Crosby Stills & Nash - CSN

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Free Music Notes for CSN

Free Music Review: CSN's best work
Hit: 5 Stars

I don't mean to take anything away from their earlier albums. Their debut LP was deservedly a landmark in modern music history, and _Deja Vu_ -- with Neil Young in on the act -- was _another_ landmark. You have to go some way to beat _two_ landmarks.

But I think CSN do so on this deceptively laid-back album. They've always described their work as being about the changes that they (and other people) go through, and every song here is a little gem about exactly that. (Including Nash's brooding "Cathedral," which, one assumes, is about his own rejection of historical Christianity.)

In only one or two other album reviews have I been able to say, about the work under review, that there are _no_ weak tracks. This is another. _CSN_ is the only album by any of these guys, alone or in combination, that I can listen through without ever skipping _any_ songs. (Actually I can't say that about too many albums by anyone at all.) But just the other day I listened through this one _twice_.

This is one of the very few times that CSN have actually managed to be more than the separate sum of their parts. Stills is at his best here; he contributes five tunes, all winners, with "See The Changes" at the top of my own list for his best lyrics ever. Nash writes four, all of them gentle without being either sappy or mournful. Crosby writes two and a half (the brilliant "Shadow Captain" is a joint effort with keyboardist Craig Doerge), and "In My Dreams" is one of my longtime favorites of his. (It's also the song that probably best states the nature of CSN+/-Y itself: "Two or three people fading in and out / Like a radio station I'm thinking about / But I can't hear / Who gets breakfast? Who gets the lunch? / Who gets to be the boss of this bunch? / Who will steer?")

The musicianship is breathtaking as well. For one thing, Stills _doesn't_ play every instrument on the album; Craig Doerge and Joe Vitale handle most of the keyboard work, with Stills sitting down at the piano only for "I Give You Give Blind". And when he _does_ play, he does it well: I've long thought that his acoustic guitar solo on "Fair Game" is one of his best, and he restrains himself admirably on Crosby's "In My Dreams." The percussion work is particularly noteworthy (credit Russ Kunkel and Joe Vitale). And George Perry handles most of the bass-guitar duties.

For another, all of the three are at their vocal peak. The harmonies here are delicately arranged and extremely well performed (and produced). Crosby hasn't gone very far down his long decline into drugs, and Stills's voice, though gravelly as always, can still carry a tune even into the upper register. And Nash is just _always_ reliable; no special comment required here.

There are some albums that these three have done, separately and together, that come mighty close to this. I've already mentioned their debut album and _Deja Vu_; I'll add Crosby's _If I Could Only Remember My Name_, his work with CPR, Stills's first solo LP and _Manassas_, Nash's _Songs for Beginners_, and a couple of Crosby/Nash efforts. But to my own mind (though of course there's room for both disagreement and differences in taste), this one is the cream of a very large crop.

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