A few posts ago I offered up the Radio City brain puzzler of whether or not the running order of the album could be improved by moving one of the last two songs on the album (Morhpa Too and I'm In Love With A Girl) to a different spot on the album. (These are the things that cross your mind when you spend two years studying one record album.) A few of you weighed in on the matter so now I'll offer my thoughts (all in fun of course). I agree that you get used to hearing an album a certain way and it becomes hard to imagine it being any different. One of my favorite albums of all-time is Fleetwood Mac's Then Play On. After I'd burned the American LP version into my brain over many years I bought an English version and found it had different songs and a different running order. It never seemed right to me. I bought the CD when it came out and found that it was a combination of both versions. I had to make a copy that matched the original US version. That's Then Play On to me. And Radio City will always be just as it was released. After a while your ears make connections and find a logic in the flow of songs that goes beyond even what the artists intended.
As I write in the book, I think that I'm In Love With A Girl is the perfect song to end the album. It has the same expression of teen innocence as Thirteen from #1 Record, a song Alex wrote in NYC and brought with him when he joined Big Star. In a sense it closes the loop on Big Star as the band envisioned by Chris Bell. Morpha Too? I can hear it actually leading off the album – brief little intro and then, whap!, O My Soul. Or before September Gurls. But in the end...perfect where it is.
6 comments:
Good to know we agree that I'm in Love With a Girl is the perfect closer!
I never considered Morpha Too as a good album opener, but it does makes sense when you think about it. It would have been a pretty daring move on their part, running the risk of alienating listeners before the album truly got rolling...but hopefully people would have stuck around long enough for the payoff.
On a totally unrelated topic, I notice that #1 Record and Radio City have just been re-issued by Classic Records on 200 gram vinyl. I'll be curious to hear how these albums sound. Also, funnily enough, if you own the original vinyl issues of these albums, you'll notice they are pressed on very thin vinyl...which seemed to be a trend in the 70s and 80s. I jokingly refer to these pressings as a "thick flexi."
Don't know if you know about this stuff, but for anyone who doesn't
CHECK IT OUT!!!!
http://wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com/2008/12/big-star-ardent-studio-sessions-1972-73.html
can't wait for the book
Hi Bruce - a bunch of us fans are talking about this book on another music forum and we're pretty revved for any material on Big Star. The thing I'm most baffled about is your choice of Chilton interview quotes on the 33 1/3 blog site. It seems like an odd bit of history that I suppose some how gets connected back to his musical story. But why does Chilton feel compelled to cover so much of his family history? Does he delve deeply into the album and his Big Star history as well?
Really looking forward to the book!!
Great question Mark - I'll try to tackle it in-depth tomorrow. One thing for sure, Alex is into history. Reads a lot of books. People have told me he gives a really great detailed tour of New Orleans. I'm not quite sure why that specific quote is up at 33 1/3 except that it leads into the oral history of Chilton up to joining Big Star from his point of view.
Where's the music forum you mention? Would like to read what people are thinking about - might give me some topics for future posts.
Thanks for responding Bruce. The forum is called the Steve Hoffman forums (primarily an audiophile forum but lots of variety as well). Since I was speculating about that Chilton quote on the forum its only fair that you get a chance to respond. Odd choice of quotes though in my opinion. For book with a first time Chilton interview about his Big Star music its an strange way to pitch it but it doesn't deter me.
Links to the forum below. Can't wait until this book ships!!!
Here's the Hoffman music forum (you'll need to register if you want to post - please do, lots of Big Star fans there):
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2
Here's the thread (hopefully we've been mostly pleasant!):
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=181852
Hope to see you there for some lively chat.
Mark - I've signed up to be part of the forum at stevehoffman. Just waiting to get the final approval from the mods. in the meantime, hope the two recent posts fill in some of the details. See you there. Thanks...
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