Notes

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01. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Elliott Smith)
02. September Gurls (Big Star cover, Superdrag)
03. Nightime (Big Star cover,The Afghan Whigs)
04. I am the Cosmos (Chris Bell cover, This Mortal Coil)
05. Take Care (Big Star cover, Yo La Tengo)
06. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Kathryn Williams)
07.Holocaust (Big Star cover, Son Volt)
08. Back of a Car (Big Star cover, The Loud Family)
09. Ballad Of El Goodo (Big Star cover, Matthew Sweet)
10. Thirteen (Big Star cover, The Resentments)
11. Holocaust (Big Star cover, Placebo)
12. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Counting Crows)
13. That 70's Show Theme (IMHO, horrible cover of Big Star's "In the Street" by Cheap Trick, blah!)
14. Give Me Another Chance (Big Star cover, Whiskeytown)
15. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Kind of Like Spitting)
16. September Girls (Big Star cover, Yo La Tengo)
17. The Ballad Of El Goodo (Big Star cover, The Decemberists)
18. The Ballad Of El Goodo (Big Star cover, Colin Meloy)
19. I am the cosmos (Chris Bell cover, Copeland)
20. You and Your Sister (Chris Bell cover, This Mortal Coil)
21. Kangaroo (Big Star Cover, BECK live)
22. Blue Moon (Big Star cover, His Name Is Alive)
23. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Magnapop)
24. Speed Of Sound (Chris Bell cover, The Flaming Lips)
25. I Am The Cosmos (Chris Bell cover, The Posies)
26. Nightime (Big Star cover, Elliott Smith)
27. I'm in Love With a Girl (Big Star Cover, The Replacements)
28. September Gurls (Big Star cover, The Bangles)
29. The Ballad of El Goodo (Big Star cover, Evan Dando)
30. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Evan Dando)
31. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Mary Lou Lord)
32. Stroke it Noel (Big Star cover, Elliott Smith)
33. Thirteen (Big Star Cover, Garbage)
34. Kangaroo (Big Star cover, This Mortal Coil)
35. Thirteen (Big Star cover, Wilco)
36. Holocaust (Big Star cover, This Mortal Coil)
37. The Ballad of El Goodo ( (Big Star cover, Counting Crows)
38. September Gurls (Big Star cover, Elliott Smith & Jon Brion)
39. Thirteen (Big Star cover, bowling for soup)
40. Alex Chilton (Original Song by The Replacements)
41. Alex Chilton (Paul Westerberg live)
42. Gone With the Light ( (demo, Ardent Studios, Memphis TN 1972-73 (Soundboard))
43. Nice And Easy Does It (Alex Chilton solo, cover Alan Bergman/Larry Keith/Lew Spence)
44. Femme Fatale (Performed by Big Star, Nico cover)
45. My Baby Just Cares For Me (Alex Chilton solo, cover Bergman/Bregman Vocco/Conn/Gus Kahn/Walter Donaldson)
46. There Will Never Be Another You (Alex Chilton solo, cover, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Mack Gordo)
47. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Sung by Alex Chilton, covering Jerry Lee Lewis cover)
48. Waltz Across Texas (Alex Chilton singing Ernest Tubb cover)
49. With a Girl Like You (Alex Chilton - Troggs cover)
50. Nighttime (Alex Chilton solo,live)
51. I Got Kinda Lost (demo, Ardent Studios, Memphis TN 1972-73 (Soundboard))
52. Motel Blues (demo Ardent Studios, Memphis TN 1972-73 (Soundboard
53. Holocaust (Alex Chilton & The Cossacks live at CBGB's 1978)
54. In The Street (Posies plus Alex Chilton as the new "Big Star" in 1994)
55. A Little Fishy (Alex Chilton & The Cossacks live at CBGB's 1978)
56. For You (Posies plus Alex Chilton as the new "Big Star" in 1994)
57. Don't Lie To Me (Posies plus Alex Chilton as the new "Big Star" in 58. September Gurls (Big Star (Posies line up) Live Cover)
59. In The Street (Alex Chilton solo, Big Star cover)
60. I Am The Cosmos [Chris Bell performing, slow version]

Total Playing Time: 205:56

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If you ask most Indie bands these days whom one of their biggest influences is, you'll almost universally hear the name of the band "Big Star." Yet despite their near-legendary, mythological status, not only has your average music lover never heard of them, hardly anyone outside those Indie bands has heard of them. How can Big Star be so famous among the famous, and so unheard outside those circles? Another one of those absolutely criminal neglect cases in the anals of rock'n'roll.

