Between 1968 and 1975, Big Star was America’s answer to the demise of the Beatles. Sadly, no one noticed this at the time. It was not entirely Big Star's fault. They wrote the right songs and performed them with edgy soul. All the right ingredients collided in one of those musical miracles that seems impossible today, yet they were commercially squashed by an equal and opposite reaction within the scummy confines of the music business (note: this was before Vinyl Fever). I’m not saying it was malicious. Big Star just didn't get the break they so clearly deserved because business concerns were – perhaps necessarily – considered more important than the art. They screamed into the void and the sound was vacuumed into near-oblivion. And to be fair, despite their obvious talents, maybe they were also just a bit too raw for the average radio listener of the time.
So many years later and thanks to endless kudos piled on by every alt-rocker you've ever heard of, anyone interested has already heard their first and most accessible albums, #1 Record and Radio City. These two are so jammed full of masterful emo-pop that you may not wish to dig any further. But for the inquisitive, the band had one more dispatch, the ramshackle-yet-riveting Third, also known as Sister Lovers. This album was halfheartedly released once, then several more times in various configurations. It is a dark trip into the broken heart of Alex Chilton, the surviving songwriter at the time. It actually hurts to listen to it; I don’t care who you are or why you hurt.
