Alex Chilton (I Love That Song, What Is That Song)

In honor of Alex Chilton's recent passing, here's a review of Big Star's Third (from August 2009). This guy was a seriously talented bugger who influenced a bunch of musicians and made many fans of melodic music eternally happy. If you're not familiar, please Youtube some Big Star ASAP. Anyway, here's the review:

Chilton sounds pretty depressed on this thing. The album emotes the shadow of Syd Barrett without the gnomes and babies in lemonade. Funny how much "Thank You Friends" and "Jesus Christ" (and even "Nightime") are interchangeable pop gems, just nonchalant hooks encrusted with the resin of the Byrds and Beatles. Or just nonchalant. That's how Chilton likes it. Apparently, he always found his songs too "half-baked" to be of much merit, amused by his fans' adulation. This album supports that opinion better than, say, "September Gurls" (arguably the finest pop/rock ever). Here, he's this wino pop/rock fiend whose main accomplishment is walking in a straight line. He can get it done, all right. He can get it done. The cover of "Femme Fatale" is precious. It makes the ethereal quality overt, but that's a consequence of better production? What an aching song that is, filled with an archetype of a woman so realized and true, you have to stop and remember that, beyond his noise-rock innovations, Lou Reed is a classic songwriter as firmly in the school of the 20th Century as any other master. This is a night album, too, in daylight it just won't do. It comes off too hazy; it needs smoke and neon signs and headlights and shot glasses. I mean, listen to "O Dana" and try not want to dance with that redhead in the seedy bar at closing time. When things aren't so rosy, there's the icy "Holocaust" when self-carving confession is the modus operandi. Fortunately, Chilton has either the courage or lack of T.S. Eliot training to make it very personal, and he doesn't mind bringing the rest of us down, perhaps prompting some to call him a louse for not raising the spirits of mankind instead. What's the point of art -- or rock -- if we're just going to give up? But Chilton didn't give up, he always seemed to believe mainstream success was 'round the corner, so there's the silver lining. Or is it? Maybe that's more depressing, a delusional belief carrying one forward. Well he did get to produce the Cramps's gloriously alive debut. And he's this enduring cult figure in the rock pantheon. What I dig most about the guy myself, beyond his romantic follies "Stroke It Noel" or "For You" , is his gentle and whiny voice. When the hooks let go, that thing stays buried within. It sounds so true, so humble, compassionate. You can relate to it, all right. You can.