November 1 – The Reunion Many Had ‘Dream’ed Of

Some artists get accused of living in the past too much. Occasionally though, some might be well advised to stick to doing just that. We’re not saying that was true of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but there were some who felt that way in 1988. On this day in that year, the famous quartet put out their fifth studio album (actually only the second one with Neil Young along; the other three were just Crosby, Stills and Nash), American Dream.

It seemed like a dream come true for fans, and for Atlantic Records. It was the group’s first in six years and the first time Neil had joined them in close to two decades. David Crosby was out of jail and apparently clean from drug addiction, which was one stipulation Young had when talking of re-joining. The trio (without Young) had performed earlier in the year at the Atlantic Records 40th Birthday Concert, to reasonably good reviews...better than Led Zep’s anyway. They had a lot of material to work with and took their time – it was recorded in several sessions over the course of just over a year. And they brought in talented Niko Bolas to help produce the record. Bolas had worked with Young earlier in the decade, would soon work on other solo Neil material and Melissa Etheridge records before going into software in a big way. He in fact patented the first internet radio receiver.

But for all that, the overall reaction was more yawns than yippees. The album covered quite a bit of terrain, with all of them taking part in the writing, although Neil wrote considerably more (six songs, four all by himself) than Crosby, who worked on just two. There were some rockers, some lighter, romantic tunes (the four dedicated the album to their wives) and some with tinkling keyboards. Steve Perry and Graham Nash’s wife Susan joined a full-blown choir backing the harmonies on “Soldiers of Peace”. The lyrics ran the gamut from angry to loving to hopeful. But few were standouts, something stated matter-of-factly by Crosby. “We did not have, really, the best group of songs…not enough good songs. We ended up putting 14 of them on the album (which curiously enough was released at the time only on CD or cassette, not LP) . I think that was stupid.”

We won’t go that far, but some critics did. The Village Voice graded it just “C+”, better perhaps than Rolling Stone which gave it just 2-stars. That publication, usually fond of the four members, said “the re-grouping has done none of them much good,” complained about Neil Young’s writing (“sappiness, sentimentality and mean-spiritidness”) and called it a “snoozefest.” That essentially was mirrored years later by allmusic which graded it likewise and thought there were a couple of fine tunes – “This Old House” and Crosby’s ‘Compass’” – but it was largely forgettable. They added not incorrectly “expectations were so high that the album seemed much worse than it really was.”

The fans regarded it like early-November weather. Not icily but rather chilly. The record hit just #16 in the U.S., failed to chart in the UK and wasn’t a smash in Canada (where inexplicably several months of charts for that time are lost from the national archives).

It did sell enough to get them a platinum record at home, but the worldwide sales of less than two million was well below their previous releases. Nonetheless, the song “Got it Made” did get to #1 on rock charts while the song this site considered the standout, the scathing title track (which would have seemed quite at home on Neil Young’s Freedom which came out months later) got to #4 on the same list and at least dented the UK singles chart, their first song since the ’60s to do so.

The trio of CS&N put out three more albums in the ’90s, but based on public and critical reaction, they weren’t considered interesting enough to even be “snoozefests.” Crosby, Stills and Nash have also put out solo records in the past couple of decades, but they’ve paled next to Neil’s works in the same period when it comes to sales or airplay.