| Buffalo Springfield | 1966 |
| Buffalo Springfield Again | 1967 |
| Last Time Around | 1968 |
| The Best Of Buffalo Springfield: Retrospective (compilation) | 1969 |
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(reviewed by Samuel Fassbinder)
If I were Nick Karn, I would place this album under either the heading "Neil Young" or "Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young," since both Stills and Young were in Buffalo Springfield. Stills and Young are the reasons why one listens to this band, BTW. The middle album is supposed to be the best, that's what Wilson & Alroy said. This album starts out with "Mr. Soul," one of Neil's best songs. The lyrics are supposed to be a parodic attack upon the music industry, or so a critic (whose name I forget) once said. Richie Furay, later of Poco, did the next song, "A Child's Claim To Fame." Very country, lots of twangy guitars. "Everydays," the next song, is an early Stephen Stills effort, very mellow, with this electronic hum in the background. "Expecting To Fly" has twangy guitars like the Richie Furay song, except that there are violins and spacy organ echoes in the background, very cinematic, very imitation Sergeant Pepper's.
The next song is "Bluebird," another Stephen Stills song, with that mid-'60s distorted electric guitar sound doing duo with a rockin' acoustic guitar effort. After that we have "Hung Upside Down," more of that distorted guitar, "Look what's happenin' to me/ I'm goin' blind/ Please help/ There I sat until 3/ Gettin' further behind myself/ And I'm hung upsiiiide down..." "Sad Memory" and "Good Time Boy" are both Furay tunes, "Sad Memory" bringing the listener low-key pathos and "Good Time Boy" is imitation James Brown or something like that. "Rock & Roll Woman" was more early Stills, very mellow and with a great pop hook repeated over and over, and "Broken Arrow" another enigmatic Neil Young number, with lots of cinematic interruptions in the vein of McCartney and Lennon's "A Day In The Life." "Did you see him in the river?/ He was there to wave to you/ Could you tell that the empty quivered / Brown skinned/ Indian on the banks that were crowded and narrow/ Held a/ Broken arrow?"
So, what do we have here? Three bizarre Neil Young numbers, two of them pretty good ("Mr. Soul" and "Broken Arrow"), some mellow Stephen Stills stuff ("Everydays," "Bluebird," "Hung Upside Down," "Rock & Roll Woman,") and some boring Richie Furay stuff, which I won't even list. Ten tunes, eight of them under four minutes, "Bluebird" at 4:28 and "Broken Arrow" at 6:13. I think this band was supposed to be an arrangement of convenience for its members, that's why they signed up for three albums and out. If this album is refreshing, it's refreshing the way a glass of milk is refreshing, cool and clean and white and it helps you get to bed at night. I'd give this one a 7, since its strengths more than make up for the fact that much of its sound is not even as original as the sound you can hear on the Fish's Together album. But otherwise I think that Wilson and Alroy have this stuff rated too high. Four stars is equivalent to an 8, no? Maybe this album is supposed to be Sergeant Pepper's repackaged for middle America, a place where I've had difficulty fitting in.
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(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
A very influential band as they were the pioneers of country rock. The great harmonies, fine melodies, and interesting blend of pop, folk, and country earned them a high reputation. They were up there right behind the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan when it came to their songwriting. The hippie anthem "For What It's Worth" is a very effective song dealing about protesting the Vietnam war, a nice tune that has a wah wah guitar in it and soft spoken lyrics sung by Stephen Stills. Also Stills half folkish "Bluebird", and irresistible "Rock And Roll Woman" are classics on here.
Neil Young was another huge force in the band coming up with the classics "Mr. Soul", "Broken Arrow", and "I Am A Child". Mostly it's the songs from their second album that are the best on here, since they were basically broken up by the time the third album came out, so one of them, "Kind Woman" (a countryish song) is not as good as the rest. Their earlier songs like "Sit Down, I Think I Love You" and "Nowadays Clancey Can't Even Sing" are good too, they all contain an early more folky sound compared to their more poppy, rocking, and countryish sound of 1967. The only song I don't really like on here is "Expecting To Fly"; I dont know why, maybe it's just too lush and it doesn't have a good melody. After this short-lived but innovative group, Stills would become a part of the successful band called Crosby, Stills, and Nash in 1969, with Young joining a year later.
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