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http://www.rollingstone.com/assets/images/album_review/e520fa2b4074e30099a98f38da6b5112e561abde.jpg No. 1 Record/Radio City

Big Star

No. 1 Record/Radio City

Rolling Stone: star rating
Community: star rating
5 4.5 0
June 22, 2009

This long-available twofer — the debut and follow-up by one of rock's seminal also-rans — ain't news, two (non-essential) bonus tracks and remastering notwithstanding. But classics are classics. #1 Record is a glammy swirl of Beatlesque hooks, Topanga Canyon harmonies and Southern-boogie outbursts mostly written by Memphis studio mystic Chris Bell and former teen AM-radio rocker Alex Chilton. The band stayed great after losing Bell; Radio City shows Chilton's songs getting odder and more emo, but no less tuneful. For a fuller story, stay tuned for a forthcoming four-CD box.

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