There must be rock fans out there who don’t know Big Star, the hard-luck 1970s Memphis band that produced three stupendous albums, then evaporated. A musician who doesn’t love them should be regarded with suspicion; and a rock critic who dislikes Big Star is like Sasquatch.
And that last fact is the focus of Drew DeNicola’s documentary. It isn’t about the band members’ lives. When the credits roll, all you’ve learned of the late, legendary singer Alex Chilton’s off-duty existence is the name of one girlfriend. The sad fate of Chris Bell, the driving creative force behind the band’s first album, gets a fuller and at times touching portrait, but there are big holes in that story, too. Drummer Jody Stephens talks mostly about the frustrations of being a critics’ darling with low record sales.
No, this is a movie about how much rock critics, and to a lesser extent other musicians, love Big Star. The writers sit in front of staggeringly large CD collections and talk about how brilliant the songs are, while the songs are used as intros and background music. It takes a certain amount of nerve to cut off “The Ballad of El Goodo” after a few bars.
Big Star’s fans are so passionate that this film may well please some of them, but as for myself, I already knew their music was genius. By the end, I was muttering at every critic and musician and record producer, “Guys, tell me something I don’t know.”