I almost hate to write about this guy, being that he’s a local legend. To be fair, Alex Chilton has long since packed up and made a break for New Orleans, so even though we’re aggregated there, odds are good that he doesn’t read the M3mphis blog. So I won’t embarrass him by mentioning that he’s something of a hero.
Like Brian Wilson is my hero, anyway. There’s a heartbreaking but very sincere form of beauty to be found in listening to a genius self-destruct.
Listening to anything Alex Chilton did after the first two Big Star records (I’m a well-documented fan of those, too) – like listening to Brian Wilson’s post-”Pet Sounds” work with the Beach Boys – is an exercize in patience.
To listen and enjoy records like this almost requires an understanding of the stories behind them. In the case of Big Star’s third record (alternately called “Third,” “Sister Lovers” or both), as well as in that of the Beach Boys’ “Smiley Smile,” those stories all add up to failure.
Alex Chilton – and his partner in Big Star, Chris Bell – did not fail, exactly, but people around them failed, resulting in their failure. Both men took it hard. I won’t go into details here; Ed Ward started to on “Fresh Air” about a month ago.
Really, his piece was about Ardent Records and their huge (and largely unheard) contribution to American pop music in the 60′s and 70′s. But it’s almost impossible to talk about Ardent without blathering on about what a huge crime it is that Big Star didn’t become the biggest band in the world.
(Seriously, there should be a trial in the Hague or something.)
I wanted to write about it then, but just hadn’t quite figured out how. When “Lost My Job,” off the “Feudalist Tarts/No Sex” LP came up on my iPod on the way to the coffee shop I’m sitting at right now, I thought that writing about that would be a nice way to quietly, humbly announce that I found a new job. That’s all. Thanks for the kind words, support, and offers to provide references.
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