184. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu (1970)


















Track Listing

1. Carry On
2. Teach Your Children
3. Almost Cut My Hair
4. Helpless
5. Woodstock
6. Déjà Vu
7. Our House
8. 4 + 20
9. Country Girl: Whiskey Boot Hill/Down, Down, Down/Country Girl
10. Everybody I Love You

Review

We are entering another exceptional streak of albums, and this one is a great one. I have been a fan of CSNY since I was a small child and still am one now, so this review might be tainted by a certain sentimentalism... still, it is an amazing album.

Firstly the album's credentials are great; all of the members were amazing artists either by themselves or in other groups like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Hollies. Their only problem is that they are so big that the album isn't as cohesive as it might be, it might even sound like a collection of songs by different artists, as each composer's personality is so marked in their tracks.

But then, even with this lack of cohesiveness each track is near perfect, it is a collection of great tracks, from the beggining to end no track is less than amazing in its own style. From the non-conformist Almost Cut My Hair to the picture of perfect domestic bliss in Our House all tracks are gems. This is a beautiful, beautiful album which if you don't know it, you must get to know it. Buy it now at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Almost Cut MY Hair
2. Helpless
3. Our House
4. Country Girl

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Stills estimates that the album took somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 hours of studio time to record; this figure may be exaggerated, however much the individual tracks display meticulous attention to detail. Critical reaction to the album tends to be divided along generational lines, baby boomers rating it as one of the all-time greats, later cohorts less so. In retrospect, much of the disparagement that this album, and the band, received as being wildly overrated by later critics probably derived from a reactionary dismissal of the sixties in general, proof of its import as a cultural artifact.

Spiderman sings Our House!