Alex Chilton by Influence
Alex Chilton died earlier this week at the age of 59. Some of you may be very familiar with that name, and others may not. But the fact that remains that, to indie music, Alex Chilton may just be the most influential musician in rock and roll.
If you read music magazines or websites, you’ll probably read a lot of tributes to Chilton in the next few days, mostly focusing on his music with The Box Tops and Big Star. I’ll leave that to them. Instead, I want to focus on what wouldn’t exist without Chilton. The bands he influenced were some of the best bands ever, and in turn influenced a whole other generation of bands who ended up taking over the world.
Big Star released 3 albums in their original form. The band matured with each album, and each album was influential in a different way. Here are just three examples out of a myriad.
1. #1 Record (1972)
Big Star’s debut album is a testament to the “power” in power-pop. The sweetness of the harmonies, the simplicity of the song structues, and the pure fun of the songs belie the fact that these songs are heavyweights. They aren’t just simple paeans to youth; they constitute an aural Dazed and Confused, looking back a little nostalgically while still understanding the importance kids put on everything that happens when they’re young.
This is represented best in the ballad “Thirteen”, perhaps Big Star’s most famous song:
One of the first bands to show their debt to Big Star openly was The Replacements. They would even include a song called “Alex Chilton” on their Pleased to Meet Me album. But Chilton’s influence can best be seen on their masterpiece, Let It Be. “Androgynous” is “Thirteen” for the next generation.
2. Radio City (1974)
Big Star’s second album saw a change in the band. Gone were the sweet, nostalgic songs, replaced by more mature songs. Still sublimely poppy, yet, like Pet Sounds or some of the better Carpenters songs, melancholy, maybe even spiteful at times.”September Gurls” seems excited and sad all at once.
Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque could practically be called a Big Star album by another band. The sweet sadness of “September Gurls” can be heard best in the lead-off track “The Concept”.
3. Third/Sister Lovers (1975)
The third album by Big Star is a mess. That’s the only way to accurately describe it. But when geniuses make a mess, it usually results in a masterpiece. As James Joyce said in Ulysses, “A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” That statement makes a lot of sense in regards to Third/Sister Lovers. It’s the sound of a band falling apart. Hell, they couldn’t even pick a single title to give the album. The music is decadent, layered, messy, and beautiful.
Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is, in a lot of ways, a snapshot of a band in a similar situation. If you’ve ever seen the great documentary about the making of this album, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, you know that the band was working against their label and against each other, and what came out was nothing short of a masterpiece. The process wasn’t the only similarity. The album sounds similar. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is more controlled, sedate, and rooted, but the insanity still lurks beneath the surface.
These are just three examples of the influence Chilton had. Just with Big Star, he influenced hundreds of bands, and I haven’t even discussed The Box Tops. The world lost a great artist on Wednesday, and he will be missed by music fans everywhere.
