Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 26, 2016
Big Star was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummel. The band's musical style drew on the vocal harmonies of The Beatles, as well as the swaggering rhythms of The Rolling Stones and the jangling guitars of The Byrds. To the resulting power pop, Big Star added dark, existential themes, and produced a style that foreshadowed the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s. Their first two albums, #1 Record and Radio City, suffered from ineffective marketing but garnered enthusiastic reviews; Rolling Stone called the band a "quintessential American power pop band" that was "one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll". The group broke up in 1974. In 1993, Chilton and Stephens re-formed Big Star with Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. After tours in Europe and Japan, they released a new studio album, In Space, in 2005. Big Star was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2014. (Full article...)