The Flying Burrito Bros, Airborne (1976)

The sole point of interest here is the head-scratcher question of how a group of scraggly, skeevy, second-tier country-rockers managed to convince Stevie Wonder to take time off from his astonishing run of 1970s albums to sit in on piano for an inert rendition of his own “She’s a Sailor.” Otherwise, it’s modest, unremarkable stuff through and through. The Byrds presence has doubled from the last LP; Gene Parsons is now joined by Skip Battin, meaning the Burrito Bros have now perversely replicated the earlier band’s personnel shifts of the last decade, with the Hillman/Gram Parsons/Clarke lineup giving way to the late-Byrds rhythm section—and the accompanying decline in quality. I suspect this also speaks to the insularity of the mid-decade country-rock scene; apparently Richie Furay was busy this year. But it’s all harmless enough, and they seem to be having fun, so it’s as difficult to resent this as it is to remember it ten minutes later.

The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)

However obvious it sounds in retrospect, the fusing of Dylan and the Beatles was modern rock’s Cartesian moment (and for what it’s worth, cogito, ergo sum seemed pretty self-evident after the fact too). The LP never sounds like an historical artifact, either—forty years after the fact, it still exudes an uncontainable energy. So many genealogies begin here; McGuinn’s jangling guitar bequeathed Peter Buck and indie rock as we know it, and even Michael Clarke, never the world’s greatest drummer, brings a striking visual cool, all t-shirts and eyes buried under hair and sullen lips, looking like nothing so much as a young Thurston Moore. 

The real secret genius, though, is Gene Clark; any band can cover Dylan, but few could deliver originals like his. Bashing out one perfect pop gem after another, he makes it sound easy, so that when the bridge on “You Won’t Have to Cry” threatens to climb a step into straight-up wanna-hold-your-hand-ness, it’s possible to read it as a sophisticated joke rather than aping and have some ground to stand on. Maybe it’s both. Either way, “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” “Here Without You,” It’s No Use,” etc.: ten of the album’s twelve tracks (and all of the originals) clock in under three minutes, often well under (Dylan's "Spanish Harlem Incident" was short; theirs is shorter by 20%, not even two minutes long!), reflecting an intuitive awareness of pop mechanics at their finest; crawl into the ear, get out quick, and leave a lasting earworm. Every single Clark composition is A-side material, every single cover an assertive act of ownership. The American rock LP nearly peaked here, at its birth. 

Graham Nash/David Crosby (1972)

One of the bigger shocks of my recent vinyl-digging adventures has been the resolute mediocrity of Graham Nash’s solo work; I have such positive Hollies associations in my head that I expected more than his trite and fairly tuneless solitary efforts. At least he writes actual songs here, with a few, like opener “Southbound Train,” even rising above the moon/June/spoon template so familiar from his solo LPs. That’s in contrast to Crosby, who continues to warble idiotic sweet nothings over barren soundscapes that never once resemble a verse, chorus, melody, or iota of songwriting aptitude, all the while thinking he’s some sort of countercultural shaman or something. The man’s utter fraudulence is so risible that I can’t play this without ranting to anyone nearby, even if it’s just the cats. I'm pretty sure they hate Crosby, too. 

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band (1974)

It had a certain logic: this worked for CSNY. But this name doesn’t flow as well, and I’m somewhat convinced that’s why it never took off; it’s neither more grating nor less interesting than your average soft-country bland-rockers of the era, but “Poco” rolled off the tongue more cleanly (couldn't they at least have gone with some phonetic version, like Shuff?). 

Oh, and there's music on the round plastic thing, though to what end? It’s sad to hear how little Hillman has left to offer—I keep hoping against hope for another “Have You Seen Her Face,” but no dice. Probably the highlight is when J.D. Souther’s “Deep, Dark, and Dreamless” almost passes for an Eagles song. That should not be a highlight. 

David Crosby and Graham Nash, Wind on the Water (1975)

The relentless crapulence of post-Byrds albums in general, and the sheer offensiveness of David Crosby’s horrid artistic persona in particular, have engendered a certain sourness on my part that can slide into preemptive scorn for these records. So it's through somewhat gritted teeth that I confess, this album isn’t really half bad. In a rare gesture, Crosby awakens from his lifelong stupor to kinda, sorta write actual songs, and as always Nash sounds decent enough as long as you don’t pay more than half-attention. Nothing sticks out, but nothing grates, and what really proves the album’s low-intensity non-failure is that two-part closer “To the Last Whale” somehow manages not to be the abysmal wreck that title very much demands—but then I also like Star Trek IV and even Yes's "Don't Kill the Whale," so there may be a soft spot here I never realized I had. 

