Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - "Deja Vu"

"Flawless harmonies, thoughtful lyrics, accomplished playing: this is state-of-the-art '70s rock music and continues to be the best explanation of CSN&Y's enormous stature and enduring legacy." Willian Ruhlmann All Music Guide

That pretty much sums up this album. "Deja Vu" usually turns up on greatest album lists and with good reason. It not only equals Crosby, Stills and Nash's (CSN) self titled debut, in several respects "Deja Vu" surpassed that album.

A little history first, after the success of CSN's debut album the trio went out on tour but Stills, who played the majority of the instruments on the album, felt they needed one more guitarist for their in order to perform some of the intricate guitar work live. But instead of simply finding a back-up guitarist Stills called on his old friend and Buffalo Springfield band mate Neil Young. Since Young was as well known as the other three they added his name to the group name. They went out on a tour that included performances at Woodstock and Altamont. The quartet then decided to record an album together.

While CSN's debut was largely acoustic based "Deja Vu" expands their formats with equal amounts of electric and acoustic, Rock and Country, Folk and Pop for a seamless whole. The recording sessions for this album were not pleasant and though they spent over 500 hours in the studio, all four members were hardly ever present at the same time.

Nonetheless every song on the album is spectacular and only Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" seems a little below the other tracks but it became a counter culture anthem of the era. While Nash's two songs "Teach Your Children" and "Our House" were the big hits every track is a show stopper. All ten songs are powerful statements of the American music scene in 1970. The closer "Everybody I Love You" by Stills and Young is often considered the greatest Buffalo Springfield song that Buffalo Springfield never recorded.

I really love this album and it is on my top ten list of favorite albums. This and the CSN debut album were a powerful one two punch that showed CSN(with and without Y) to be one of the finest American bands of their era.