Beautiful Star

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 that recaptured the spirit of pop's past even as it pointed the way toward the music's future. Although creative tensions, haphazard distribution, and marketplace indifference conspired to ensure Big Star's brief existence and commercial failure, the group's three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics – the polished but muscular studio sound of 1972's #1 Record, the leaner and tougher guitar-based attack of 1974's Radio City, and the hallucinatory swing between beauty and desperation of what would become known as Third.