Dark Star
This is one of those albums that raises the metaphoric middle-finger to "conventional opinion," which said that Crosby, Stills and Nash was a spent force by the time they recorded and released this album in 1977. Baloney. This is, in fact, a stupendous album made BY grown-ups FOR grown-ups. If it has no incandescent moments of flashy show, what compensates are solid songs (mostly)and solid musicianship (totally). There's an air about this album of "after all the crazy times, what we have left are some of the lessons we've learned along the way and some of the questions we still have." Self-deprecation abounds; it's in Still's plaintive "See The Changes" and Crosby's reflective "Anything At All." Both songs are somber, but more with bemusement than pathos, with both Stills and Crosby looking hard at themselves and not being totally pleased by what they see. Nash, for his part, takes more of the snapshot approach, looking at what's happened to him at various points in his life (up to that time) and how it's hit him. "Cathedral" and "Cold Rain" are the two best examples of that, as well as being the most elaborately produced tracks on the album. Those signature harmonies are as potent as ever, harking back to when they really were a special, musical experience. It may not be the case now, but that in no way diminishes the impact of this album, arguably CSN's finest.
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