Thoughts on CSN Demos:
Record review, streaming, and tour dates

Who knew that the best way to enshrine Crosby, Stills & Nash would be to remove the harmonies?

Out today, CSN Demos covers some of the group’s more memorable early takes between 1968 and 1971, including rough cuts of “Almost Cut My Hair,” “You Don’t Have to Cry,” “Déjà Vu,” and “Chicago.”

As outtake/demo discs go, the appeal of CSN Demos is closer to that of the Beatles‘ Anthologies than of, say, the Exile on Main Street Outtakes. (The former offered substantial insight into the songs’ geneses, whereas the latter was a mash of B-takes and unmastered irrelevancies.) All of which is to say that the new disc accomplishes something of which only the best vaultstuffs are capable: re-illuminating the original takes while standing as a damn decent record in its own right.

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Record review, streaming, and tour dates” »