Consumer Guide Album

Alex Chilton: 19 Years: A Collection of Alex Chilton [Rhino, 1991]
Even if Chilton approved the selections himself, his retrospective isn't what it ought to be--we get half of Third (with "Thank You Friends," "Jesus Christ," and other goodies left to the spiffy new Rykodisc reissue), the Lust/Unlust seven-inch (no Ork seven-inch), bits of the eminently excerptable Like Flies on Sherbert (no Bach's Bottom), dollops of mid-'80s spurt (no "Under Class" or "Dalai Lama"). So you were expecting maybe Exile on Main Street? If Chilton had ever figured out his calling, he would have made a living at it; he's the EP king because coherence and endurance mean less to him than quantum physics (which he no doubt studied on his own when that dishwashing job dried up). You can't excerpt such an eccentric to anybody's satisfaction but your own, and even then you couldn't build an hour's momentum. But listen to any three cuts in any order and I guarantee you'll get off on two-and-a-half. A money-saving introduction to his self-abusing pop and Southern-hipster r&b. A-