Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Crosby, Stills & Nash - After the Storm - Alternate Version (1994)

I've posted a bunch of Crosby, Stills & Nash or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young albums so far, working my way chronologically through their long career. Here's another one, and I've got a lot more to go.

My last CSN album posted here was a revamp of their 1990 "Live It Up" album. Unfortunately, the official version of that album was poor, and the cover was notoriously bad. This album is a revamp of their 1994 album "After the Storm." Happily, the official  version album is much better, so much so that I've kept the name. The production was also better, though still somewhat problematic at times. However, there are a few duds that really bring the album down as a whole. So what I've done is replace those duds with better songs they did from the same time period.

A good example of a dud is the song "Bad Boyz." Just from the title, and especially the spelling of "Boyz," I was pretty sure I was going to dislike the song even before I heard it, and I was right. I also removed "Only Waiting for You," "Find a Dream," and "Street to Lean On." Additionally, I didn't like "It Won't Go Away" at all, but in concert it was performed in a solo acoustic style that turned a bad song into a good one, in my opinion. So I used an unreleased live version for that one.

After removing four songs, I added four. Some of the solo albums done around this time were pretty good, so I didn't want to take songs from them if I could help it. Thus, for three of the added songs, I've used unreleased versions, generally taken from concerts. But there was one song, "Yvette in English," that I thought is really good and I couldn't find any alternate version, so I've used the version from David Crosby's "Thousand Roads" album. If you have that album and don't want the duplication, just remove that song and you'll still have a solid album here.

"After the Storm" was the lowest selling album in CSN's long career. Even with better songs and better production than their last album, they were still badly out of sync with the times, and the record company reportedly gave it next to no push. But in retrospect, I think it's better than its reputation suggests, especially with the song changes. You should give it a try.

01 Thousand Roads (David Crosby)
02 Panama (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
03 Unequal Love (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
04 Camera (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
05 It Won't Go Away (Crosby Stills & Nash)
06 Till It Shines (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
07 Amazonia (Stephen Stills)
08 These Empty Days (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
09 Rusty and Blue (David Crosby)
10 After the Storm (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
11 Yvette in English (David Crosby)
12 In My Life (Crosby, Stills & Nash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16408052/CROSBSTLLSNSH1994AftrthStrm_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a graphic from a CSN T-shirt from the era of the album.

1 comment:

  1. Great article. I agree...they had a few classic songs at the time that should have been used to make this a great album. I think they should not have released Live It Up as a CSN album. Would have preferred that they kept Haven’t We Lost Enough for a proper CSN album and put it on After The Storm. Same for Isn’t It So...a classic CSN song that went unnoticed on Stills Alone in ‘91. I also think the same as you about Crosby’s Thousand Roads. Stills’ songs on After The Storm were the least ‘classic’ and you can’t have a classic CSN album without classic Stills songs. Nash, surprisingly had his best songs on any CSN or CSNY albums (yup, I said it). Crosby had some great ones too (Camera and Till It Shines). I don’t think they needed the Beatles cover either, although it is really well done. So, here is my wish for what they put out as CSN using the best they had at the time:

    Isn’t It So
    After The Storm
    Camera
    Only Waiting For You (without the cheesy keys/synth...piano is good)
    These Empty Days
    ‘Till It Shines

    Thousand Roads (tighten it up with Stills on lead instead)
    Haven’t We Lost Enough
    Unequal Love
    Street To Lean On
    Find A Dream
    Panama (without the cheesy keys/synths...lol)

    I think it would have been my second favourite CSN album (debut is #1) and a cap on their career. Where the f#c! was their management? Oh well...I will make my playlist.
    Cheers.

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