Alex Chilton

In a business that reinvents itself at every turn, Alex Chilton has managed to survive for three decades with a three-fold career as well -- his early recordings with The Box Tops, the three albums he did with Big Star in the mid-'70s and the spate of cool, but chaotic, solo albums he's recorded since then. To some, he's a classic hit-maker from the '60s. To others, he's a genius British-style pop musician and songwriter. To yet another audience, he's a doomed and despairing artist who spent several years battling the bottle, delivering anarchistic records and performances while thumbing his nose at all pretenses of stardom, a quirky iconoclast whose influence has spawned the likes of The Replacements and Teenage Fanclub.