Big Star was like a Supernova, which in their case isn't just flowery exageration, it couldn't have been any more true. As a complete band, based out of Memphis, they burned bright and fast. They only put out one true complete album together, "#1 Record," in 1972 and a second one with some contributions from the band's original founder and co-leader, Chris Bell, "Radio City," in 1974. There are endless reasons Big Star is to this day idolized and adored by their fans.

First, it's important to note that Big Star is credited as the band that invented "power pop." They wanted to recreate the gorgeous shimmering sound of the Byrds, only they wanted to rock out like their other heroes, the Who and The Velvet Undergound. Pretty strange amalgamation-- so you've got beautiful, angelic harmonies, crunchy,gritty guitar power chords, and subject matter that ranges from sweet adolescence ("Thirteen") to absolute human desolation ("Holocaust").

The two genius lead singer/songwriters of the band, Alex Chilton (former vocalist for the Box Tops, he was only 16-years old when they scored their big hit,"The Letter," which no doubt only set his gigantic ego into a full tilt boogie,) and Chris Bell, couldn't have been any more incompatible personality wise, and continuously clashed on musical direction. First of all, Bell tended to write more beautiful, lush songs, while keeping within the band's driven, hard rockin' sound. While Chilton was perfectly capable of writing the gorgeous ballad, but he also wrote songs that sounded like the future sounds of Kiss, Badfinger, ZZ Top--you get the idea. In one very fascinating brew, they had the harmonies and bright jangly sound of the Byrds, rockin' out like T. Rex, with the oddness of their musical choices reflecting the adventurousness of the Velvets. And that's just on the first two albums. By the second album, though Bell contributed some songs, it's difficult historically to say exactly how much of a role he played in the second album, and most consider it to be the last true Big Star album, with some Bell contributions, but mostly Chilton. Which is a shame. Like so many co-leads who couldn't get along musically, that dynamic tension in the band''s music made it some of the most complex and interesting in musical history. When you have two such strong visionaries coming together in any way to create music, in this case the result, on just two brief albums, was enough to ensure them a permanent place in the musical canon, along side the Velvet Underground, and the Beach Boys as far as the most often mentioned modern day, Indie influences.

The band's third album included all of the Big Star band except for Bell, who had moved onto a solo career by that point. He didn't have a very successful solo career, except for the brilliant and poignant song which he'll forever be remembered by, "I Am the Cosmos," covered gorgeously by bands such as This Mortal Coil. Chris Bell might have gone on, out of all of them, to have the most successful solo career based on the beauty and sheer brilliance of that one song alone, but his life was cut very tragically short with his death in a car crash in 1978.

But back to that third album, called variously "Third," or "Sisters/Lovers." This is basically the remnants of Big Star, minus Bell, with Chilton at the helm. If I was the betting type, I would be willing to bet any amount of money that Chilton had spent a great deal of time in between "Radio City" and "Third" listening to Lou Reed's "Berlin." The albums are too close in subject matter, sound, (including Reed's very unusual and therefore inimitable "angelic choruses" that he employed to such amazing affect on "Berlin,"), and overall "Fin de siècle" mood-- the party of the 60's is over, welcome to the despair of the come down from all those drugs and the big party. The album, almost as brilliant as Reed's Berlin, but also not quite as depressing (Reed tops even cheery Chilton on that score)--but it's pretty close. Songs like "Holocaust," "Take Care," "Kanagaroo,"and Chilton's cover of Nico's "Femme Fatale" make for some really NOT cheery listening. But they are also some of the finest songs Chilton has ever written, and not only sung by him, but as covered by the other artists on this collection, you'll hear how much he has evolved from the angsty young twenty-something on the first two records, to this much more mature, but clearly much more depressed artist on "Third." "Third" cemented Big Star's mythological status, being an album of absolute genius, though missing Bell's melodic, sweet balance to Chilton's darker, more oblique lyrics, and overall darker, more menancing mood. But though it might sound nothing like either #1 or Radio City, it is the third and final album in the official Big Star canon. These three albums are the band's entire output, and the entire basis of their reputation as THE innovators of the 70's.

Today, bands from R.E.M., The Replacements, Elliott Smith, Beck, the Posies,Teenage Fan Club-- and that is to name a VERY few--list Big Star as one of their primary influences. But Chilton's persosnality is famously difficult--his bizarre and self-defeating behavior in the music industry is one big reason Big Star isn't better known today. The other problem why in their own day, despite critical acclaim, that Big Star never made it is such an oft repeated music story that it almost seems like one should just be able to cut and paste it into articles like this: Big Star was signed to local Memphis label Ardent, who was owned by Stax. And for whatever reason, Stax simply never distributed the album. The identical situation played out with the second album, with no promotion nor distribution. There was really nothing for the band to do at that point but break up since they just couldn't break out. The third album, "Third," was finally released in 1978, four years after the band's break up in 1974, and slowly but surely grew in cult status, only adding to the band's mythos and cult following. Between the three albums, Big Star sounded like at least six bands, all brilliant, all unlike anything or anyone else, and all fated to be completely ignored in their own time.

