Radio City [Import, Original recording remastered]

Big Star | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 8, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Universal UK
• ASIN: B002GCJW8Q
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,166 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

The second album from the quintessential American power pop band now available on domestic vinyl for the first time in a generation. Original 1974 recording features the Big Star line up of Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens. LP includes faithfully restored sleeve and label art. Their debut album, #1 Record, was included in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of all-time. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chilton's Crowning Achievement, March 29, 2010

By 

A. J. Mcconnachie (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Radio City (Audio CD)

The untimely death of the Alex Chilton has inspired a bunch of career retrospectives lauding him as an unsung hero who produced great music with little commercial success. "Radio City" is Exhibit A in the case for the defence.

Chilton made his commercial breakthrough in his teens as lead singer for the late 60s blue-eyed soul outfit The BoxTops, but it must be acknowledged that his best and most enduring work was with Big Star, the semi-legendary 1970s pop-rock lineup.

In stark contrast to The Box Tops, Big Star's "#1 Record" was a huge flop in terms of sales, and creative tensions within the group led to the departure of co-founder Chris Bell before Big Star, now a trio, regrouped in their home town of Memphis to work on their second album in 1973. What eventually emerged was yet another huge market failure, but also one of the best and most influential LPs of the 1970s.

Like many southern musicians, Chilton's music is an amalgam of genres - and intriguingly he adds a Britpop layer to Big Star's mélange of American roots influences. Ringing vocal harmonies descended from the Beatles via The Byrds, jangly muscular rhythm guitar not a million miles away from Pete Townshend's work with the early Who, and a clattering, loose but funky rhythm section fill out a sound which is plenty more than the sum of its parts.

Alternatively hard nosed and lovelorn, Chilton brings a cynical strength to the core of "Radio City" - songs like the opener "Mod Lang", "What's Going Ahn" and "She's A Mover" pack a desperate edge among the shimmering arrangements.

Chilton's guitar is on fire here - never before or since did he establish such a distinctive guitar voice on record. His Fender Telecaster switches from lead to rhythm, from jagged riffs to more languid lines, all without apparent effort.

And then there are his vocals, soaring on snatches of power pop like the insanely catchy "September Gurls" and "Back Of A Car", edgy in the minor key "You Get What You Deserve" - on this record Chilton synthesises his blues, soul and country roots into a totally convincing melodic and dynamic whole.

The album ends with Chilton unaccompanied on the haunting "I'm In Love With A Girl", an early excursion into Low Fi twenty years before the term was invented.

It's not completely a one-man show, as bass player Andy Hummell and drummer Jody Stephens make significant contributions - this is a band, not a solo record after all - but Alex Chilton's utter commitment to every line he sings and note he plays is self-evident.

From this point on, Chilton's work would become increasingly focused on breaking his music down to its constituent parts, jumping on them, smashing them up and then randomly reassembling them (for examples, if you dare, check out 1979's "Like Flies On Sherbert" or 1985's amazingly shambolic "Live in London").

While "Radio City" stops well short of that sort of outright commercial self-harm, Chilton infuses it with a tangible bitterness which lurks just below the surface of what would be a straight pop record in the hands of another. It's laced with a strung out weariness that adds to the record's poignancy, a vibe it shares with contemporaries like "Exile On Main Street" by the Stones and Iggy Pop and James Williamson's "Kill City".

"Radio City" is a tremendously influential record, inspiring bands the world over from the Replacements to Teenage Fanclub, from REM to Ice Cream Hands.

Despite its surface glaze of power pop, this is a raw, desperate record which requires your attention.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh my Soul! (about the LP), May 4, 2009

By 

schelti (utrecht, netherlands) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Radio City [Vinyl] (Vinyl)

A great reissue of a classic album: the sound has more body than the cd version from 1990 or so that I own.
Vinyl is flat, pretty thick (160 gram or so), flat (and black), and when I bought it was cheap ($13).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars big rush hearing this on vinyl, April 30, 2009

By 

G. Wallace (Hilliard, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Radio City [Vinyl] (Vinyl)

This was a great buy and I hope they keep pressing it. It's an obvious masterpiece that failed to sell despite positive reviews. I've heard the SACD which is also very fine but this was better still.