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Music CD - Chris Bell: I Am the Cosmos
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Music CD: I Am the Cosmos
Artist: Chris Bell
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $8.38
Your Save: $ 3.60 ( 30% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Rykodisc
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. I Am The Cosmos
2. Better Save Yourself
3. Speed Of Sound
4. Get Away
5. You And Your Sister
6. Make A Scene
7. Look Up
8. I Got Kinda Lost
9. There Was A Light
10. Fight At The Table
11. I Don't Know
12. Though I Know She Lies
13. I Am The Cosmos (Slow Version)
14. You And Your Sister (Country Version)
15. You And Your Sister (Acoustic Version)
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0014431022227
Format: Original recording reissued
Label: Rykodisc
Manufacturer: Rykodisc
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Rykodisc
Release Date: 1992-02-21
Studio: Rykodisc
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Four-and-a-Half Star Guitar Pop Essential
Comment: If Big Star's Radio City and #1 Record are five star records, this is four-and-a-half. The high points are just as high (the title track, You and Your Sister), the weakest tracks maybe a bit weaker. There is a real melancholy beauty to this music. It creates its own atmosphere.
Liner notes are rarely worth mentioning, but the ones here (by Bell's brother) are fascinating, telling the story of the recording and mixing of these tracks in Europe, including a brief encounter with Paul McCartney at Abbey Road. Bell's is a sad story in many ways, and his depression is palpable on Cosmos. One of those artists who was severely underappreciated in his too-short lifetime and still underrated today.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Singing from the Cosmos
Comment: This is a stunning singer-songwriter album.
It is a message from the heart and to the heart from a voice and vocals that are from a cosmos outside of our everyday,it is locked deep within our souls and ideas that drive our reason for living.
Great praise for making this beautiful piece accessible through the power of needing to see it released to the public.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lennonesque to be sure
Comment: What I really want to say is that while I have always felt that Big Star is one of the most overrated "unknown" bands in the history of pop music, I really like this album. So go figure. Everyone's been saying "if you like Big Star" etc, and yet I can't stand that band but this solo lp transcends anything I've heard from BS.
Customer Rating:
Summary: On an island
Comment: As great as Big Star was, it's sad that neither songwriter was able to put together a decent solo career. Chris Bell drifted off and was never able to get a record deal (except for one single), while Alex Chilton seemed to take perverse pride in making sloppy, uninspired music. This CD represents the entirety of Chris Bell's solo work and was released 14 years after his death. It doesn't quite work as an album. For the most part, the recording quality is somewhere between a demo and a real album, and there is no real progression to the song sequence. It's just a bunch of Chris Bell songs--some fast ones and some slow ones.
There are some very good tunes here, and if you are a serious Big Star fan you will want to own this CD. And Ryko, as usual, has done a fantastic job with the packaging, which includes several photos of Chris Bell and a long, heartfelt essay by his brother David, summarizing Chris's musical career. The best songs are "I Am the Cosmos" and "You and Your Sister," which made up the single that was released during Chris's lifetime. Another highlight is the dreamy "Speed of Sound." The acoustic guitar playing on the slow songs is gorgeous throughout.
The fast songs, like "Get Away," "Make a Scene," and "Fight at the Table," sound a bit forced. Bell contributed some great rockers to the first Big Star album, but without a real band to back him up, he sounds a little out of his element on the fast songs here. His singing is not quite strong enough, maybe because the lyrics are a little too complicated to work in a loud, uptempo setting.
The slow songs, on the other hand, are almost TOO personal. A couple of them mention Jesus or Him with a capital H. Musically, they are very good, although the Beatles influence can be a bit too heavy, especially on "There Was A Light," which sounds like a slowed-down "Let It Be."
Ultimately, the title, "I Am the Cosmos," is very fitting, and almost unifies the collection all by itself. Chris Bell sounds like he's on an island here (or alone on a mountain top, as in the cover photo), but this is more tragic than enlightening. In songs like "Better Save Yourself" and "There Was A Light," he sounds like a man who is fighting his demons--and losing. The effort is noble, and there are some memorable melodies to be heard here, but it's an uncomfortable album to listen to. I admire it a lot more than I enjoy it, and it seems that I can only listen to it every two or three years.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great music, too bad this is all
Comment: What a pity Chris Bell fatally piled up his car in 1978 after giving up on a music industry that did its level best to finish him first because this is all we'll ever get to hear from him. This music is great and it shows Bell maturing as a writer out of Big Star. (I love Big Star, but this music improves on a lot of what Chris was doing there.)
The playing is stripped down vintage, not at all dissimilar from the Big Star stuff with loud, crunchy/clean Strats through British valve amps, ringing acoustic six and twelve strings, drums, basses, some boogie piano, a touch of Moog, and lots and lots of harmony vocals. Arrangement is often quite cool, too, with instruments often adding by their restraint or even absence. The production is similarly vintage with a nice tube-and-tape warmth you really don't hear much of anymore. (If you're looking for crystal clear recording on a '70s low budget recording, look elsewhere.) Alex Chilton's guest vocs on You and Your Sister really work well. Bell's not got Chilton's choir boy voice but has a raw aggression that Chilton frequently lacked (e.g., on Fight at the Table) and can keep a good tune for a ballad when he needs to (Though I Know She Lies). He's no slouch as a guitarist, too, playing better than he did on #1 Record. The comparison of Bell as Lennon to Chilton's McCartney isn't half bad, though for both their writing was rather more Lennon than the sweetness of McCartney.
In all, what a loss but at least we've got these songs.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The very first lines of Chris Bell's one and only album say it all: "Every night I tell myself I am the cosmos / I am the wind / That don't bring you back again." Recorded between his departure from the notoriously misbegotten power-pop group Big Star in 1972 and his 1978 death following an auto accident, Cosmos is the work of a man struggling to assuage his depression with spiritual succor. Musically, this collection (which was unheard by the general public prior to 1992) is reminiscent of John Lennon's '70s work. With the exception of Plastic Ono Band, however, Lennon never put out a solo album on a par with this one. The tragedy is that Bell never had a chance to try to match it. --Steven Stolder
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