screeching harmonica give chroma to the broken sentiments of the words. Andy Hummel's "Way Out West," unlike "The India Song" from the previous LP, fits seamlessly, with Hummel's melodic bass lines riding coolly beneath it all. "What's Going Ahn," a masterpiece, features multiple guitar tracks from Chilton—some acoustic and some electric—that somehow form a coherent whole and perfectly harmonize his vocal. The cautionary dirge "You Get What You Deserve" is hauntingly beautiful, while the heavy "Mod Lang" tributes white R&B.

"Back of a Car" is one of the few remaining stylistic ties to #1 Record: an imagined dialogue set to a harbinger's tune. The bipolar "Daisy Glaze" details the paranoia stemming from cheating, devolving from "I'm drivin' alone/Sad about you," to  "Who is this whore? ... You're gonna die/Yes, you're gonna die." The Todd Rundgren-cum-Mick Taylor "She's a Mover" details "Marsha the name" who "look like a dove" and "smile like crocodile." "September Gurls," a heavenly, elastic pop masterwork, works off an irresistibly sunny chord progression to deliver an immortal Chilton lyric: "I loved you, well, never mind." "Morpha Too," featuring Chilton solo with piano and a single overdubbed vocal of himself, is wonderful and hazy; it is not clear what or who "morpha" is. "I'm in Love with a Girl" amazes with its simplicity that at the same time sounds like nothing that came before.

Though Big Star's final 1974 recordings were compiled for 3rd (1978) and Chilton and Stephens reunited with members of the Posies for In Space (2005), Radio City was effectively the final Big Star album. The paltry amount of original material has given Big Star a certain mystique, which is something that often unfairly elevates the legacy of a work. In the case of Radio City, it is no hyperbole. The songs are singular, the sound is tight, and Chilton is on a whole other planet with his guitar playing.