Big Star

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风格: #原型朋克　#电力流行
地区: 欧美

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大明星代表的所谓强力流行乐(power pop)在70年代曾经风靡一时，他们是这种风格的最初定义者，其音乐由不列颠入侵（British Invasion）的The Beatles、The Who所带来的迷人旋律与合声，加上朋克的演奏方式，形成强劲的听觉冲击力。但随着新浪潮运动的来临，八十年代强力流行乐开始更多融入各种摇滚风格，与此同时，纯粹的强力流行乐开始衰败，因此大明星仅在70年代其短暂的历史中出过3张唱片。由于其地位的经典性，这3张唱片同时入选了滚石评出的最伟大500张专辑。

评论家詹森阿克里评价Big Star乐是说“美国力量型流行乐团的精髓，是最具神化色彩和影响力的乐团。”Big Star乐团最初由Chris Bell和Alex Chilton联合发起成立，他们的的音乐非常热情、有力，有时也会有忧郁的流行乐，旋律优美，歌词简洁。初始的Big Star于1974年解散，包含老成员Chilton和Jody Stephens新的Big Star于1993年成立，并且于2005年发行了他们重新组合后的第一张专辑《In Space》。Big Star成员随换，但风格依然延续。

by Jason Ankeny

The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll. Originally led by the singing and songwriting duo of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, the Memphis-based group fused the strongest elements of the British Invasion era — the melodic invention of the Beatles, the whiplash guitars of the Who, and the radiant harmonies of the Byrds — into a ramshackle but poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pops past even as it pointed the way toward the musics future. Although creative tensions, haphazard distribution, and marketplace indifference conspired to ensure Big Stars brief existence and commercial failure, the groups three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics, and their impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic is surpassed only by that of the Velvet Underground.

The roots of Big Star lie in the group Ice Water (also known as Rock City), formed in 1971 by singer/guitarist Bell in association with guitarist Steve Ray, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens. Ray left the group a short time after its inception and was soon replaced by Chilton, the onetime Box Tops vocalist who was just 16 years old when the group topped the pop charts with their 1967 classic, The Letter. Chilton had recently returned to Memphis after attempting to mount a solo career in New York City; he first played with Bell years earlier in a high school cover band, and with his arrival Ice Water rechristened itself Big Star, borrowing the name from a local supermarket chain. Recording soon commenced at the local Ardent Studios, where Bell occasionally worked as an engineer and session guitarist; despite solid critical notice and some radio airplay, their brilliant 1972 debut, #1 Record, nevertheless fell prey to the distribution problems of the newly-formed Ardent labels parent company Stax — more often than not, the album simply never made its way to retailers.

In the meantime, Bell and Chilton continued to butt heads over Big Stars direction — the former envisioned a primarily studio-oriented project, while the latter preferred performing live; moreover, Chiltons past success in the Box Tops guaranteed him the lions share of attention from listeners and critics, minimizing Bells own contributions in the process. In late 1972 Bell finally left the band — his subsequent attempts to mount a solo career proved largely fruitless, with only a spectacular solo single, I Am the Cosmos, receiving official release prior to his untimely death in a 1978 car crash. (A posthumous solo compilation, also titled I Am the Cosmos, was finally issued to unanimous critical acclaim in 1992.) Following Bells exit, Big Star briefly struggled on as a three-piece before disbanding, with Chilton returning to his stalled solo career; months later, he reteamed with Hummel and Stephens to play a local music writers convention, and the performance was so well-received that they decided to make the reunion permanent.

Big Stars second album, 1974s Radio City, remains their masterpiece — ragged and raw guitar-pop infused with remarkable intensity and spontaneity. It also contained perhaps their best-known song, the oft-covered cult classic September Gurls. (Another highlight, Back of a Car, bears the unmistakable input of Chris Bell, although the duration and extent of his return to duty is unknown.) Distribution difficulties again undermined whatever hopes of commercial success existed, however, and Hummel soon announced his resignation; Chilton and Stephens recruited bassist John Lightman for a handful of East Coast live dates, including a WLIR radio broadcast later issued as Big Star Live. Work on a planned third album soon began, but the sessions proved disastrous as Chilton, reeling from years of music industry exploitation and frustration, effectively sabotaged his own music — where Radio City teetered on the brink of collapse, the new songs tumbled over completely, culminating in one of the most harrowingly bleak pop records ever made. An albums worth of material was completed and shelved, and then Big Star was no more.

The story might have ended there, but in 1978 the third Big Star album was finally issued overseas — various titled Third and/or Sister Lovers, it appeared for years in essentially unauthorized versions containing neither the complete session nor the proper sequencing. Still, the record earned a significant cult following, and with the emergence of the nascent power-pop movement, it became increasingly clear just how prescient Big Stars music had been. Countless alternative rock bands — R.E.M., the Replacements, the dBs, and Teenage Fanclub, to name just four — cited the bands enormous influence in the years to follow, and in 1993 the Posies Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow backed Chilton and Stephens for a reunion gig at the University of Missouri, a performance captured on the Columbia live disc. To the surprise of many, the Big Star reunion continued with tours of Europe and Japan, and — most shocking of all — even an appearance on televisions The Tonight Show, although no new studio recordings were forthcoming.

Big Star

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