Tom Dunne: Alvvays are the latest band to nod to brilliant Big Star
Molly Rankin of Alvvays, a band whose latest album has an obvious Big Star influence. (Photo by Matt Cowan/Getty Images for Coachella)
There are many reasons to love the new Alvvays album, Blue Rev. It’s loaded with choruses, hooks, harmonies, gorgeous lyrics and key changes. In DJ speak it is ‘hook-tastic’. It is clever and gentle and bruised. But it is more: It is yet another album, that wears its Big Star influence proudly on its sleeve.
Big Star, as I can mansplain, are the “greatest band you have never heard”. This is a hackneyed cliché, but clichés are clichés for a reason. They sold almost no albums over their short career and yet REM’s Peter Buck would describe them as “a Rosetta Stone for a whole generation”.
Artists who have covered their songs or recorded at their Ardent Studios to try and re-create their vibe, include: Jeff Buckley, Wilco, REM, Garbage, Evan Dando, and Jack L.
But it is not just their songs people copy, it is their actual musical style. This is a music based on harmonies, chiming guitars, gentle confessional lyrics. It is heart break and yearning with poetry and gorgeous chords. It is the opposite of stadium rock or anything macho. It seduces and charms. What is not to love?
Big Star, like Nick Drake, looked destined for oblivion before, first in the 1970s, publications like NME started to sing their praises. Then, in the ‘80s, as REM took over the world, Peter Buck would routinely tell people that REM were good, but they were no Big Star.
Since then there has been a steady stream of albums that, quite obviously, have been inspired by them. Often, as with The Lemonheads’ It’s a Shame About Ray, these are career-defining albums that deliver chart success in spades. These are a few I think you will love!
The original of the species. The band were essentially Chris Bell and Alex Chilton and their sound a distillation of the British invasion bands: The Beatles, The Byrds, The Who etc. Yet, it was much more. There are many who prefer the 2nd album, 1974’s Radio City but this, with Thirteen and When My Baby’s Beside Me is just superb.
It’s a break up album so it makes sense Matthew would have spent time with Big Star #1 Record in the run up to it. Television’s Richard Llyod plays guitar on many tracks, with his guitar part hard panned into one speaker, a delight to Revolver fans. Stand out track is I’ve been Waiting, but the album is worth it just for the Tuesday Weld cover shot.
Often described as the point where power pop met grunge The Posies were based on the song writing partnership of Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow, both of whom have since played in late incarnations of Big Star itself. Standouts here include Solar Sister and Flavour of The Month.
TFC definitely imbued the Big Star sound with new, uniquely Norman Blake qualities, but Alex Chilton and Chris Bell’s DNA was still front and centre. This was most critic’s album of 1992, a tribute to just how amazing that original blueprint really was.
Their fifth album, but the one that blew off all the doors. It sounds effortless but the hooks, the harmonies, the throwaway but yet brilliant lyrics are sublime. Less obviously Big Star influenced than some others, but it’s still there.
Where all of this was leading, somehow. Based on the songwriting team of Alec O’Hanley and Molly Rankin this album had a difficult gestation – stolen gear, line-up changes, a pandemic- but listening to After the Earthquake or Tom Verlaine or Tile by Tile I can’t help but conclude it was all worth-while.
What’s most wonderful is that this is the sound of that Big Star-influenced genre today. It’s 2022 with bells on. The lyrical style is more Phoebe Bridgers than Alec C, oblique references, blink and you’ll miss them storylines. Beautiful.
I had once seen this as a very retro style of songwriting, but I’m not so sure anymore. In the hands of ones as skilled as O’Hanley (please be Irish) and Rankin, it just seems timeless.
I once suggested to Christy Moore he should cover Thirteen. He demurred for entertaining but quite valid reasons. Pity!
