With the sudden and shocking death of Alex Chilton yesterday, now is as good a time as any to rectify a glaring omission from this blog. Big Star were, of course, one of the most influential bands ever, at least on the type of music you're likely to find on this site - I'd read a lot about them before I ever heard them, just from the number of bands namechecking them in the music magazines I poured over obsessively as a teenager. I think I finally just went out and bought a Big Star album on the assumption that all those great bands who loved them couldn't be wrong. And they weren't.
All of their records were great but, like a lot of their fans, I'm particularly partial to the darker third album, Third/Sister Lovers. And this is my favourite track on it - in fact, one of my all-time favourite songs by anyone ever. (I know people always say things like that when someone dies, but take my word for it - whenever I've had to do a "favourite songs" list this has been right up near the top.) The reported history behind it is that the band were falling apart and hated their producer, so they took this simple little love song and threw all sorts of odd sound effects on it just to give each other headaches, with the result that it ended up being incredibly offbeat and haunting. But it's still a simple little love song at heart.
RIP Alex - you will be so, so missed.
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