Music Boxes

I have some sound advice for anyone who wants to build up their record collection (provided they own records and don't use streaming or the Cloud) . . . never get a box set.

I have four box sets in my record collection, and despite the good cuts between them, I wish I hadn't gotten them.  Well, except for Bob Dylan's 1991 inaugural Bootleg Series three-CD set, if only because it's comprised entirely of previously unreleased songs.  But the other three are mainly greatest-hits compilations on steroids, filled out here and there by a couple of unreleased songs and alternate mixes.  I really don't listen to them that much.  In fact, there are two that I don't listen to at all - because they're both on cassette.

Let me explain.  The first two box sets I ever got were Bob Dylan's Biograph from 1985 and Elton John's To Be Continued . . . from 1990, both retrospectives of their careers with a couple of alternate mixes and unreleased tracks thrown in for good measure.  Both of my copies are on cassette, because that was the only format I could play at the time.  I got my first compact disc player for Christmas in 1990; the following year, I got as a Christmas gift the Crosby, Stills and Nash box set on CD.  All of these box sets are entertaining enough, though I was always left with a pang of rue over the Crosby, Stills and Nash box set - mainly because, while many of the songs included were among the trio's best, most of them were in fact from their solo and duo projects, because as a group,  Crosby, Stills and Nash didn't put out many albums because they spent more time arguing than recording together.

Well, I don't have a working cassette player any more, the second one I've had since 2019 having broken like the one before it.  So I can't play the Dylan and Elton collections.  And the 1991 CSN box set?  That set led me to seek out Crosby and Nash's mid-seventies releases and the first album from Stephen Stills' group Manassas, as well as some of Stills' and Graham Nash's solo albums.  The box set seems less essential now.   

As for the cassette box sets . . . yeah, well, one of the four cassettes from Elton John's To Be Continued . . . is homemade, recorded off other sources, because the original one broke.

I'm thinking of just selling the CSN box set to a local record store, and I don't know what to do with the Dylan and Elton sets, because who's going to buy any cassette recording these days anyway?  Besides, in 1992, after the release of To Be Continued . . ., Polydor, which acquired the rights to Elton John's pre-1976 recordings, put out the two-CD Rare Masters, a more concise and compact collection of rare Elton John singles and B-sides, plus his and Bernie Taupin's contributions to the soundtrack for the movie Friends, and that is the essential big-time Elton retrospective.

One other thing.  I kept my box sets in a plastic crate in my bedroom, but both the box sets and the crate got so dusty that I put the box sets I put in the living room credenza with all of my old vinyl records (which I can't play because I have no working turntable) and condemned the crate to the basement.  I really don't think it's worth keeping them, especially when they all may be out of print anyway and no one likely cares about them anymore.  I remember that David Bowie threw Dylan a launch party at the Whitney Museum in New York when Biograph was issued in 1985; the party was probably more enjoyable than the box set.  (And, truth be told, some critics found Biograph to be too conservative in offering too many familiar tracks and not enough unreleased material from the vaults.)  

Box sets, in a word, are ridiculous.  They're nicely packaged but rarely offer anything essential.  Most of the essentials are in the packaging - the rare photos, the interview with the artiste, and the like.  But life is too short to get them just to hear an alternate mix of  CSN's "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" or an awful dance mix of Elton's "I Don't Want To Go On With You Like That" from house/dance pop producer Shep Pettibone (best known for his work with Madonna!).   Who needs any of that, really?  I did once say that box sets are worth it because it's always fascinating to hear alternate takes and unreleased songs, as it leads to a lot of second-guessing as to whether an artiste made the right call in rejecting them, but the novelty of such tracks - and box sets in general - has since worn off for me.

So yes, I was once into box sets, but my enthusiasm for them has long since waned.  I don't know what I'll ultimately do about the box sets I have mentioned here, but I will keep my set of the Beatles' Anthology, because that is essential.  Yeah, yeah, the three Anthology albums were released separately over a year and change, but to me they're really a box set, only without the box.       

