Your Sister Says That I'm No Good

Most are aware of the amazingly influential music recorded by Big Star in the 70’s. I think some reviewer or another quipped that only 10 people bought Big Star’s original records but they all started bands. Alex Chilton gets most of the credit, his name in the title of a Replacements song, his latter day career mumbling obscure covers buttressed by the reputation of his former band.

Let’s not forget, however, that Chilton shared singing and songwriting duties with Chris Bell on nearly every track of #1 Record. Listen to Chris Bell’s solo recordings collected on I Am The Cosmos if you don’t believe me. Every element – the vocals, arrangements, songwriting - are spot on, standing right beside the first two Big Star records and far outshining anything Chilton has produced on his own, including Sister Lovers and that new “Big Star” he just released, from the little I’ve heard.

Okay, it’s not as good as the second Big Star record, Radio City, on which Bell’s participation was apparently quite limited. But I’m still willing to say Chris Bell was the real brains behind Big Star. Had he had the chance to release a proper album before his wrapping his TR6 around a telephone pole ’78, maybe he would have managed to find the fame that Big Star never did.

Buy I Am The Cosmos (I'm serious, do it. i didn't upload the amazing title track and a lot of other killer shit)

Here are a couple tracks I did upload for your sampling pleasure, in keeping with my tendency to post one sad song and one rockin' song:

You and Your Sister (alternate "country" version) via savefile