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| | Déjà Vu | | | Music Artist : | | Crosby Stills Nash & Young | | Music Style : | | General | | Record Label : | | Atlantic / Wea | | Release Date : | | 1994-09-06 | | Store Price : | | $18.98 | | Artistopia's Price: $15.99 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 11. Carry On
2. Teach Your Children
3. Almost Cut My Hair
4. Helpless
5. Woodstock
6. Déjà Vu
7. Our House
8. 4 + 20
9. Country Girl: Whiskey Boot Hill/Down, Down, Down/"Country Girl" (I Think You're Pretty)
10. Everybody I Love You
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Nothing can replace the the real thing. "Woodstock 1" never to be equaled.
Submitted on: 2009-11-04 |
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There are sequals to seemingly everything yet nothing will ever come close to what was shared by the Woodstock Generation. I did attend the Montery Pop Festival in 1967. The music stays with me and I like that.
Thanks for offering a space where "when" the need for aversion therapy is needed, a trip back in time works wonders.
Dr. R. H. Short Ph.D. |
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Deja Vu
Submitted on: 2009-08-20 |
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One of my old favorites.
Remember when it first came out when I was in college.
Great songs.
"Woodstock" of course, "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" and my favorite "Almost Cut My Hair".
Very fitting right now as I've grown my hair and beard very long now in rememberance of "Woodstock" and my youth from my college days 1969 - 1973.
Ironically I had just considered cutting my hair when I bought the CD and after listening to it I decided not to.
So in conclusion I'd like to thank C S N & Y for this great album and advice.
Peace
GRS |
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voices of a unique moment in history
Submitted on: 2009-02-09 |
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From the vantage point of the aughts, it is easier than ever to define the near-magical qualities of this album. It is also easy, at least for me, to face the fact that it is far from perfect. Deja Vu has its fair share of clunkers. CS&N's first album was not perfect either, but it came so close to perfection that criticism would be merely petty. Deja Vu, however, was more of a mixed bag: Teach Your Children is a suprisingly, almost shockingly schlocky top-40 material that seems designed to bridge the ol' generation gap and get the pouty youths and wise papas and mamas to love each other and hug a lot; worse is Our House, Graham's syrupy bid for middle-class pleasures. Carefully crafted with imagery straight from Hallmark cards, it could appeal to pretty much anyone on the planet, especially if they were in the throes of a first "serious" coupling, looking forward to babies and the picket fence. The fact that it was written by someone whose vision of a cozy house was drastically different - several million dollars different - than that of your basic working stiffs, didn't seem to bother anyone, and these sucrose songs were both tremendous radio fodder and huge hits. Graham Nash had a gift for what was essentially teenybopper music, and, in retrospect, one must wonder what attracted the other three to him. Then there's Helpless. I confess I've always disliked this song because it's so awfully simple - the same three chords again and again; it seemed to me that a self-respecting musician shouldn't write something that was no more than a continuous hook. As if to counter this argument, Neil also wrote Country Girl, which is the other extreme: pompous, bloated, so overproduced that it probably made Phil Spector whimper in his dreams. And how about those lyrics: "...no pass out sign on the door set me thinking, are waitresses paying the price for the their winking...?" Yes, Neil, those words rhyme, now stop taking the crystals, you're really losing it. I am not enamored of what the guys did with Mitchell's Woodstock, either: a nice rocker, sure, but the chill that this song carries in Mitchell's ultra-sophisticated version is completely gone. And finally, Everybody I Love You is a mush of sound, a sort of a meaningless good-time improv that musicians of this caliber could probably come up with accidentally at any moment during rehearsals, just goofing around in the studio.
So, with all this, why still 5 stars? Do the few remaining songs really deserve such high praise just for themselves? Yes, they do. They embody qualities that seem to be entirely lost in the way that rock music is written today, whether good or bad. There is the unmatched melodic invention: it is supported by impeccable musicianship, Crosby's unique harmonic gifts, and exceptional vocal harmonies (there, I've killed three adjectives in one sentence, but they're well deserved). Secondly, there is the depth of imagination, and the sheer beauty to which imagery is attached: you don't have hooks per se, you just float along on entire songs that are stuctured so that no section can be separated from the others, even though, interestingly, several songs are put together of different parts composed in different keys or tempos. Thirdly, there is fearless artistic exploration. When did you last hear something so out of left field for its era as these songs were for theirs? Yep, there's Country Girl again: it may have been over the top, but what an experiment! Compare it with the nasally-monotone rubbish of almost anything that hits top 40 today and find an ounce of the same originality, introspection, lunacy, or vision. How about the gorgeous weirdness of the song Deja Vu itself, or the straight-out rock of Carry On, or the anthemic (yet not in the least arena-pretentious) Almost Cut My Hair - I have little of said item left, yet whenever I hear the song, I still feel like letting my freak flag fly. You can contrast that with the lesson in meaningful simplicity that is 4+20: a small folk memento that says so much in just two minutes, with one acoustic guitar. And, folks, this was all done, for the most part, with two guitars, a bass, a drum, a keyboard, and just a bit of singing... The harmonica counted as a special effect, as did the echo chamber. It didn't go much farther than that (yes, okay, Neil invited about four philharmonic orchestras to Country Girl).
You think I've run out of cliches, but wait, I have one more: they just don't make them like this anymore. Ten stars wouldn't be enough.
oh, a p.s.: i'm not really concerned with remastering. Some of it is merely expanding the dynamics and compressing them at the tips, meaning that you can get louder without distortion, and a lot of it is plain baloney. I heard the bass clearly on vinyl, the harmonies were clear too, thank you, I have no hearing problem, I'll pay attention to the remastering some other time. |
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Great Accoustics and Harmonics
Submitted on: 2008-11-25 |
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| This product has great rock and roll sound from the 70's. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young put together a true masterpiece that will live on through eternity. |
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Crosby: Almost passed up a buffet
Submitted on: 2008-11-04 |
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| This is a great album. It captures better than any other the self absorption of the hippy element. These guys are like the Beach Boys - great albums, out of tune live. They were very into themselves and very self-important. |
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