Produced by Mitch Easter, it was recorded with a new lineup of Game Theory members after leader and songwriter Scott Miller moved the band's base from Davis to San Francisco, California.

He assembled a new lineup in the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring Shelley LaFreniere on keyboards, Gil Ray on drums and Suzi Ziegler on bass.

According to Burt, this song "follows a fragile promise, or a premise, not unique to nerds: that the gang of kids with whom you might belong, who share your tastes and habits, can make whatever you like stay with you for good.

Pounding along, for a while, like any teen anthem, "I've Tried Subtlety" works so memorably as a song because it fails as a call to arms: each verse, each break, goes on a measure longer than we expect, as if to accommodate second thoughts.

[11][12] "Erica's Word," regarded as the best-known track on The Big Shot Chronicles, was released as a single[13] and became Game Theory's first official music video.

"[16] The song has been variously described as "sunny",[3] "soaring,"[17] or "restrained";[7] but according to Mason, "The moment in the final verse where Miller sweetly sings 'Girl, I hope it comes through for you in the clutch' and adds a teasing extra bar before spitting out a snotty 'But I won't bet much!'

"[9] In Burt's reading of the song, Miller seemed "almost happy to be so frustrated, since it gives him a reason to sing; he sounds even happier to be led, or misled, by the charismatic Erica, whom he says he has known since high school, when they were photographed in her car, going nowhere.

"[9] The title of the song "Regenisraen" sprang from Miller's attempt at "a sort of Jabberwocky speech meant to communicate a dreaming state," influenced by reading James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake.

"[8] "Crash Into June," according to Miller in 2007, was "about coming to terms with impulses toward nostalgia, and how that involves a feeling that the good times, such as they are, are necessarily hurtling past and can't be latched onto.

"[9] Calling the song "a marvelously oblique closer" to the album, Mason wrote:"Like a Girl Jesus" starts as a nearly solo performance, just Scott Miller's hushed vocals and electric guitar against a backdrop of Suzi Ziegler's almost subliminal bass part and occasional random keyboard and percussion sounds.

"[9] According to Burt, "Miller's melisma, sliding four notes into the long 'i' in 'undefined,' gives listeners time to pursue double meanings: (1) the boy doesn't know what the girl is really like (since he worships her), (2) some operations—division by zero, for instance, or his dating her—cannot take place in a given system of rules.

"[9] Miller recalled that the recording of the instrument parts "was all one take stuff," and added, "I wrote the song almost instantly, too; I distinctly remember my intent was to get it put out as a flexi disk in Bucketfull of Brains magazine.

"[26] 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.

"[25] 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.

"[25] Billboard mentioned 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.

"[7] 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.

"[17] In the 2007 book Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide, The Big Shot Chronicles was ranked #16 on a list of the top 200 power-pop albums of all time.

[3] 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.

"[3] In 2013, "Erica's Word" was played during a Boston Red Sox game by Fenway Park organist Josh Kantor,[29] and a cover of "The Only Lesson Learned" was recorded by Matt LeMay, a New York musician and senior writer for Pitchfork.