Gift One – Teresa

My gift to The Collective is ‘Big Star’. This cd is a two album complilation consisting of their 1^st album “#1 Record” and their 2^nd and last album “Radio City”. Big Star was a band in the early 70’s that were victims of poor distribution due to internal label wars. They were also mostly a studio band due to the conflict between frontmen Chris Bell and Alex Chilton. Although Big Star tried to play a few gigs here and there, they were highly unsuccessful. The late Bell (passed away in an accident in 1979) left the band after ‘#1 Record’ was recorded. He came back to work on the 2^nd album, but his conflict with Chilton led him to abort his portion of the project and he refused to take any credit on ‘Radio City’, although his influence can be heard throughout the tunes.

With Chilton’s bluesy and rhythmic guitar combined with Bell’s british influenced vocals, the band tops my category of bands that you should be listening to probably never heard of. You can hear the 70’s infused in the tracks with its “ooh aah” background vocals and driving guitars. Tracks that are a must-hear are “The Ballad of El Goodo” (side note: Evan Dando has covered this tune), “You Get What You Deserve” and “September Gurls”. And here’s a pop quiz for you, tell me where you’ve heard track #3 “In The Street”.

il aspetto

il principio

the beginning

The Collective

The Collective has found you.