McGuinn, Clark & Hillman (1979)

This must have made sense in 1979: three former Byrds, all equally washed up artistically and commercially, getting back together for some of that old magic. It doesn’t happen, of course, though Hillman’s lead track “Long Long Time” has some power-pop zest all too absent from his other solo work. I could see the Plimsouls rocking this.

McGuinn and Clark phone their songs in; the only moxie they bring is in their apparent competition to see who can unbutton his shirt the furthest on a cover shot, with McGuinn winning at near-belly-button depth. With a cross-bearing necklace, Clark looks sleazier, though, grizzled and mean like Rip Torn in Payday, which probably wasn’t far off (his lazy groupie-grabbing “Backstage Pass” only adds to the image). “Release Me Girl” answers the question, what would Gene Clark sound like with a disco-lite arrangement, if anyone was wondering, like some watered-down leftover from No Other, and McGuinn’s closing “Bye Bye, Baby” is fairly lovely if one can hold awareness of the abysmally insipid lyrics at bay. Otherwise, nothing to report here.

Oh, there are unfortunately-placed liner notes on the cover that declare the album has “a timeless quality … that renders analysis insignificant.” Whoever Stephen Peeples is or was, hopefully he felt shame for writing that. Which is not to say further analysis would be effort well spent.

Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969)

So pretty, so dumb: killer harmonies saturate the LP, but the lyrics range from harmlessly mawkish to painful. The whole thing is best listened to at a slight remove, inattentively; at that level—as lovely sounds swirling in the background—it’s a near masterpiece. As songs, these are almost pure trash. At least the titular C is proportionally underrepresented, held to 2.5 songwriting credits of ten tracks; as always, he strains for profundity and achieves instead gasbagitude. Graham Nash probably should have been in the Monkees instead and let Mike Nesmith, a far stronger songwriter, take his role here--but that might not have been fair to Nesmith; not even dealing with Mickey Dolenz could be worse than handling Crosby. Ultimately, this is basically three idiot hippies with nice voices in search of Neil Young.

Roger McGuinn, Thunderbyrd (1977)

Crap like this is why punk had to happen: tired old dinosaur rockers flogging the deadest horses since Nietzsche wept, to ever-dwindling effect. When the highlight of side one is a Peter Frampton cover (it beats the Tom Petty cover, easily), you’re in trouble. McGuinn has nothing left to say (did he ever?), co-writes all whopping four originals with Jacques Levy. Not even Neil Young could probably do much with a song called “Dixie Highway,” and McGuinn/Levy do far less. Only the closing track, “Russian Hill,” one of those older/sadder/wiser songs all the 60s survivors seemed to be doing by 1975 or so, even approaches memorable, and that’s mostly because of the haunted arrangement, which takes hold almost in spite of McGuinn. Also, that is one hell of a losing streak his solo LP cover art is on, crikes.

Skip Battin (1972)

Skip Battin was the Slim Dunlap of the Byrds, joining just in time to ride out the band’s decline. He wrote a few songs on the final few albums, often with cinematic themes; nothing too subtle (cf. “Citizen Kane”), nothing too memorable. I actually like Dunlap’s halfway decent solo albums more; Battin’s s/t 1972 solo debut is basically akin to the originals a moderately talented C&W bar band in Topeka plays between covers. The film stuff continues with “Valentino,” and beats the sports stuff like “The St. Louis Browns,” but absolutely nothing sticks. All the songs are co-written with crackpot loony Kim Fowley, but it doesn’t matter; “Captain Video” aspires to breathless wordsmithery but peaks with “sexual intellectual.”

McGuinn and another Byrd or two show up, but mostly this reminds me of old novelty flexi-discs like the one my dad used to play for my mom on her birthday each year, with a thin-voiced singer crooning about coming from the moon just to sing her a tune. A+ cover art, though.

