Big Star - No. 1 Record (1972)

(originally posted on Facebook)

Hey! It's the theme to That 70's Show! Sorta... the third song on this album is the original version of "In The Street", and is quite bare and squeaky. Not that it's bad. It's kinda reminds me how That 70's Show! or any depiction/tribute to the 70s never gets it quite right. It's because everything we make now is so clean and pristine. The charming kitchiness of something uniquely 70s is lost.

That sums up what's great about Big Star's first record perfectly. These songs could be covered by a modern artist, like how Cheap Trick covered "In The Street" (the version was used in the later seasons of That 70's Show!). Their cover is so soft and vanilla that there's pretty much no point to it except to make it acceptable as the theme song to a show from the late 90s. You can do that to almost any song from the 70s and only wind up making it worse, even if musically it isn't much different from what is played today.

Big Star's songs aren't musically challenging, but the sound is from that brilliant era when it was OK to be a bit dirty or scratchy, or even have a terrible voice (like one of Big Star's lead vocalists does). It sounds so much better than music does today, and it seems like it was just easier to have a unique sound back then. So yeah, No. 1 Record was pretty good. 3 stars.

Comments

Mo K - Mo K - Where did you learn all this stuff? I listen to music and if i like it, i like it. I could never analyze it like this. And i have listened to a lot of music...

Me - The way my brain works, I think in sentences. So when I'm listening to a song I think, "This sounds like..." whatever. I'm pretty well practiced at transcribing my thoughts just from writing so often. It's a skill like anything else and I work at it constantly.

You have thoughts about what makes music good or bad. It might just be that you've never taken the time to reflect on them. Take Bob Dylan. I know why I don't particularly like his music. Can you give me a reason why you don't?

Mo K - It's whiny and he has a crappy voice! I can't get beyond that to even listen to the lyrics
January 24 at 7:33pm · Like

Jenn K - Hrm, Mo that sounds like my reason for not liking Robert Plant...

Mo K - That's why there is so much different music out there. Something for everyone.