As our recent Uncut playlists probably make clear, we’ve been happily overwhelmed by a glut of Big Star-related material over the past few weeks, beginning of course with the hefty “Keep An Eye On The Sky” boxset.
On top of that, there seem to be separately released new versions of the first two albums plus, imminently, an expanded edition of Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos”. My lengthy mag review of the Big Star boxset has just appeared on the Uncut website and, since I’m a bit rushed finishing the next issue to file a proper blog today, can I offer this up as something to read instead? Sorry to cheat with this one.
I don’t seem to have written that much about Bell in the review, and from his solo album only “You And Your Sister” and “I Am The Cosmos” itself make the tracklisting for “Keep An Eye On The Sky”. Revisiting it the other day got me thinking, though, about how it arguably might be ageing better than “Third/Sister Lovers”, and how the traditional focus on those two aforementioned tracks sometimes obscures the strength of the whole album; “Better Save Yourself”, for instance, is a pretty extraordinary thing.