Big Star. Anglophilic early-’70s American combo whose first two albums, #1 Record and Radio City, have Koran-like status in POWER-POP circles. Led by Memphis native Alex Chilton, who began his career as a teenager with the blue-eyed-soul boys the Box Tops (“The Letter”), Big Star recorded tunes that, while catchy, were too fraught with druggy tension to be commercial—thereby guaranteeing the group posthumous “great overlooked band” mythology. Chilton, who later had a Replacements song named after him, is now a rheumy-eyed eccentric who occasionally performs with original Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and their adoring acolytes at quasi-reunion shows.
