Bold self-reliance. That's what Alex Chilton was channeling when he penned The Ballad of El Goodo. It's one of those tunes that I try to include on any mixtape or CD that I ever make. Tonight, the melody emerged from the back of my mind as I was strumming my guitar. It moved me to find the chords and learn to play it. Striking the chords and whispering Alex Chilton's lyrics unleashed a powerful feeling inside -- like uttering some magical incantation. My spirits were immediately lifted. That's the power of rock & roll. True and simple.
Big Star was a huge influence on many of my favorite groups: The Replacements, Wilco, The Posies and R.E.M. The Ballad of El Goodo has been covered by countless artists. Here are two of my favorite covers;
Evan Dando's sublime version from the Empire Records Soundtrack (1995):
Matthew Sweet's version from Big Star Small World (Tribute to Big Star).
I've always loved glam rock -- Bowie , The New York Dolls , Mott The Hoople , Queen , T. Rex . The flamboyant and gender-bending style. The attitude, sparkly and swagger. The first time I heard Sweet was Fox On The Run . It was my favorite song on the Dazed and Confused Soundtrack. I think it was the swirling, bubbling synthesizer that drew me in. At the time I had no idea that Sweet was a part of the 1970s glam world. Later, I found out that they sang Ballroom Blitz . That's the same band? Then, in college, I bought Action and fell in love with tunes like Lady Starlight and the title track . As I pieced together their discography (in a pre-Internet age), I noticed that the band's sound inexplicably wavered between hard rock, glam and bubble-gum pop. I could never put my finger on what Sweet was all about. I just loved a lot of their songs. This week, I picked up a copy of their 1977 album, Level Headed . The album is anything but steady (as the title would have yo...
Looking for cosmically lofty and conceptually dense ideas in 70s progressive rock? One only needs to spend an evening with the 1973 album, Tale from Topographic Oceans , by Yes. The experience is unique and... long. In it's time, the record was one of the most ambitious endeavors attempted. Four sides. Four songs. After their prior album, Close to the Edge, which featured their most extended compositions to date, Yes decided to go even further outside the realm of rock norms on Tales. The four, conceptually-linked songs were massive, featuring an arsenal of complex movements and repeated musical motifs. This was as sonically expansive as Yes would ever get on record. Lyrically, Jon Anderson based his ideas on Paramahansa Yoganda's Autobiography of a Yogi . At the time, Anderson told New Musical Express, "We're close to the edge of spiritual awareness within the framework of the group, making music. We have this long song, which we felt could hold ...
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