Alex Chilton "Like Flies On Sherbert" 1980

French movie director François Truffaut used to call some pictures "great ill movies". This is a great ill album!
This is the album that divides Alex Chilton fans. On the one hand, there are people who revere the Big Star albums as the ultimate revisionist take on British-Invasion and west-coast pop music. "#1 Record" and "Radio City" certainly derive from the Byrds, Beatles, Zombies, Who, Kinks, as well as from the Beach Boys and Moby Grape. And the Big Star albums are untouchable. On the other hand, there are fans who, in my opinion, get the bigger picture and see how "Like Flies on Sherbert" and other solo works by Chilton ("Bangkok," "Walking Dead," "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It") are the next step past mere reverence for the admittedly storied past.
I'm of the opinion that "Sherbert" is one of the great albums of the late '70s, or indeed of any era. As a corrective to the mere reverence I referred to earlier, it's unbeatable; and of course it fits in with the so-called psychobilly of bands like the Cramps. Yet "Sherbert" is unique because it combines a lingering affection for the somewhat naive products of men like Ernest Tubb and Jimmy C. Newman with a desire to reveal the rather unpleasant or at least geographically and romantically fraught realities that lie beneath seemingly artless songs like A. P. Carter's version of an old Civil War song, "Lorena," that later became, through some alchemy, a song about slavery called both "Way Down in Alabama" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena."
Many, including the obviously challenged folk at AMG, simply dismiss this album. Goodness gracious, what delicate sensibilities one must have to be offended by the twanging guitars and sprattling synthesizers of "Sherbert." And merciful heavens, sometimes the singing is a bit out of tune, and on the brilliant cover of K. C. and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes," Chilton even starts singing a bit early, and he didn't correct the mistake. Of course, "Boogie Shoes" is such a sacred object, such a classic, that the desecration is unbearable.
There are a few other artists who, having recorded such sublime and well-crafted pop music, have chosen to bare their souls in such a manner while remaining essentially unknowable; and few who have been brave enough to take a romp through the pop-music past in a way that actually shows respect for it. What I think the detractors of "Sherbert" miss is that true respect is not always solemn.
This record was originally released in late 1979 on Sid Selvidge's Peabody label, in a limited editon of 500. Aura Records released it in a sonically inferior version, in 1980, leaving off Ross Johnson's "Baron of Love pt. II" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena," and replacing them with "Boogie Shoes." There have been various reissues since then. Reviewer: Roger Duprat "R. D." (Cleveland)featuring:
Alex Chilton, Lisa Aldridge, Lee Baker, Jim Dickinson, Ross Johnson, Mike Ladd, Jim Lancaster, Richard Rosebrough, Sid Selvidge, Titeling: Gustavo Falco
Produced by Lx & James Luther Dickinson

traxfromwax:
1. Boogie shoes 2. My rival 3. Hey! Little child 4. Hook or crook 5. I've had it 6. Rock hard 7. Girl after girl 8. Waltz across Texas 9. Alligator man 10. Like Flies on Sherbert
Ripped from Vinyl by RYP with Audacity 3.6.3 : Thorens TD 318/Audio-Technica VM95E - Yamaha A-S301 - Q Acoustics 3020i / Yamaha NS-SW050