Am I the only person who thinks Big Star's "Radio City" is completely overrated?

The first time I ever heard #1 Record/Radio City I feel asleep. Listening to it conscious, I found it impressive but not heart-tugging; then a year later it all seemed to make perfect sense.

It's like Beatles '65 played in Al Jackson time but not funky in any obvious way. It's hard to describe.

yes, i think arab strap took notice of this particular song structure in their own way.

I bought #1 Record/Radio City when I still didn't have as much knowledge of music (believe I bought a copy of a Phantom Planet CD the same day, so this was a little less than 2 years ago). And I only bought it because I remembered reading a review of it in a friend's copy of Rolling Stone and being fascinated so I had that imprinted in my brain and eventually picked it up. Replace Big Star with Pavement and Rolling Stone with Spin and thats the same way I got into Pavement a year or so before that. So my point is Big Star or any of their albums are not overrated. Big Star isn't one of those bands I have recordings of because they are rockcrit favs and I am only a casual fan of them. I listen to Big Star all the time and feel passioniately about the music blah blah blah.

I'm also a huge Posies fan whose love for Big Star is somewhat lukewarm, so while I appreciate them, it's more for their influence than their actual music. I'm gradually finding more to enjoy about them, though.

That's the received wisdom. The first album has a hard rock
perversity and dark jolt they never chose to go back to for
the length of an entire record. "In Color" might as well
have been a different band -- good but not tough sounding
like the first, production's completely different. I never cared for "I Want You to Want Me." It was Cheap Trick's "Beth"
on "Budokan."

Third album didn't get very far at the time of release. It was
"Budokan," the import edited for the screaming leedle
girl and boys who are still girls in Japanese-land that kept them alive, putting some of the same tunes in front of an American audience for a second time with packaging no one domestically had
the brains to think of.

I played an odd-sized EP released after "Dream Police" called "Found All the Parts" a bit, too. Epic put it out in a series with a
couple other bands, I think, none of which went anywhere.

It is true that Big Star didn't sell a lot of records and this, of course, makes their music less good than Peter Frampton's. In fact, Peter Frampton is exponentially better - I'd tell you how much but I'm not especially good at math.

This above statement is 100% OTM.

The songwriting isn't always great but it's the way it's done that matters; and as an expression of stasis that still "rocks" or whatever, Radio City is hard to beat...

tl;dr but fuck you miccio for this thread btw i'm drunk

listening to radio city i almost feel guilty for enjoying myself so much. there's definitely something dark and unnerving about it, but its so tuneful and consistently engaging in such an uplifting way. 'back of a car' breaks all kinds of records for number of hooks within the one song, 'what's going ahn'' has a sort of tragic wisdom about it and is glorious in its resigned melancholy and measured soul-searching, and 'september gurls' is blissfully carefree. it's a real shining jewel - good fun, tender, naive, and wise all at once.

yeahhhhhh!!!!! took me so long to fall in love with this album. the thing is, lol, i was like my first love was with #1 record because all of the impacted guitars and immediate hooks.... but radio city has so much space.. wait for it.. hook.. wait for it.. fuk you??? and funk you. i think the key here is to listen to jody stephens the fucking drummer.... AMAZING. he just KILLS and everything else kills but it just follows along on certain songs you know?

Taking Sides: Bangles' "September Gurls" vs Big Star's "September Gurls"

I just bought Keep an Eye on the Sky wit a little help from the US govt and also drunk.,
Radio City rules all time.

My mom hates this record.

I tried to get into this, didn't really gel outside of the big hits. maybe another try is in order

from what I remember I would agree with the OP

"#1 Record" >> "Radio City".
The latter has "September Gurls", which as a song is perfect in every possible way, but the album generally lacks those wonderful vocal harmonies that Chris Bell provided on the debut.

This record is more consistent than #1 Record. Both are great, though.

