A big-ass review for Big Star – #1 Record/Radio City

In the world of music, it’s all too easy to celebrate a martyr (even easier to misuse the term like I just did). In 1970, three rock legends passed away: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. These deaths marked not only the end of brilliant music careers, but signaled a death of an era. A certain resentment occurs once a genre or trend has played itself out: look at punk’s determined modus operandi of simply NOT BEING PROGRESSIVE ROCK, or grunge’s nonchalant disowning of hair metal earmarks. Similarly, the acid rock overload of the early 1970s was formally shunned by Big Star, as was the fear of the Perfect Pop Song that FM radio fostered.