Big Star was an American rock band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens (drums), and Andy Hummel (bass). The group broke up in early 1975, and reorganized with a new lineup 18 years later following a reunion concert at the University of Missouri. In its first era, the band's musical style drew on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Byrds. Big Star produced a style that foreshadowed the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s. Before they broke up, Big Star created a "seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations", in the words of Rolling Stone, as the "quintessential American power pop band", and "one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll". Three of Big Star's studio albums are included in the Rolling Stone's list of the Top 500 Albums of All-Time.
Radio City is the second album by the American rock group Big Star. Released in 1974, Radio City was recorded during 1973 at Memphis' Ardent Studios. Though not a commercial success at the time, it is now recognized as a milestone album in the history of power pop music. Critically acclaimed upon its release, the record sold poorly, partly due to a lack of promotion and the distribution problems of the band's struggling record label, Ardent Records. The album included "September Gurls" and "Back of a Car", which remain among the most famous Big Star songs; both the Searchers and the Bangles have covered "September Gurls".
Third is the third album by American rock band Big Star. Sessions started at Ardent Studios in September 1974. Though Ardent created promotional, white-label test pressings for the record in 1975, a combination of financial issues, the uncommercial sound of the record, and lack of interest from singer Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens in continuing the project prevented the album from ever being properly finished or released at the time of its recording. It was eventually released in 1978 by PVC Records.
Christopher Branford Bell was an American musician, guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Along with Alex Chilton, he led the power pop band Big Star through its first album #1 Record (1972). He also pursued a solo career throughout the mid-1970s, resulting in the posthumous I Am the Cosmos LP.
It'll End in Tears is the first album released by 4AD collective This Mortal Coil, an umbrella title for a loose grouping of guest musicians and vocalists brought together by label boss Ivo Watts-Russell. The album was released on 1 October 1984, and reached #38 on the UK Albums Chart. It features many of the artists on the 4AD roster at the time, including Cocteau Twins, Colourbox, and Dead Can Dance; as well as key post-punk figure Howard Devoto, who sang "Holocaust", one of two covers of songs from the Third/Sister Lovers album by Big Star. The other Alex Chilton-penned track, album opener "Kangaroo", was released as a single to promote the album. Two key songs were performed by Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, including Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren", which reached #66 on the UK Charts when released as This Mortal Coil's debut single a year before the album. The song remained on the UK Indie Chart for almost two years. Fraser also performed on "Another Day" by Roy Harper. 4AD would go on to release two further albums under the name of This Mortal Coil: Filigree & Shadow (1986) and Blood (1991).
Swirlies is an American indie rock band formed in Boston in 1990. Since their first records in the early 1990s, the band has released studio and home recordings that blend shoegaze and twee pop with electronica and lo-fi music.
"Love of My Life" is a song by the British rock band Queen from their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song is a sentimental ballad, notably featuring a harp played by Brian May.
#1 Record is the debut album by the American rock band Big Star. It was released on April 24, 1972 by Memphis-based Ardent Records.
"The Warmth of the Sun" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1964 album Shut Down Volume 2 and as the B-side of the "Dance, Dance, Dance" single, which charted at number eight in the United States and number twenty four in the United Kingdom. Brian Wilson produced the song, and the rest of the album.
Blonder Tongue Audio Baton is the debut studio album by Swirlies, released on CD, LP and cassette. The majority of the album was recorded in the summer of 1992 at Q Division Studios, Boston with engineer/co-producer Rich Costey. It is possibly their best-known and most critically praised work, with many critics citing it as a "lo-fi" answer to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. AllMusic calls it "a mainstay of early-'90s indie music." In 2016, Pitchfork ranked the album at number 11 on its list of the 50 best shoegaze albums of all time.
Bubble & Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.
"Thirteen" is a song by the American rock band Big Star. Rolling Stone describes it "one of rock's most beautiful celebrations of adolescence", and rated it #396 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was written by Alex Chilton and Chris Bell.
Columbia: Live at Missouri University 4/25/93 is a reunion live album by the American power pop group Big Star, recorded and released in 1993 by the original Big Star members Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens together with The Posies' members Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow. It was recorded at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
Keep an Eye on the Sky is a 4-CD, 98-song career retrospective box set from American rock group Big Star, released in 2009. It features 52 unreleased tracks: demos, alternate takes, and live performances. As well as material from founder member Chris Bell's earlier bands Rock City and Icewater, it includes all titles from Big Star's first three studio albums, #1 Record, Radio City, and Third/Sister Lovers, and a recording of a 1973 Big Star concert. Staged in January at Lafayette's Music Room, the Memphis venue used again in May for the Rock Writers' Convention, the concert took place after Bell's departure and before the remainder of the group began work on Radio City. The box set's liner notes won a 2011 Grammy Award for author Robert Gordon.
I Am the Cosmos is the only solo album by the American pop-rock musician Chris Bell, posthumously released in 1992 by Rykodisc, having been recorded over a period of two to three years during the mid-1970s. Bell had previously been a member of Big Star.
William Alexander Chilton was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer best known as the lead singer of the Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton's early commercial success in the 1960s as a teen vocalist for the Box Tops was never repeated in later years with Big Star and in his subsequent indie music solo career on small labels, but he drew an intense following among indie and alternative rock musicians. He is frequently cited as a seminal influence by influential rock artists and bands, some of whose testimonials appeared in the 2012 documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.
All the Women I Am is the twenty-eighth studio album by American country music singer Reba McEntire. It was released November 9, 2010, through the Valory Music Group, a division of Big Machine Records. Its first single is "Turn On the Radio", which was released in July and debuted at #54 and peaked at #1 in January 2011. The second single "If I Were a Boy" and was released in January 2011 and re-entered the Billboard Country Charts at #60, peaking at #22 in April 2011. The third single, "When Love Gets a Hold of You", was released on April 11, 2011, peaking at #40 in six weeks. McEntire's fourth single from the album was "Somebody's Chelsea," which peaked at #44. The album was produced by Dann Huff. As of 2012 it is her 1st studio album since 1984's Just a Little Love not to be certified.
Tales from the Vinegar Side is the 1990 second album by Gigolo Aunts, released on Imposible Records in Spain. The record contains a cover of the Chris Bell composition "I Am the Cosmos" and the song "Down on Me", a modest Boston radio hit. This release was the first of several for the band in Spain, where they are very popular, including a split single with the Posies of "I Am the Cosmos" in 1992 on Munster Records.
Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation) is the sixth studio album by American rock band Counting Crows, released on April 10, 2012, on Cooking Vinyl. The album is composed of cover songs, with vocalist Adam Duritz stating, "Sometimes it's great to play someone else's music and try to make it your own. Sometimes it's great just because it's fun."
Clichés is the fourth solo album released by American pop rock musician Alex Chilton. It was recorded and released in 1993. Chilton recorded the album in New Orleans at Chez Flames, the studio of producer and recording engineer Keith Keller, who also wrote the song "Lies", featured on Chilton's album A Man Called Destruction.
