Alex Chilton

Everyone else seems to have missed this and I've not been around much so haven't got round to mentioning it, but Alex Chilton, frontman of Big Star and creator of some of the most wonderful power-pop tunes in the history of humanity died of a heart attack last week. They were loved by critics but never really commercially successful, which is astonishing when you look at the quality of the songwriting. They were hugely influential though. His songs were covered by many, many different artists and most of my favourite pop bands owe him a massive debt. Septmber Gurls is the template for most of Teenage Fanclub's back catalogue, in recent years he's been using the Posies as his backing band, and The Replacements thought he was so good that they wrote this song about him.

Here's some more tunes to remember him by.

Thirteen

The Ballad of El Goodo

I'm in Love With a Girl

RIP dude.