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Big Star
In Space (Ryko)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Amplifier, November-December 2005

To find the proper parallel to a new Big Star studio album being released in 2005, you’d have to think back to your reaction to The Phantom Menace: if you were a Star Wars devotee, you were probably beside yourself with anticipation, saw the movie on opening day and convinced yourself for the longest time that you weren’t disappointed. For those who didn’t learn from their earlier experiences, In Space (featuring the same Big Star/Posies hybrid that’s been playing sporadically over the past dozen years) will generate some all-too-familiar feelings. A few songs hint back to the Big Star that once was: “Hung Up With Summer” is “You Get What You Deserve” without the hooks, “Best Chance We’ve Ever Had” speeds up the first half of “Daisy Glaze” and the classical rock instrumental “Aria Largo” bridges the gap between Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers. A number of others touch on blue-eyed garage soul, ’60s bar-band rock and, oddly enough, Big Star devoteeism (“Lady Sweet” is practically a Posies song). But there’s an aimlessness that pervades the album, and Alex Chilton’s attempts at comic relief, like “Love Revolution” (an overlong “Tighten Up” clone full of “get it together” slogans) and “Makeover” (a psych-rock litany of advertising-speak), disrupt the flow. After a thirty-year hiatus between studio albums, it would have been too much to expect Big Star to recapture the old magic. The fact that some of us did is a testament to how much magic there was to begin with.

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