Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN (1977)

Crosby, Stills & Nash are a folk-rock 'supergroup', made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. They are sometimes joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had been massively successful in the late 60s as one of rock's first supergroups, being musical figureheads of sort for the hippie movement. However they had only ever actually released two studio albums, and had broken up in 1971. All four of them had gone on to various levels of solo success in the 1970s. Neil Young had been the most successful, managing to follow his own path with no need for the others. Stephen Stills had released some good solo albums, and also for a while led the excellent band Manassas. David Crosby and Graham Nash had both released solo albums, but had seen more success working together as a duo. There was always hope that the four of them would reunite to record another album, and it was attempted in 1973 but the sessions got nowhere as personality conflicts got in the way. They did mange to get back together in 1974 for a reunion tour, but again there was no recorded output. As the 1970s progressed a new CSNY album seemed more and more unlikely.

Eventually the original three of them did get back together. Neil Young was busy with his own exciting solo career, but in 1976 Crosby, Stills & Nash reformed and started recording new material. The long awaited album came out in 1977. However by this time the musical climate around them had drastically changed, and the 60s hippie dream had become a distant memory. How would they fit in with the sounds of 1977? CSN was indeed very different to their original records, with a modern sheen to the production which let it fit in with the soft-rock aesthetics of the day. Though it was different, the songs were still excellent, and the vocal harmonies were as glorious as they had ever been.

It did turn out to be very commercial successful. It reached #2 on the album chart, and Nash's "Just A Song Before I Go" got to #7 when released as a single, actually being their highest charting single ever. It proved that they could still produce worthwhile music beyond the 60s when they did actually succeed in getting together and recording.

Deja Vu (1970) <|> Daylight Again (1982) 
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