Crosby Stills & Nash - Greatest Hits
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Free Music Notes for Greatest Hits
Free Music Review: The filet of CSN
Hit: 4 Stars
One of the great challenges in creating a retrospective on Crosby, Stills, & Nash is deciding how to define the group. Taken in the strictest sense, the group's output over its 36-year existence has been sproadic and sparse. Only six albums carry the CSN brand. Add in the "Y" component (sometime member Neil Young) and the number effectively doubles. But when you add in the group's solo and side projects (Crosby-Nash, Manassas, CPR, etc.) there is a rich and prolific body of work, much of which has been incorporated into the group's live repertoire.
All that is to say that this "best-of" set takes a very narrow interpretation, focusing on the four studio albums released between 1969 and 1982 (their eponymous first release, CSNY's Deja Vu, CSN [aka the boat album] and Daylight Again), arguably the group's most commercially successful period. The tracks contained on this album are the "chestnuts" that everyone associates with CSN. That is its strength, but also its weakness. It ignores much of the group's most interesting work, especially its more recent material, much of which is musically equal to the 'classic' material, but not as well known. Perhaps someday there will be a Greatest Hits vol. 2 that will focus on this later material.
This criticism about what's not there should in no way reflect on the quality of what is there. It's a wonderful collection and well worth the price for the casual listener who wants to do some one-stop shopping for their favorite CSN tunes, and perhaps some of them will be lead to explore the group's larger body of work in greater detail.
Hard-core fans looking for rarities and outtakes will be better served by the four-disc box set released in 1991 or its smaller two-disc sibling "Carry On", which is available in the U.S. as an import, although they may want to buy a copy or two of "Greatest Hits" to give as gifts to turn others on to the wonderful music of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Free Music Review: How Many More Times?
Hit: 4 Stars
I agree with the other reviews about this compilation, but I already have the songs on other albums. CSNY WERE the best band in America; not even the Eagles can match them in quality, only in volume. That said, Neil Young doesn't appear on this album because of the lawyers. Neil was the lead guitar on "Woodstock", so it doesn't appear. Joni Mitchell wrote the song, so it doesn't appear. It seems as time passes, the window of cooperation gets smaller. Besides, the royalties are easier to handle if it's only CSN songs.
I think there's a ton of great stuff that never made it to the records, but, the record biz being what it is, we're going to have to wait. The CSN boxed set has the unadulterated version of "Almost Cut My Hair", the electric version of "Helplessly Hoping", a 1968 studio recording of the Beatles' "Blackbird" and a live solo of Stills' "Black Queen" that surpasses his solo album version, to mention a few.
There has been a palpable CSN-Neil Young schism that has existed since the '70s. Young managed to maintain his artistic and commercial viability
by being, well, Neil Young. He doesn't stop recording and releasing albums, thereby always being in the public eye. It also doesn't hurt that at least 50% of his latest release creeps into your subconscious, whereas CSN seem to reunite when the coffers are running low.
Don't get me wrong. This compilation is a great introduction to the original group for younger listeners who weren't aware of how good they could be, or went to a CSNY concert and asked "who are these three old guys playing with Neil?"
Free Music Review: Good, but could have been great
Hit: 4 Stars
About a year ago, I bought this collection of Crosby, Stills and Nash - an all-star group of '60s music veterans whose Woodstock appearance launched them to the forefront of the folk-rock scene of the early '70s. Much is made of the fact that none of their work with Neil Young's singing is included. It would have been a good idea to include the CSNY material because as I listen to this CD, enveloped in the greatness of fine songs like "Suite:Judy blue eyes", "Helplessly hoping", "Carry on" etc., I realize that of the 19 songs in this set, there are 5 or 6 fillers that are hardly CSN classics. And, where's "Dark Star"? - a great song and probably the last great song they ever recorded. I love that song, and I can't believe it's not on the disc. As great as some of Crosby, Stills and Nash's music is, there is not a huge catalog of high-caliber music recorded by them. To make a collection like this a true must-have, it should include the Neil Young collaberations and, ideally, A few of Steve Stills and Graham Nash's best solo songs. "Immigration man" would be a superb addition! "Johnney's garden" too. In conclusion, the hum-drum fillers could have been left off in favor of much better, truly classic material making for a very exciting collection. The remastering of the old material does bring out more clarity in the vocals but the mix seems extraordinarily bass-heavy. It seems that this greatist hits collection, like so many others, leaves the true fans wanting so that they'll buy the deluxe box-set.Free Music Review: Good Hits Collection, but where's Ohio and Woodstock?
Hit: 4 Stars
Crosby, Stills, and Nash sound like angels when they sing together. Theur harmonies are almost unsurpassed, rivaled only by the Everly Brothers or the Beach Boys or the Eagles. This new cd brings out their biggest hits, emphasizing their 1960s-1970s songs, with a couple of big smashes from 1982 (Wasted on the Way, Southern Cross) added to the mix.
The one quibble some will have with this project is that it doesn't include the songs that were done with Neil Young. Great songs are missing, like "Ohio" and "Helpless." In my opinion, "Ohio" is one of the most stirring songs the band ever recorded.
You can find "Ohio" and "Helpless" on Neil Young's recent Greatest hits collection, but it is unfortunate that they are not here.
Not only that, where's "Woodstock?" That to me is another quintessential CSN tune that is missing. Also, where is "Find the Cost of Freedom?"
Obviously, one cd is not going to have everything you love about a band. But this collection has most of the classic stuff, like Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Teach Your Children, Our House, Just a Song Before I Go, and more. CSN has a mellow, folk rock sound that will bring a rush of good feeling to those who are nostalgic for the 1970s. But you are going to want to get the other songs I was telling you about as well.
Free Music Review: A nice but slightly incomplete collection
Hit: 4 Stars
(4 & 1/2 stars) The transcendent harmonies, the memorable melodies, the individual talents of three stars combined into one remarkable whole -- it's all present in spades on the new CSN "hits" CD. I can't really argue with these CSN songs as being "greatest hits," but even with 19 songs the collection is still not a true slice of this band's career. All 19 songs were drawn from just four albums. The later albums, Allies and After the Storm, are not represented at all - somewhat understandable given their inferior quality - but couldn't there have been even ONE song each from those albums? And as others have noted, a track or two from 4-Way Street could have replaced something like "Delta." There could even have been a rarity such as the non-album single "Chippin' Away" (with James Taylor). Still, listening to these songs just on their own, not worrying about the career completeness, it's easy to be swept away by the tremendous strength of the material. So many great songs. If I was going to make my own CSN mix tape, it would probably consist of just about these same songs. So thanks for saving me the trouble! (By the way, don't ask for individual solo material or C&N duo songs on this collection. They were trying to put together only songs made by Crosby Stills & Nash together.)