The Big Shot Chronicles

Recording personnel

By early 1985, all of the original members of Game Theory had left the band, except for Miller. Miller relocated to San Francisco together with future Game Theory member Donnette Thayer. Miller assembled a new line-up in the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring Shelley LaFreniere on keyboards, Gil Ray on drums, and Suzi Ziegler on bass.

The newly formed San Francisco version of Game Theory commenced a national tour in 1985 in support of Game Theory's previous album, Real Nighttime, an album on which none of them (except Miller) had appeared. During a break in the middle of the band's tour for Real Nighttime, it was this line-up that recorded The Big Shot Chronicles.

Touring personnel

Prior to touring in support of The Big Shot Chronicles in 1986, the group experienced another change of personnel, becoming a five-piece band. Suzi Ziegler left the band shortly after the conclusion of the Real Nighttime tour in 1985.

For the 1986 tour, Donnette Thayer joined Game Theory as rhythm guitarist and vocalist, and Guillaume Gassuan replaced Ziegler on bass. This line-up remained together to record and tour for two subsequent albums, Lolita Nation (1987) and Two Steps from the Middle Ages (1988).

Critical response and legacy

Spin wrote in 1987 that the then-new album, distributed through Capitol Records, sold more copies in its first few weeks of release than all of Game Theory's previous records combined. In the end, however, the release was "surprisingly passed over by the buying public."

Spin likened The Big Shot Chronicles to Real Nighttime, calling both albums "a rare commodity... a pop record that can actually make you laugh and cry and squirm all at once." The Big Shot Chronicles was distinguished as "harsh, dense, and metallic-sounding," and "damned ambitious as pop fare goes nowadays, with difficult time signatures, criss-cross rhythms, off-beat chordings, and surreal, vertiginous lyrics."

Billboard pointed out the album's "crisp, moody pop songs," taking note of Miller's high tenor vocals "sung in a self-described 'miserable whine'", and adding that Mitch Easter lent "an assured production touch" to this "collegiate fave."

Among college audiences, a contemporaneous review pointed to the band's originality in a genre "so codified that a little change in tradition is apocalyptic," citing the band's experimental notes as quirky and bizarre, yet "such loving care is taken with the obvious influences that you appreciate the music for simply reaffirming everything that's right about pop. It's one of the most important reasons for liking Game Theory, because any band with good taste is worth saving from obscurity."

Trouser Press wrote that the new line-up "lights the afterburners for aggressively electric pop, louder and more powerful than anything in Game Theory's past."

Critic Mark Deming called the album a "superb set from one of the best (and most underappreciated) bands of the 1980s," who were "equally adept at flexing their muscles ... or easing into a song's subtleties." Deming praised Miller's growth as a songwriter, citing the songs "Erica's Word" and "Don't Look Too Closely" as "smart pop heaven on Earth."

The Chicago Reader labeled the album "ambitious and elaborate ... packed with sunny, ultracatchy melodies, sweet vocal harmonies, and soft-focus psychedelia." Music writer Peter Margasak praised its "songs distinguished by unexpected twists and turns" and "lyrics riddled with nerdy wordplay."

In the 2007 book Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide, The Big Shot Chronicles was ranked #16 out of the "Top 200 power pop albums of all time." The reviewer noted, "Nowhere are Miller's eccentricities more consistently tuneful and genius-like than on The Big Shot Chronicles," citing the song "Regenisraen" as "absolutely gorgeous, hymn-like," among other "top-shelfers."

In 2013, "Erica's Word" was played during a Boston Red Sox game by Fenway Park organist Josh Kantor, and a cover of "The Only Lesson Learned" was recorded by Matt LeMay, a New York musician and senior writer for Pitchfork.

Track listing

All tracks written by Scott Miller, except as noted..