 Rolling Stone 's Ken Barnes , describing the musical style of Radio City , opens by noting as a backdrop that the band 's debut , # 1 Record , established it as " one of the leading new American bands working in the mid @-@ Sixties pop and rock vein " . Radio City , Barnes finds , has " plenty of shimmering pop delights " , although " the opening tune , ' O My Soul , ' is a foreboding , sprawling funk affair " ; Barnes concludes that " Sometimes they sound like the Byrds , sometimes like the early Who , but usually like their own indescribable selves " . Radio City was released in February 1974 and , like # 1 Record , received excellent reviews . Record World reported , " The sound is stimulating , the musicianship superb , and the result is tight and <unk> rhythmic . " Billboard judged it " a highly commercial set " . Rolling Stone 's Bud Scoppa , then with Phonograph Record , affirmed , " Alex Chilton has now emerged as a major talent , and he 'll be heard from again " . Cashbox called it " a collection of excellent material that hopefully will break this deserving band in a big way " . But just as # 1 Record had fallen victim to poor marketing , so too did Radio City . Columbia , now in complete control of the Stax catalog , refused to process it following a disagreement . Without a distributor , sales of Radio City , though far greater than those of # 1 Record , were minimal at only around 20 @,@ 000 copies . 
