Suddenly Is Sooner Than You Think

#1 Record is the debut album by the American power pop group Big Star. It was released in 1972 by Memphis-based Ardent Records. Though many critics praised the album's elegant vocal harmonies and refined songcraft (frequently drawing comparisons to the British Invasion groups of the 1960s, including The Beatles and The Kinks, as well as The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and other U.S. acts), #1 Record fared quite dismally in terms of commercial success. To the resulting power pop, Big Star added dark, nihilistic themes, and produced a style that foreshadowed the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s. However, like Big Star's follow-up albums Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers, #1 Record has more recently attracted wider attention. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck admitted, "We've sort of flirted with greatness, but we've yet to make a record as good as Revolver or Highway 61 Revisited or Exile on Main Street or Big Star's Third." Parke Putterbaugh of Rolling Stone described Third/Sister Lovers as "extraordinary". It is, he wrote, "Chilton's untidy masterpiece. [...] beautiful and disturbing"; "vehemently original"; of "haunting brilliance". In addition to R.E.M., artists including Teenage Fanclub, The Replacements, Primal Scream and the Posies cite Big Star as an inspiration. In 1998, #1 Record's "In the Street" was used as the theme song for the sitcom That '70s Show. Big Star was formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel. The group broke up in 1974, but reorganized with a new line-up nearly 20 years later. Before it broke up, Big Star created a "seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations" in the words of Rolling Stone, earning recognition decades later, according to Allmusic, as the "quintessential American power pop band" and "one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll". Chilton died on 17 March 2010, after being admitted to hospital with heart problems. Performing as lead singer with blue-eyed soul group The Box Tops from 1967 to 1970 earned him the #1 hit "The Letter" at the age of sixteen.