Crosby, Stills and Nash - Replay (1980)

The second Crosby, Stills and Nash greatest-hits compilation is credited on the hideously ugly record sleeve to "David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash," which suggests a greater emphasis of the individual members of the group over their partnership.  There's a subtle reason for this, though; Replay is filled out by songs recorded outside the group.

Replay was Atlantic Records' effort to produce CSN product for the 1980 Christmas market in the face of the trio's chronic inability to provide a steady frequency of new material.  But with only three LPs to draw from - the first two having already sourced the 1974 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young compilation So Far - four songs from their solo and duo projects had to be included. Two of those songs were taken from records from rival labels.  The group didn't want to put this record out but were given no choice; David Crosby didn't even know about it until just prior to its release.  

The CSN songs on Replay are among their most solid efforts; Nash's diverting "Marrakesh Express" finally gets its due after having been passed over for So Far, and the wistful 1977 Nash-penned hit "Just a Song Before I Go" is here too.  Crosby is represented here only by "Shadow Captain," but it's a monumental piece of work that features his most enigmatic lyrical imagery as well as co-composer Craig Doerge's stirring music.  

One can begrudgingly respect the decision to mix Crosby, Stills and Nash songs with tracks from their work outside the group; rather than take the easy way out and use well-known hits already used on So Far, like "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Teach Your Children," the record label aimed to deliver value for money by offering more diverse and overlooked material.  But the solo and duo tracks pose a problem.  Not with their quality, as they're as strong as any songs the trio did together - the problem is that, as part of a CSN compilation, they remind you how much better Crosby, Stills and Nash's solo and duo songs could have been if they had recorded them together and challenged and communicated with each other instead of going off on their own tangents.  As wonderful as Crosby and Nash's suite "To the Last Whale . . . " is, you're left wondering what Stills could have brought to it.  Stills is inevitably represented here by his big solo hits, "Love The One You're With" and "Change Partners," and while they might not have been right for a CSN album, "First Things First," from his 1975 Columbia solo album, is definitely in the running for a list of the best CSN songs that never were; it easily could have benefited from Crosby's and Nash's input.  (The three solo songs from Stills are technically CSN songs, though, as David Crosby and Graham Nash sing backup on all of them.)

The biggest problem with Replay overall is the randomness of the song selection; despite the quality of the songs that were selected, there's little coherence between them, and they're not sequenced with much imagination.  The result is a compilation that's as awkward and scattered as the trio's divergences.  Stephen Stills has publicly stated that he and his groupmates became cavalier with their careers by going off on so many solo projects because of petty egos and disagreements; Replay is a sobering document of that recklessness. And the cover really is ugly.

So was there any reason to get Replay when it first came out?  Actually, there was.  Stills reworked "Carry On," which opens the LP, by removing his recycled Buffalo Springfield song "Questions" at the end and mixing in an extra chorus and a newly overdubbed guitar riff; I actually prefer it to the original Déjà Vu version.  Stills also mixed out the strings on "I Give You Give Blind" (making it sound tougher than on the 1977 CSN album) and mixed in a percussion intro onto "First Things First."  But these re-imagined cuts have since been made available online, making this record unnecessary.  Crosby dismissed it as "an obvious money trip" and Nash called it "insanity," given the paucity of group material available for greatest-hits packages.  And, as noted, there's that ugly sleeve.

Fortunately for Crosby, Stills and Nash, no one noticed that Replay even came out, though possibly for a tragic reason; it was issued the same day as John Lennon's murder, which focused rock fans' attention elsewhere, and so it sank without a trace.  But it probably would have done so under different circumstances.  Replay simply isn't the best Crosby, Stills and Nash greatest-hits package that could have been devised.  Because  . . . well, again, that sleeve is so damn ugly.