#456: Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers...

...henceforth referred to simply as Third.

I've long had some problems with Alex Chilton. Between altogether failing to comprehend the appeal of Big Star on early listens (who cares if the Replacements and REM listen to 'em?), later missing entirely the appeal of his solo work, and in recent years attaching a negative association to anything and everything Chilton (who himself, to be fair, is not to blame for that), I've never had much time for the guy's work nor many flattering things to say about it. That's the polite way of stating it; closer to the truth to say that most of my assessments of Chilton and Big Star up to now have amounted to little more than frustrated temper tantrums. So I suppose I come to Third with more than a little prejudice right out of the gate. Factor into this the reality that Third is without a doubt the weakened, terrified, mortally wounded animal of Big Star's Stax-era catalogue, and it becomes something of an exercise to write anything more constructive than "What the hell is this" about it. Subsequent revisitings of Third, as well as of #1 Record and Radio City, thankfully, provide some much needed context...

I will say that there are some good pieces here and there. "Thank You Friends" starts out strong with a simple, hooky riff and pleasant backing vocals before Chilton's curious delivery and an ill-conceived string section stomp it out like a wet Marlboro. "Holocaust" works well as either elegy or indictment (whichever it is, perhaps both), Chilton's voice appropriately thin and unsteady, the piano line creeping along like background music in a slasher flick. "You Can't Have Me" sort of holds it together long enough to recall the energy of the earlier works, in spite of the feral saxophone solo... But pieces is all I can really make of this record. Mostly, it just fights viciously with itself. What #1 Record and Radio City had going for them was the self-assured cohesiveness of a band with a future; either one of them, at its worst, is still fairly competent ear candy. Third, on the other hand, delivers half of a songwriting partnership, possessed of talent but fraying at the seams, feeding jagged shards of confused music to what's left of a band (patched together with a revolving cast of studio musicians), for a record label on its own one way trip to the ICU; this record wasn't even released until several years after the band officially split up, and like previous releases, received very little in the way of promotion or distribution. That said, Third is by no means the band's definitive album, as any Big Star fan surely knows. I have significantly less contempt for Big Star than I had before, particularly with respect to their two previous records. Those two are coming up on the list, and I'll have better things to say about each of them than I do about Third, to be sure.

Some other thoughts:

#457, Jackson Browne's For Everyman: Opening track "Take It Easy" is one of those songs that most people born after 1965 or so probably assume is the Eagles. Nope, it's good ol' Jackson Browne, dean of the jaded California singer-songwriters.

#455, The Police's Synchronicity: Man, this record was huge back in the day... Now, it's mostly relegated to the shadows of Outlandos D'amour and Regatta de Blanc, and rightly so. The Police obviously capitalized most successfully on their hitmaking abilities with Synchronicity, but earlier works better showcased their real strengths.