Today started on a sad note when I woke up to NPR to hear that Alex Chilton, a music icon in my eyes, passed away. If my life were a movie, surely a couple of his songs would be on the soundtrack.
Alex Chilton was a singer-songwriter who is most well known for the huge mid-1960s hit The Letter as part of the Box Tops. I came to know him from his days in the 70s band Big Star, a band that put out three amazing records that were largely ignored in their day. Big Star transformed the beautifully rhythmic works of bands like the Kinks and the Byrds into power pop and added darker lyrics which foreshadowed the alternative and indie rock music of the 1980s (when I was introduced to them) and 1990s. If you’re an Ashton Kutcher fan, you’ll recognize the Big Star song “In the Street” (performed by Cheap Trick) as the theme song to That 70s Show.
To give you a perspective of his place in music history, Big Star’s three records are listed on Rolling Stone Magazine’s top 500 albums of all time (#1 Record, Radio City, Third/Sister Lovers), the song The Letter was the # 1 pop single in 1967, and his obituary is in the New York Times .
Some other interesting takes about his work:
- The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll. . . . . The group’s three studio albums 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. – Allmusic (encyclopedia website)
- In less than four years, Big Star created a seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations of rockers, from the power-pop revivalists of the late 1970s to alternative rockers at the end of the century to the indie rock nation in the new millennium. – Rolling Stone
- “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.’” – The Replacements in the song “Alex Chilton”
Here are a couple of great tracks. And remember – never go far without a little Big Star. Rest in peace, Alex Chilton. . . . . Long live Alex Chilton!!
