More Crosby / More Stills / More Nash
The founding members of CSN chose the Albert brothers to engineer this 1977 reunion.
Their most famous album is Layla. Ever heard a great sounding Layla? Me neither. Can you hear the sound of Layla in your head? That’s more or less what this album sounds like. There are better and worse Layla’s — we’ve done the shootout many times — just as there are better and worse CSNs, but we have never played amazing Demo Disc pressings of either and I doubt we ever will.
The problem with the sound cannot be “fixed” in the mastering, and here’s how we know: on either side some songs have wonderful sound — the midrange magic, the “breath of life” that makes the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album such a special listening experience — and some don’t.
That’s a recording problem.
It sounds like too many generations of tape were used on songs like Shadow Captain and Dark Star, among others.
But Just a Song Before I Go on side two can sound wonderful: rich, sweet, present and surrounded by lovely studio ambience.
So we listen for the qualities of a specific song that help us pinpoint what the best copies do well and the rest do less well and grade them accordingly, on a curve.
Animals will never sound like The Wall. You do the best you can with what you’ve got to work with.
What to Listen for
- Many copies have a tendency to sound dry, so look for the ones that are richer and more full-bodied.
- Many copies are opaque and flat, so look for pressings with transparency and depth.
- Many copies are lean down low and dull up top, so try to find some with more bass and real top end extension.
- And of course you need to find a copy that gets the voices right. CSN’s albums live or die by the quality of their vocals, a subject we’ve discussed on the site at length.
This is how we would approach the problem of finding a top quality CSN, and if you follow our advice, there’s a verg good chance you can find one too.
Side One
Shadow Captain
See the Changes
Carried Away
Fair Game
Anything at All
Cathedral
Side Two
Dark Star
Just a Song Before I Go
Run from Tears
Cold Rain
In My Dreams
AMG Review
CSN was the trio’s last fully realized album, and also the last recording on which the three principals handled all the vocal parts without the sweetening of additional voices. It has held up remarkably well, both as a memento of its time, and as a thoroughly enjoyable musical work.