I finally got around to watching Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me a few nights ago. It's kind of sad. Chris Bell had this vision for Big Star; and when, he felt, what little credit or notice the band got for #1 Record went disproportionately to Alex Chilton, he left the band. Bell died in a solo car crash at the age of 27 and never really made the mark in music he should have until after his death. Alex Chilton kind of distanced himself from Big Star for a time after Third / Sister Lovers, even expressing in interviews his disbelief that bands like R.E.M. and The Replacements held the Big Star discography in such high regard.
On their latest record, Tomorrow's Hits, Brooklyn's The Men reach back into some of the power pop sounds pioneered by Big Star and later translated by R.E.M., The Replacements, Wilco, and so many others. Being a harder rocking band than Big Star ever were, The Men apply some of their own edge and grit to the sound and come up with one of the best pure rock records of this young year. Tomorrow's Hits continues the band's evolution from experimental punks to straight-ahead rockers and illustrates a philosophy, expressed by guitarist and founding member Mark Perro in a Washington Post interview, “When you start saying you’re this type of band, then people start getting all upset when you put out a record that doesn’t sound like your last record. So I’ve always thought of us in a much more general sense. It’s a band of dudes playing music — nothing too crazy about it.”
"My mom gave me this guitar. / 19 and 74 / It's true. / Now there's nothing I'd rather do," sings Perro in an almost Dylan-esque delivery over a chugging guitar riff on "Dark Waltz." That riff motors along for most of the song's 5-plus minutes, embellished by guitar solos and keyboards along the way. "Get What You Give," "Sleepless," and "Settle Me Down" are the sparkling, slick type of power pop -- complete, in a few places, with some pedal steel work from Kevin Faulkner -- that can be heard on Big Star's classic sophomore effort, Radio City, released in 19 and 74.
The slick production continues on "Another Night," which again uses the approach of repeating the opening theme for the duration of the song to great effect. This time, though, we get a soulful, Jersey Shore Sound version of 70s rock. The edges are rougher on the high-speed blues jam "Pearly Gates" and on album-closer "Going Down," its closing guitar solo showing that The Men can still bring the noise.
I'm not saying that Mark Perro wasn't telling the truth in that interview, but I think there's more going on here than just "a band of dudes playing music." With its cover image of a neon sign that alludes to the cover of Big Star's #1 Record and even its title indicating that music can take some time to find its audience, Tomorrow's Hits almost feels like an homage.
"The Ballad of El Goodo," "In the Street," "Thirteen," "September Gurls." There were distribution problems. Maybe the world wasn't ready for the sound. Whatever the reasons, those songs didn't make much noise upon their release. People eventually found them, though. They found inspiration from those records, and they went out and formed bands. They formed bands like The Men.
Tomorrow's Hits comes out on March 4th on Sacred Bones Records.
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