Big Star

It should come as no surprise that a Big Star reunion would take place on the spur of the
moment, practically unannounced, in Middle America for a bunch of college kids. After all,
during the legendary Memphis, Tenn.-based band's brief existence, in the early '70s, few
people ever saw their infrequent performances or heard their poorly distributed albums,
#1 Record (1972) and Radio City (1974), both angst-pop masterpieces. Nearly 20 y... More >

Nostalgia has nothing to do with it. For Alex Chilton, redefining garage pop with Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummel was but a single obscure step on a pilgrim's progress toward eternal oblivion, and that they came up with one of the great catalogues in the process merely constituted one of life's little ups and downs. Here he and Stephens and a couple of Posies who play loud even if they sing wimpy remake that catalogue as a rock and roll noisier and more impolite than anything he would have tried at the time. Or anything he's especially inclined toward now, either--last time I caught him he covered Johnny Lee, Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, and the Vancouvers (the Spanish ones, how did you miss them?) (Grade: A-)