Nearly every review of the Tinted Windows album (from positive takes at EW and Rolling Stone to predictable slams at Pitchfork and Pop Matters) compare the group to Big Star. Because "Big Star" is a critical go-to phrase for all melodic pop with guitars --
every power pop band sounds like Big Star!
I've been playing the album, and it's pretty listenable, "classic power pop" in the same way that Accelerate is "classic R.E.M.". Which is another way of saying "only the least bit like Big Star". More like the Knack or the Romantics or the Beat or other 1979/80 bands with skinny ties.
But it looks like James Iha forgot to wear his skinny tie to the Tinted Windows photo shoot. What a pop poseur! How can James namedrop Bram and the Buzzcocks, when he isn't even wearing a skinny tie?
2 comments:
The Big Star comparisons, IMO, are warranted--it's something about Taylor's Chiltonesque voice, and James's guitar, and Adam's songwriting. I don't hear the Knack at all!
I think Taylor's voice is more Zanderesque than Chiltonesque, and the rhythms are too rawky to sound much like Big Star.
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