Thoughts on Big Star

Generally agree with your premise, but there are plenty of albums that had to grow on me over time. Some of them are among my favorites. I think about Astral Weeks this way. Working on Veedon Fleece right now. Both of these can be polarizing among Morrison fans. Neither appealed to me at first listen.

For me, Big Star seems worth working on even though right now I'm still ambivalent. I really like For You and Stroke It Noel a lot. September Gurls, Thirteen, O Dana (sp) also appeal to me. Just trying to get it to all fit together.

@loomisjohnson and @bdp24 - Please understand, I don't dislike "Radio City" at all. I just don't yet get the gushing praise. I also didn't get it about Rockpile when I first heard them. But Rockpile did grow on me and I appreciate them for who, and what, they are. The same may happen with Big Star.

One thing I have learned over the decades is that there is just no way to predict or account for personal taste in music. You either get it or you don't--or somewhere in between. That can even vary among albums by the same artist. For instance, I adore the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty," but I cannot make it all the way through a single one of their 10,000 concert albums to save my life, nor do I care about a great many of their other studio albums. But "American Beauty" has been ringing my bell for thirty years or more.

My wife loves Dave Matthews, but to me he's as boring as a bowl of warm milk. I love Ornette Coleman, but his music sends her screaming out of the room. And so it goes.

I love Big Star with all of my heart, but their music is, well, stranger than most of the Beatles catalog, and Alex Chilton has that tremulous voice that does not exactly translate easily to pop the way John Lennon's or Paul McCartney's do. In that sense, maybe they are an acquired taste for some. It knocked me right out from the start, but I get that they may not be for everyone.

Radio City will always be a deserted island album for me, and the other two are not far behind.

Good points Walter. And isn't a good thing? If we all liked the same things I suspect the diversity of things would be far less!

Often times when I hearing nothing that pulls me in from a band I move along. But when they have a good song or two that do grab hold of me I try to give their other stuff a good long listen.

" Generally agree with your premise, but there are plenty of albums that had to grow on me over time." I agree completely n80. There are several of those in my collection. For instance (& at an extreme) I have yet to meet anyone who liked Captain Beefheart the first time they listened to them...