Well, we all know who Stephen Stills is, and we all know of his accomplishments with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Nash, and Young. Suffice it to say that this record is nowheres near as good as the former and, on the average, considerably better than the latter.
But I must have played this album a dozen times, and have yet to distinguish between the songs, which must either have identical tunes or be in the same key. I can barely hear Jimi Hendrix' lead on "Old Times Good Times," although I've listened for it, and I didn't even bother to listen for Eric Clapton's lead on "Go Back Home." Every single one of these compositions (with the notable exception of "Black Queen," which certainly
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doesn't stand up under repeated listenings) has an elusive, perhaps I should say evanescent quality to it. Sort of like the greased pig of carnival fame or the taste of Puerto Rican coconut soda. Except the pig is most definitely there, even if nobody can catch him, and I
think that Coco Rico has a taste.
See Stephen sitting outside in the snow with his very expensive (Washburn?) guitar, playing for the multicolored ceramic giraffe. See Stephen, attired in polo shirt, perhaps playing polo. See the back cover with the names of the 22 people who just happened to drop in to the recording session. Names all of them, of course, either because they are or by association with those who are.
Remember the days when a group broke up because one of the guys got drafted or killed? Remember the days when the word superstar was a cynical title Andy Warhol would give to his actors who didn't have to act? I still go for the sentiment expressed on a sign that I hear he has up at the Factory: In The Future, Everybody Will Be Famous For 15 Minutes. Remember the kid who wrote in to the Fantastic Four comic book and asked how Mr. Fantastic kept from stretching himself so thin that he'd snap? Does anybody out there remember the answer?
I'm not saying that I don't like this album. I put it on, my mind goes and wanders. I find myself tapping my foot. I admire little production techniques here and there, I think that "Love The One You're With" will make a killer single. But when it's over, I put something meatier on. (RS 74)
ED WARD
What we have here, friends, is a fifth-rate album by a solid second-rate artist who so many lower-middlebrows insist on believing is actually first-rate, even in the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that he's apparently begun to believe it himself, as is evidenced by his having the audacity to indulge himself through two fifth-rate albums in succession.
Now doncha get me all wrong I'm not about to deny that Stephen Stills has written at least one indisputably extraordinary song. What I am saying is that for some reason that eludes me, the three much lesser lights in Crosby, Etc., among whom I include Stills, have all come to be regarded as geniuses, which clearly simply isn't so. And Stills seems to be thought of in some quarters as the most of the three lesser lights I mean, Crosby's written one indisputably extraordinary song himself, but you don't find him being referred to as a superstar in ads for Donny Hathaway. Why, do you think?
Anyway, friends, the words to Stills 2 are alternately trivial, cloyingly self-important, and downright offensive, the music is decidedly lackluster and undistinguished, and the production of the whole shebang is so distant from up to snuff that one is hard pressed to get much impression at all of the playing of the latter.
Aside from "Change Partners," Stills' current smash single, and "Marianne," its probable successor, there isn't a remotely memorable melody on the whole album. Mostly Stephen contents himself with just singing along (within a range that only infrequently exceeds six notes, and even then in several instances in a strained and artificial "soul" voice) with the chords, which are none too fascinating themselves. The addition of all the Memphis Horns (who throughout the album come across Las Vegas-slick and a little shrill) in the world can't make with no tune and flaccid changes erect, and neither can the customary monstro vocal accompaniment on nearly every chorus, even though Stills seems to have bet they could.
The album's words (printed in alternate versions both inside and on the back of the singularly undistinguished album-cover) reveal much about their creator: They reveal that Stephen Stills is anti-bigotry, has yet to take a definite stance on astrology, and is pro-ecology. It's possible that you might join I Segal in wondering just how pro-ecology a fellow like Stills is, though, if you consider that the fumes emitted by the vinyl factory that pressed his album probably didn't do a whole lot of good for the air and almost certainly did a whole lot of bad for the birds in the factory's vicinity.
The words reveal also that, however vitally concerned Stills may be with such crucial contemporary issues as those addressed in "Word Game," his anti-bigotry song, "Fishes And Scorpions," his astrology song, and "Ecology Song," his pro-ecology song, the crucial contemporary issue Stills is most vitally concerned with is hi
