Big Star tribute album
Big Star Small World , a long-lost tribute album featuring various artists' recordings of songs by Big Star , was released last week on the Koch label. This album was originally intended to be released in 1998, but its original distributor folded before its release date, and it is now finally seeing the light of day. It was executive-produced by Jody Stephens, Big Star's drummer. Time has not been kind to this collection; four of the participating bands (Gin Blossoms, Afghan Whigs, Whiskeytown, and Idle Wilds) have since broken up, and a few of the other artists (Juliana Hatfield, Teenage Fanclub) have undeservedly faded into indie-label oblivion. Tribute albums in general tend to be tired exercises that end up making their subjects seem trivial, usually because the participants are less talented than the original artist, and they simply bring the subject's music down to their level . Big Star Small World is fortunately not one of those cases, but it's also no unearthed