Published on Oct 12, 1999
Recently I’ve become quite taken with the music of the Byrds,
perhaps the seminal American ’60s pop group. The last time the
group graced these pages, I reviewed their sophomore effort,
Turn! Turn! Turn!, a work that showed a great deal of energy
and imagination but with the rough edges of a relatively new band.
By their third album,
Fifth Dimension, the Byrds had truly completed the circle
and become a real folk-rock powerhouse, and with
Younger Than Yesterday, the final “classic period” Byrds
record, the group made perhaps their definitive statement.
Younger Than Yesterday is not perfect. But it’s close. It
features some of the Byrds’ most lasting radio hits–both the
original (“So You Want To Be a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”) and the cover
(Dylan’s “My Back Pages”). But it also includes some of their most
avant-garde and interesting work.
The record kicks off with “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”, one of the
group’s most famous pieces, with Chris Hillman’s bubbly bass line,
Roger McGuinn’s jangly guitar leads and a perfectly appropriate
horn solo flying above tight three-piece harmonies
(Hillman-McGuinn-David Crosby). The lyrics are a sardonic shot at
the music industry. The star of
Younger Than Yesterday is Chris Hillman. Hillman, for the
first time, is an active songwriter on this album, and in fact
provides the lion’s share of the material. “Have You Seen Her Face”
is the first of his songs, and is a happy, harmony-driven
stereotypical ’60s pop song (note that this doesn’t make it bad,
quite the opposite, actually)
Crosby contributes three pieces, all of which are introspective,
relatively slow-paced works. “Everybody’s Been Burned” is a
melancholy number that showcases Crosby’s impressive voice, which
rarely comes to the fore on Byrds records except in the three-part
harmonies. “Mind Gardens” is a truly unique track. The lyrics have
no rhyme or meter, they have a flowing, free-association intensity
that is added to by backwards guitars and the almost Indian feel of
the backing track. “Renaissance Fair” is the third, and is a dreamy
track about Crosby’s experiences at a renaissance festival (which I
suppose weren’t as cliched in 1967 as they are in the 1990s). The
bonus tracks on this reissue include some additional Crosby
tracks–“Lady Friend” and the surprisingly good “It Happens Each
Day”, which apparently marks Crosby’s first use of sea imagery in a
song.
Hillman’s other contributions include the country-tinged “Time
Between” and a rocker called “Thoughts And Words” that powers along
over Michael Clarke’s ferocious drumming. McGuinn takes center
stage on the fun space-rocker “CTA-102” (the second half of this
song, unfortunately, has to rank up there with the great “What were
they thinking?” moments of rock music) and an excellent cover of
Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages”, which is easily the group’s best Dylan
interpretation and must rank as one of the Byrds’ great
achievements.
The verdict: Get the
Greatest Hits album first. Then it’s a toss-up between this
and
Fifth Dimension.