donjunio

"And that I like to set exactly halfway between the prophetic seed of 'The Times They Are A-Changin' and the apocalyptic fruit of 'Ohio.' Perhaps this is the only point on which I don't entirely agree. I believe that the role of 'link' belongs to the great and forgotten Phil Ochs, about whom I think I will soon write something because he is shamefully overlooked on the site."

Their best album, marked by an exuberant eclecticism, is able to transition with surprising naturalness from the mutant funk of "Got no shadows" to the heterodox blues of "Cat fever" (listen to George's slide), through rough rock outbursts and sublime folk-romantic touches. The best American band of the 70s? It’s certainly not heresy to state it, given that all the great names of the "American" tradition that paved the way for the LF did their best work at the end of the previous decade (even the CCR, whom I have always preferred The Band to, being more nuanced and profound), gradually melted away like snow in the sun, along with the sixties ideals under the cold wind of the seventies. Perhaps that’s why my favorite of the decade is Neil Young, one of the few who didn’t resign himself to decline, so much so that he bid farewell to a decade paved with death and despair in '79 with the unmatched "Rust never sleeps."

What a great catch, really. He had his own way of being a protest folk singer, and you couldn't have described it better.

"...to listen to on a sleepless night, between an empty pack of cigarettes and a glass of Johnny Walker." I quote myself to say that I do the same. Great review.

He's great, the other Canadian Neil Young explicitly paid tribute to him on "Prairie Wind."

Beautiful page, the artist in question is completely unknown to me. I take this opportunity to greet Odradek.

Well, they are two different albums, I love both of them viscerally, but "White Light" has that magical-intimate touch that makes me prefer it. I would compare it more to the work of Nick Drake, or to "After the Gold Rush," while Crosby's work is more lysergic, reflecting the moods of an unrepeatable season without being trapped in a timeless limbo like the masterpiece of my beloved Gene. I would put "If I Could Only Remember My Name" in the running maybe with "On the Beach" (and it would still lose). The discussion I was making was intrinsically linked to the reunion album of '73: McGuinn and Crosby were so dry of compositional ideas that they had to borrow a couple of songs from Neil, including that "See the Sky About to Rain," discarded from "Harvest" and delivered with a sparkling jingle-jangle flair by Roger. Not to mention reviving Gene, who looks fantastic, because his "Full Circle" and "Changing Hearts" are the best of the lot. Overall, it’s a tough battle between Crosby and Clark over who wrote the best songs within the Byrds. Perhaps David slightly prevails, also because he benefited from a period of greater creative exuberance on the West Coast, his songs on "Younger than Yesterday" are more innovative than the others. Roger, on the other hand, can only contemplate certain peaks: at a purely compositional level, of course. In one of the last greatest hits released by the Byrds, it was a bit amusing to see an excessive abundance of songs written by the tyrant with the Rickenbacker, to the detriment of eternal gems like "Everybody's Been Burned" or "One Hundred Years From Now."

Their best album without a doubt.

I was eagerly awaiting this page; I was sure it would arrive. I’ll share my thoughts too, just to fill up the comment section a bit, which would otherwise be desolately empty. I basically agree with everything. The magic of the sidecar didn’t last long, much like all the partnerships in Gene's career, after all. The album is decent but inevitably pales in comparison to the "fantastic expedition": too stylish in a technical sense with its intricate country-rock intertwining, and not enough room for Gene’s particular lyricism, which nevertheless gives us the gems you mentioned. A transitional album in the best sense of the term, from which Clark will learn to distill the perfect fusion of rootsy fragrances and his own visionariness, as seen in the monumental "White Light" (one of my absolute favorite albums) and the splendid "No Other." Not to mention that in '73, McGuinn and Crosby, creatively drained, will call on Eugene to keep the whole thing standing with the inevitable reunion album: and the only songs that will survive will be the ones penned by Gene, for some reason. I hope these reviews spark curiosity and do at least a little justice to Clark, for me the greatest country-folk crooner of all time: because then you go to forums on other sites, and when you hear that in the "Americana" category they only mention the Eagles, America (!!!!), or the late Fleetwood Mac, it really makes you lose faith.

Great band, although I've always preferred Thin White Rope in the "80s desert rock" category. It also seems a bit excessive to me to define the MP as pioneers of Stoner, a genre that, despite the common "geographical root" and neo-psychedelic elements, is based on quite different components (monumental riffs, imposing and layered wall of sound, hallucinatory digressions, etc.). If anything, I would see them as true godfathers of all the alt-country of the 90s. Their relationship with grunge should also be taken with a grain of salt: aside from the Nirvana-Unplugged case (but Cobain, as we know, transcended the Seattle boundaries in terms of culture and attitude) and the fact that they were the first to resurrect the neurotic country ballad à la Neil Young when the Canadian was considered a reactionary nullity (and Dinosaur Jr. are grateful), perhaps only the excellent and powerful "Monsters" can be considered an influence on the genre. Moving on to "Too High to Die," it is a decent summary of their career, with a few particularly visceral tracks that, in a better world, would have earned the Kirkwood brothers a substantial amount of dollars that they richly deserved. Excellent review.