As for Cheap Trick, they would never ever get better than the "Heaven Tonight" album, which has the slickness and production values the first two are in lack of, plus it is also stylistically more varied, but without ever losing touch of pop songwriting at its best.

lol @ "big hits"
this is the best big star record

SBd you and Bruns and every other amusical cunt just in case it really was yr moms

Oh yeah...after ten years of trying to like Big Star I've given up--there's no there. As Woody Allen once wrote, "another one for the Academy of the Overrated" (and he should know!)

there's no there there. there.

this record is underrated.

^^^^^

i know who iago g. is

go ahead, spill it velko! the name's doug eklund...who are you?

hmmm the only r0b3rt from those daze that i know lived/lives in Holland. is that him? i dunno, i don't wanna lead you astray, they might not be your thing. this time of year is the time of year when i fell in love with them and i fell hard.

ah, r0bert plays in the country teasers but is wholly american. lived in uh, wales? for a while? anyway, yeah we're gonna see.
i will just listen to the first two records at work tomorrow and see what happens.

there's some other thread where we argue about what the best track order for 3rd is (I agree w/Shasta, whose favorite originated from some Italian bootleg of it iirc). Third was my intro to Big Star and is an amazing record but in a lot of ways it doesn't bear too much resemblance to what came before.

That twangy guitar riff on "O, My Soul" has forever reminded me of "Footloose."

Heh

Fun fact:

Loggins: “On the session, I asked my guitarist, ‘Gimme that Chilton thing, you know, like on Radio City.’ The guy looks at me like I have two heads. I said, ‘You know, Big Star? Radio City?’ He just looks more confused. So I ran out to my car, grabbed my tape that has #1 Record on one side and Radio City on the other — I’m telling you, that tape never leaves my car — and put it on for him. There’s that little riff just before Alex starts singing, and I said to my guitarist, ‘That! That’s what I’m looking for!’ So he picked up on it, and it became the main riff in ‘Footloose.’”

(OK, I just made that up.)

Well done.

It totally sounds like a rip-off, it’s even the same notes no?

I can totally imagine the singer of "I Met Her at Church" singing "Kick off your Sunday SHOEZZZ!"

Bowie: "I said to Stevie Ray Vaughan, 'Stevie, have you heard of this obscure band called Big Star? There is a song of theirs with this great little guitar intro. Do you think you could maybe tweak it a little for a song I am currently working on?' And boy, did he ever. He listened to the Big Star, paused a moment, then picked up his guitar and immediately worked his magic. And that's how 'Modern Love' was born, and a guitar hero was made."

there is a clip on youtube of Loggins on Live from Daryl's House that is almost this exact scenario except he's trying to get the drummer to play "Modern Love" so they can start the song, we may have unlocked the secret to Footloose

I think of all of these examples as deriving from Duane Eddy, though I don't have an individual song in mind?

In other words, it's a common rockabilly lick.

The difference I hear is that Chilton is sliding up to the note while Kenny (or his guitarist) is bending the string.

Yeah, my guitar teacher (who had never heard "O My Soul" before I played it for him) described it as a "Strat master class."

lol Footloose is so similar. Sounds like something a guitarist does to warm up his fingers tbh.

Every time I hear twang my default ref is Duane Eddy.

one time I read the book "Heaven is Real" for funsies which is not very fun and kind of distressing however at the end of the book there is a picture of the man a toddler recognized as Jesus

https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2019/12/14/6183dc8a-3d9f-409a-b4e2-d4cc944f3259/thumbnail/640x860/6bc4a044ac9f825340caf6d86b81bccb/Prince-of-Peace-hi-res.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/Kenny_Loggins.jpg/440px-Kenny_Loggins.jpg

I was pretty old before I realized that Loggins had a long and storied career before his '80s run, both with Messina and without. "Keep the Fire" is totally sophisticated yacht rock with a track that features Michael Jackson on backing vocals.

Electric Prunes bassist Mark Tulin, on their 1968 touring guitarist:

The one positive aspect of the tour was playing with Kenny Loggins. I know where he's at now, but at that time he was a hard-core rocker and a pure joy to watch play. He went full-bore, full-out every night. Then back at the hotel he'd play some great song he'd just written. He was one talented son of a bitch.

Oh! Is this the thread from which sprung “terrifyingly consistent” and it referred to Jody’s drumming? I’m so happy