Big Star has achieved several re-emergences--the most notable and probably the one that sounded the most like the original Big Star line-up was with one of Big Star's all time greatest admirers, The Posies, Jonatan Auer and Ken Stringfellow. The Posies, who obviously achieved superstardom all on their own rights, were such enormous Big Star fans that they agreed to join Chilton, as lead singer of the newly formed Big Star, with the Posies rounding out the best of the band. What's amazing is how damn good the Posies sound posing as Big Star--imitation IS the most sincere form of flattery in this case. They even put out a good album together--it's not as good as the original Big Star albums but it's still pretty amazing, 2005's "In Space" with the Posies posing as Big Star.

This collection you hold in your hands was painstakingly collected by me for about two years. It's divided into two halves: covers other musicians have done of Big Star songs and Big Star either covering other band's songs, or live covers of their own songs--as I said these are real rarities since Big Star rarely perfomred live while they were intact, and the rest are Alex Chilton with various backers covering Big Star songs. Then there is one incredible rarity from Chris Bell, him covering his own song, "I Am the Cosmos" live, before his untimely death. Straddling the two sets are a song by the Replacements, sung once with the whole band, and the other sung solo by Paul, called "Alex Chilton," singing of his admiration for Alex and Big Star, and his *extremely* idealistic worship of Chilton, saying "Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes 'round/They sing "I'm in love. What's that song? I'm in love with that song." And a little further into the song, Paul declares, "I never travel far, without a little Big Star."

Collecting Big Star covers is a whole lot more difficult than it might seem at the outset. First of all, during their time they hardly toured (Chilton liked to perform live, Bell hated it). So this collection even includes a few EXCEEDINGLY rare live performance from back in the day. Also, when all of the many bands who admire Big Star do covers of Big Star songs, unfortunately it seems most of them choose the same three or four songs--"September Gurls," "Thirteen," and "Ballad of El Goodo." So if you're going to try to do as completist of a covers collection as you can, you're going to get alot of bands covering those three songs--I could have included even more bands covering these songs, but chose the best of a large output. OTOH, those are three of their very best songs, so for the true Big Star fan you cannot only get enough of hearing them, but also hearing how each band interprets them differently. Elliott Smith weighs in with probably the most diverse set of Big Star covers, and his covers are some of the most delicate, complex, and deeply felt. He also credits Chilton for showing him that he could sing in a high register, and still sing any song in any style he liked. Elliott covers the hits, but also less well known songs like "Nighttime" and "Stroke It Noel." Evan Dando, Colin Meloy, and Matthew Sweet all also turn in stunning and very different from one another covers of "Ballad of El Goodo." And in one of the saddest and most true to the spirit of the original, Yo La Tengo does a heartbreaking rendition of "Take Care."

Luckily for me, patience and obsession paid off, and I was able to locate covers of some of their more rare and less commonly performed songs, by such bands as The Afghan Whigs, The Loud Family, This Mortal Coil, Placebo, on and on. What turned out as an initial obsession of wanting to collect all things Big Star led me to turn up some of the most unusual and amazing covers. I must also give a huge thanks to a member named Punch-o-Matic who hooked me up with not only some of the most amazing Big Star archival material I've ever seen, but also gave me the Big Star boot, "What's Goin' Ahn'" which is all officially recorded promos, or soundboard recordings. These are where I was able to fill out the collection with a few of the above named rarities I mentioned, as well as two Big Star demos which never made it onto any of the band's official albums. Thanks Punch-o-Matic, someday his collection will be considered an international archive of this band! But for now, he's keeping it safe and sound, and has artifacts of the band from the day you'll never see anywhere else.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I've enjoyed collecting and amassing this for the past few years. Lots of you have heard of Big Star, as in some favorite band will list them as an influence, or you might have heard them do a single cover, but you've never really heard all that much that Big Star has done. Then some of you may already be huge fans, but it's unlikely you have this well rounded collection of covers and rarities, which collected in one place is a big boon to the Big Star fanatic. And finally, if you've never heard of them and wonder what's the big deal about Big Star, this is a great place to get an introduction--not only can you hear your favorite bands covering them, but you'll hear how unique and inspiring their sound was to generations of musicians who came after them--you too will know what the big deal about Big Star is all about. Enjoy! -BoxofStars