Music Video Of the Week - January 28, 2022

"Just a Song Before I Go," Crosby, Stills and Nash  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)  

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.

Crosby Versus Nash

In the realm of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, David Crosby and Graham Nash were often thought to be the George and Ringo of the quartet, but not only have they come up with tremendous songs in their work with Stephen Stills and/or Neil Young, they proved to be impressive as a duo.  Whenever internecine arguments caused the group to put their act on ice, Crosby and Nash would still work together, and they managed to come up with a sharp single such as 1972's "Immigration Man" and two fine albums from the mid-seventies - 1975's intense Wind On the Water and 1976's pensive and underrated Whistling Down the Wire.  Some of the work they did together was on par with their CSNY contributions and often superior to a good deal of Stephen Stills' solo work.

So it's really depressing to, in the wake of the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album, to find Crosby and Nash on the outs . . . and possibly for good.

The feud between Crosby and Nash (above, in 1976) dates back to the 2013 release of Nash's memoir "Wild Tales," in which Nash came down hard on Crosby for his drug use and how it affected the group, which famously recorded so infrequently that CSN and CSNY projects were always thought to be reunions.  Although Crosby had told Nash to go ahead and be honest about all of the anguish he caused him and Stills and Young, he was reported to have issues with how Nash characterized him in the book, saying that most of what Nash wrote was a pack of lies.

"Graham’s book is full of inaccuracies and chock-full of misinformation," Crosby told the Web site Ultimate Classic Rock. "When he handed [an advance copy] to me, he said, 'It’s too late to change anything, but here it is.' I was very unhappy about it. It’s a very shallow, very self-serving book, and full of BS."

As if that weren't bad enough, Crosby only made things worse with some nasty comments about actress Daryl Hannah when she started dating Neil Young.  (They wed in 2018.)  Crosby accused Hannah of being a predator in a 2014 interview, suggesting she was some sort of gold digger. Though he apologized to Young - "That was judgmental and stupid and careless and I regret it a lot," Crosby said, adding that Hannah was making Young happy and he wanted to see Young happy - Young has been cool to Crosby ever since, and Nash won't forgive Crosby for that slight.

Nash says there will never be another CSNY record or show again, and Young wholeheartedly agrees.  As for Stills, who has nothing to do with any of this, he is reportedly ticked off at Crosby as well.

I'm not going to defend Crosby for anything he's done. Everyone knows he's a jerk, even his best friends, and the other three have every right to be mad at him.  And truth be told, nothing Crosby has ever said or done has surprised or shocked me. When he turned out to be the sperm donor who produced a baby for Melissa Etheridge and her partner Julie Cypher, my jaw didn't drop because I was too busy laughing.  But I'm still sad over this.  I still hope that, even if Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young never record or perform again, they will still bury all of their hatchets.  As for Crosby, he ought to be damn grateful that Nash pulled him out of his many quagmires over the course of fifty years.

"I trusted my instincts with David," Nash said of his partner in 1991 about Crosby's near-fatal drug addiction.  "I felt he could bounce back, because I still believe that his problems are of self-image rather than anything else.  So he came back and I was there to love him and support him.  Because I think he's worth it."

Come on, Cros, remember everything you and Graham have been through, and how he helped you out.  Because he believed in you.  Don't let your own arrogance bust up for good a friendship that has lasted longer than many marriages.  You're both in your seventies, as are Stills and Young.  It would be a shame if any of you - but especially you and Nash - went to your graves without ever talking to each other again.         

Music Video Of the Week - May 24, 2019

"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills and Nash  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Music Video Of the Week - June 1, 2018

"Long Time Gone" by Crosby, Stills and Nash (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - August 25, 2017

"Just a Song Before I Go" by  Crosby, Stills and Nash (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - August 19, 2011

"Guinnevere" by Crosby, Stills and Nash (Go to the link in the upper right hand corner.)