Roger McGuinn, Peace on You (1974)

It’s awkward and unpleasant to see McGuinn so exposed here, without the rotating cast of talented Byrds to hide behind. Left to his own devices, he reveals himself an uninspired interpreter of other people’s songs (and a godawful  selector on that front—when the dude’s not doing Dylan, he seems to think Dan Fogelberg is the next best thing), and an untalented songwriter with nothing to say and no stylistic flourishes to conceal the absence. It’s really a sad, dispiriting listen in every way, checked-out and half-assed and impossible to commit to memory, possibly the most lifeless thing McGuinn ever did. When that cover art is the best thing about the LP, you know you're in for suffering. 

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, American Dream (1988)

I can’t help assuming these dinosaur rockers, with the possible exception of the recently incarcerated Crosby, were richer than gods, so it’s perplexing to hear them record a transparently pointless paying-the-mortgages record. Usually Young stands out, but this caught him at the absolute nadir of his most somnolent rut; his tunes do sound marginally more awake than the perversely titled Life of the prior year, but that’s an awfully low bar to clear. Crosby, sober but still insufferable, answers the question, What would Jandek sound like if he were auto-tuned, and sucked? on the droning “Compass.” When he turns to politics on “Nighttime for the Generals,” he offers his usual depth of analysis: the CIA, that’s bad. Stills and Nash each turn in a set of lazy-old-men songs, pleasant enough but utterly trifling. I will confess an unexpected semi-friendliness toward Stills’s synth-poppy efforts of the 80s, so concluding with “Night Song” was the right choice. It’s not good, exactly, but the polished sound holds his usual hippie-bloat at bay.

The gross, pandering title and shockingly awful cover art (down to the very font) are somewhat canceled out by the hilarious inside photo of the three blowhards harmonizing, with a bored or disgusted Young sitting on a couch looking like he wants to punch them all. It's better than any of the songs. 

Firefall, s/t (1976)

In the soft-rock-sterility songwriting contest between Rick Roberts and Larry Burnett, we all lose. There’s a faint trace of the core Byrds here, with Chris Hillman picking up a co-writing credit (with Roberts and Stephen Stills) on the modestly captivating “It Doesn’t Matter,” but really Michael Clarke—who mostly does little more than stay in time—is the main link. According to the back cover, he hasn’t aged too well; his lost years were apparently not spent at the practice kit. Otherwise it’s so-soft-it-melted rock all the way through, with songs about love, dolphins, and Cinderella (on the latter of which, Burnett wins some kind of alltime-dick award for shunning a woman he got pregnant and sending her on her way; stay classy, ye gods of MOR FM radio). Props for burying the big hit single “You Are the Woman” deep on side 2, I guess. I like their later album art more, and arguably the albums too.

The Flying Burrito Bros, Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)

Venerated as this album is, I’ve always found it a little stiff, too much a formalist exercise. Gram Parsons wholly subjugates Chris Hillman to his project, but rarely conveys any depth of feeling; “Hot Burrito #1,” one of the few exceptions, comes too late. Likewise, when the band finally unclenches on “Hot Burrito #2,” a weight lifts and some actual air seeps in at last.

Lest this sound harsh, it is, no question, good stuff; ontological status of its authenticity notwithstanding, “Sin City” is simulacra Jean Baudrillard himself would admire, rockist tropes be damned. But the group is best when it stops feigning anachronisms and embraces topicality, as on the draft-evading “My Uncle,” which basically sounds like . . . well, the Byrds (although the less said about the closing atrocity “Hippie Boy,” the better). 

Chris Hillman, Slippin' Away (1976)

For a while, early upon first listening to the Byrds, I thought Chris Hillman was their secret weapon. Turns out that's because I was seduced and deceived by Younger Than Yesterday; his really sharp songwriting more or less began and ended with "Have You Seen Her Face?" 

After a post-Byrds decade spent kicking around in various groups, he began his solo career proper here. Is “a more boring Poco” even a legible phrase? It’s the most accurate description I can devise, and probably more thought than the album merits; it’s never less, but assuredly never more, than pleasant. There’s a song called “Take It On the Run” that isn’t that other “Take It On the Run” and makes one appreciate REO Speedwagon’s pop smarts. There’s a song co-written with Gram Parsons, which might well have been composed after his passing for all the presence it contains. And there’s a random bluegrass closer called “(Take Me In Your) Lifeboat,” which is really all you need to know. Dude is less pompous than David Crosby, is the most glowing comment I can muster.