March has been a sad month for music lovers, with Alex Chilton, lead singer of Big Star, dying of a heart attack yesterday and Mark Linkous, the mastermind behind Sparklehorse, taking his life over a week ago. Big Star was one of the great American rock bands of the 1970s, headed by Chilton and the tragic, late Chris Bell. While commercial success eluded the group in their heyday, their influence could be heard on countless American rock bands from the mid-1980s on, from R.E.M. to Primal Scream. Chilton's musical legacy was immortalized twice for subsequent generations by Paul Westerberg and his The Replacements' brilliant anthem to the singer, titled simply "Alex Chilton," and Ivo Watts-Russell's 4AD "supergroup" This Mortal Coil, who covered "Kangaroo" (with vocals by Cindytalk lead singer Gordon Sharp) and "Holocaust" (sung by Howard Devoto of The Buzzcocks) on the album
It'll End in Tears. A Big Star tribute album was released in 2006, which featured covers by Wilco, The Afghan Whigs, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub. Chilton and Big Star's music started appearing in a number of Gen X films like Noah Baumbach's
Kicking and Screaming and
Empire Records and more recently in both
Adventureland and
Thumbsucker.
Mark Linkous was the brains behind Sparklehorse, one of the great, lesser known bands to come out of the mid-90s. Sparklehorse reached its greatest success in 2001 with the album
It's a Wonderful Life, which featured guest vocalists PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Nina Persson of The Cardigans. In 2009, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse collaborated together on a project entitled
Dark Night of the Soul, which was to be accompanied with a photo booklet from David Lynch. The vocalists on the album included Iggy Pop, Persson, Julian Casablancas, Lynch, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips, James Mercer of The Shins, Suzanne Vega and the late Vic Chesnutt. Despite legal troubles with the release,
Dark Night of the Soul was available streaming on
NPR's website, and it rumored to have an official release sometime this year. A number of musicians have been
offering requiems for Linkous, including Steven Drozd, Steve Albini and Patti Smith.
March has been a sad month for music lovers, with Alex Chilton, lead singer of Big Star, dying of a heart attack yesterday and Mark Linkous, the mastermind behind Sparklehorse, taking his life over a week ago. Big Star was one of the great American rock bands of the 1970s, headed by Chilton and the tragic, late Chris Bell. While commercial success eluded the group in their heyday, their influence could be heard on countless American rock bands from the mid-1980s on, from R.E.M. to Primal Scream. Chilton's musical legacy was immortalized twice for subsequent generations by Paul Westerberg and his The Replacements' brilliant anthem to the singer, titled simply "Alex Chilton," and Ivo Watts-Russell's 4AD "supergroup" This Mortal Coil, who covered "Kangaroo" (with vocals by Cindytalk lead singer Gordon Sharp) and "Holocaust" (sung by Howard Devoto of The Buzzcocks) on the album It'll End in Tears. A Big Star tribute album was released in 2006, which featured covers by Wilco, The Afghan Whigs, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub. Chilton and Big Star's music started appearing in a number of Gen X films like Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming and Empire Records and more recently in both Adventureland and Thumbsucker.
Mark Linkous was the brains behind Sparklehorse, one of the great, lesser known bands to come out of the mid-90s. Sparklehorse reached its greatest success in 2001 with the album It's a Wonderful Life, which featured guest vocalists PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Nina Persson of The Cardigans. In 2009, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse collaborated together on a project entitled Dark Night of the Soul, which was to be accompanied with a photo booklet from David Lynch. The vocalists on the album included Iggy Pop, Persson, Julian Casablancas, Lynch, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips, James Mercer of The Shins, Suzanne Vega and the late Vic Chesnutt. Despite legal troubles with the release, Dark Night of the Soul was available streaming on NPR's website, and it rumored to have an official release sometime this year. A number of musicians have been offering requiems for Linkous, including Steven Drozd, Steve Albini and Patti Smith.
