Big Star: The Third Album/Sister Lovers

One of the few Sheffield record shops I haven't mentioned yet in these pages, I got this from Jack's Records on Division Street. I couldn't be sure exactly when; but sometime in the mid '90s. It was one of those times when you accidentally press the buttons of the guy behind the counter. He explained to me how he didn't really approve of CDs but the availability of this particular album on CD made it worth owning a CD player. I didn't quite follow that logic (why not just play the record?), so I don't think I said anything in reply.

I bought the album mostly on reputation. I first came across two of its songs, Holocaust and Kanga roo, via the cover versions on the first This Mortal Coil album in 1984. They were OK, but not sufficient in themselves to lead me to track down the originals as I did with Tim Buckley. However, I kept hearing about Alex Chilton and about this album in particular. I don't know where, exactly, or how; it might have been in connection with Teenage Fanclub, or it might have been stuff about Chilton's… what? His drug problems, or depression, or his being mixed up in the myths of Memphis. I've read about that stuff somewhere, but I can't remember any of the details.

I think the album is OK. It starts well, it has a clutch of really good songs, and it has some not so good ones. It's just a regular pop/rock record, really, which seems to have been talked up into something more significant than it really is. Not the kind of thing that would inspire me to invest in new hardware.

MusicBrainz entry for this album