Side A
Artist	Song
Matthew Sweet	Ballad Of El Goodo
Fooled by April	Oh, Dana
Garbage	Thirteen
Gin Blossoms	Back of a Car
Damon & Naomi	Blue Moon
The Pyramidiacs	When My Baby's Beside Me
Afghan Whigs	Nighttime
Teenage Fanclub	I'm In Love With A Girl (live)
The Bangles	September Gurls
Longwave	Holocaust
The Posies	What's Goin' Ahn
The Vestrymen	Kangaroo
Kristin Hersh	Jesus Christ
Game Theory	You Can't Have Me
Yo La Tengo	Take Care
Los Valendas	Watch The Sunrise
Wilco	Thirteen
This Mortal Coil (Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly)	You & Your Sister
Whiskeytown	Give Me Another Chance
The Hucksters	Ballad of El Goodo
The Dambuilders	ST 100/6
Nada Surf	Blue Moon
Head Candy	Thank You Friends
Elliott Smith	Nighttime (live)
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
Cheap Trick	In The Street
Evan Dando	Ballad of El Goodo
Mitch Easter w/ Angie Carlson	Kizza Me
Kelly Willis	When My Baby's Beside Me
Son Volt	Holocaust
Mary Lou Lord	Thirteen
Loud Family	Back of a Car
Juliana Hatfield	Don't Lie To Me
Teenage Fanclub	Jesus Christ
The Replacements	September Gurls (live)
Idlewilds	You Get What You Deserve
Probe	Big Black Car
Tommy Keene	Hey! Little Child
The Posies	I Am The Cosmos
Susan & Brandee w/ Giftshop	Give Me Another Chance
I'm In Love With A Girl	The Popes
His Name Is Alive	Blue Moon
Jeff Buckley	Kangaroo (edit)
The Cogs	For You
Silver Chapter	Morpha Too
Gentle Readers	Back of a Car
Trip Shakespeare	Ballad of El Goodo
Rainy Day	Holocaust
Epic Soundtracks	Nighttime/Thirteen (live)

Comment:

An updated version of an old mix, doubled in length (and worth the extra disc, believe me). Now, you may be wondering, gee, do I really need 4 cover versions of "The Ballad of El Goodo" and "Thirteen" and three versions of "Nighttime" and "Back of a Car" and "Holocaust" and "Blue Moon"? And the answer is, yes, of course you do! Because Big Star was the coolest band ever, sort of, and even if they only had three albums, every song is near perfect and dammit every band should cover "The Ballad of El Goodo" at some point in their career. Are the Stones or the Who covering "Thirteen" on their latest farewell tours? Of course not. Because they're not cool. Hey, if the Stones played "In The Street" instead of limping through "Satisfaction" for the billionth time, they'd be heroes. But, alas, no.

Anyway, about half of this comes off the three (yes, count 'em, three) Big Star tribute albums that have come out over the years. The most recent, this year's Big Star Small World (actually assembled years ago but the label went out of business), is the best, largely because it has the most "name" bands, but the unsigned/minor artists that populate the other tributes do an ok job as well, if only because you could sing these songs in the shower with a mouth full of cockroaches and they'd still kick ass. The rest are from various albums over the years and a couple live boots.

Yet even with two fully-loaded discs, I still have a couple omissions (couldn't track down the Posies' "Feel" or a decent, non-mp3-sourced version of Elliott Smith doing "Thirteen," and there may be a couple others I'm not aware of).

Though there are also a fair number of Alex Chilton covers out there, I stuck largely with Big Star covers, with the exception of the Chilton solo track "Hey! Little Child," the Bell solo track "I Am The Cosmos," and the Chilton/Bell track "You & Your Sister" (and damn if Kim Deal's voice on this doesn't turn me to putty every time I hear it).

Feedback: