Byrds, s/t (1973)

The main thing a 1973 album featuring all five original Byrds (no "the" anymore, it seems) has going for it is low expectations; none of these dudes was near his prime by this point except for Gene Clark (and nobody seemed to care about him, inexplicably), so to hear this album rise to comfortable mediocrity is a pleasant surprise. That said, apparently nobody had lower expectations than the Byrds themselves, since most of them bring their scattered leftover songs rather than prime material, which they hoarded for their various solo pursuits. It’s like some unfortunate hybrid of the prisoner’s dilemma and the free rider problem.

It starts off strong, with Clark’s “Full Circle” (admittedly, recycled from his solo album Roadmaster, but given that that album only came out in, what, the Netherlands, I’ll call this fair) and another Clark tune on the first side; it’s smart enough to bury its two tuneless David Crosy atrocities on side two (one of which is also repeated, less excusably, from his own solo album of two years earlier). Chris Hillman gets two breezy little ditties that anticipate the effortlessly-forgettable Doobie Bros, and McGuinn even offers a decent folksy tune of his own (in addition to the bottom-feeding “Born to Rock’n Roll,” the sort of thing T-Rex did better but which should really not be done at all).

It’s rounded out by two Neil Young covers, bad ideas both. “Cowgirl in the Sand” comes at its most un-rocking, McGuinn’s claims notwithstanding, and while I understand the impulse to cover “(See the Sky) About to Rain,” truly one of the most beautiful songs in the Young songbook, not even Clark's vocals can top Young's own, and the band plays watered-down soft rock.

Why the back cover so emphasizes Hillman's splayed crotch, that I cannot say.