Big Star

Radio City

First released1974

Radio City, Big Star's second album, was recorded in 1974 at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee under the production of Jim Dickinson, who had also worked with the band on their debut. The album was engineered by John Fry, Ardent's owner and a key figure in Memphis recording, utilizing the studio's 16-track capabilities. Dickinson encouraged the band to embrace more experimental and diverse production techniques, including the use of strings and orchestral arrangements that departed from their earlier power pop sound. The sessions captured the band at a creatively ambitious moment, though the album received limited commercial success upon its initial release in 1975. Radio City would later gain significant critical reassessment and is now considered a landmark power pop and art rock record of the 1970s.