Buffalo Springfield Again?!

Overall Album Score: 8.4 out of 10

Neil Young seemed to be trying his hardest to remain an independent force all throughout this. He was going all Brian Wilson on the group and hiring outside songwriters and musicians to play two of his songs --- both "Expecting to Fly" and "Broken Arrow." So, whatever dude!! Why don't you just start a solo career if you're going to do that!!!! Despite all that, it's now pretty clear that Neil Young is a best composer of the group. Not that Stephen Stills had gotten worse, but Young had gotten much better.

His Rolling Stones rip-off "Mr. Soul" begins the festivities, and that the boldest song of the whole album BY FAR. He manages to even top that though with the thoroughly gorgeous "Expecting to Fly," which incorporates some classical music violins. They even let Young conclude the album with the six-minute "Broken Arrow." Now, I have very mixed feelings about that song. On the one hand, Young attempts to make a sort of sound collage there, which is the most ambitious undertaking of the whole album. He incorporates sections of audience sound effects, a psychedelically tinged organ and he uses the main ballad "Broken Arrow" (a nice song by itself) as the sort of glue. But this song is as clunky as it can be, and all it does is suggest that Neil Young's ambition didn't match his ability --- at least in 1967.

Stephen Stills doesn't seem to contribute anything too notable or at least anything that threatens to outshine the Young compositions. His psychedelic "Hung Upside Down" is probably his most memorable contribution, but even that's somewhat bland. That guy should get some melody-writing skills!!

Richie Furay tries songwriting for the first time on this album, and he's a mess. I kind of like his song "Child's Claim to Fame," but that even makes Stephen Stills seem like Mr. Excitement. His other two contributions, the hopelessly bland ballad "Sand Memory" and the generic toss-off "Good Time Boy" easily constitute the worst of the album. Maybe he'll get better --- when Buffalo Springfield was through, he went and formed Poco, and maybe that band's great. At this point, I have no idea, 'cos I haven't heard them.

Alright, here's another critically hailed rock album that I don't care about. At the same time, I still think the album is pretty good and enjoyable overall. They don't seem to be much into album-rock (kind of a popular thing in 1967), but I guess that's kind of difficult when the band's already trying to split into three independent nations!

Overall Album Score: 8.4 out of 10 (These guys turn their faces toward psychedelia. This is a wonderful album with several notable flaws... Neil Young is getting very interesting as a composer.)

Average Song Score: 8.2 (The songwriting is OK, but some of it is a little weak --- notably Furay's contributions.)

Album Tilt: 8.5 (Extra points for the diversity. This is fun to listen to even though it might be somewhat weak compositionally.)

Artist Rating: 8.5 (This isn't so much artistically innovative, but it's fairly creative. Plus, I want the main album score to be higher than the first BS album.)

Track Reviews

Mr. Soul 9.5/10

It's funny that this sounds so much like The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," but then I read on Wikipedia that it was written as a variation of that song. What's wrong, Neil Young? You can't write your own awesome riff? Eh whatever, I've heard worse rip-offs in my day! And this is a great song anyway. Naturally, the riff is very catchy, and Young's vocal melody is quite good. My favorite aspect of the song is the trade-off psychedelic soloing in the instrumental interlude is really fun... Ha!

Child's Claim to Fame 8/10

Here's a country-rock ditty from Richie Furay, isn't bad. I like the flow of the song, and the melody is alright if overly simple. The guitar work peppering it up is undoubtedly the finest aspect of this --- and frankly it's still kinda boring.

Everydays 8/10

Stephen Stills' contribution now completes the songwriters' trifecta! So, what's the deal with this song, anyway? It's a cross between psychedelia and jazzy ballad, and there's this silly guitar tone that just plays without changing its tone throughout it. It's kind of a funny song, but it fails to actually capture me. I like the jazzy piano noodling, though, and the melody is rather appropriate.

Expecting to Fly 9.5/10

This starts with a creepy and quiet orchestral build-up in the most psychedelic fashion. Some classical violins begin to play, and then there's the acoustic guitar, and Neil Young starts to sing. The atmosphere of this song is quite enchanting, and I like the instrumentation here. I'm surprised to hear this after just coming off of their rather thin debut album. The melody is OK, and I like his chord progressions.

Bluebird 8/10

This is alright... It's middle-of-the-road as far as songs seem to have been going, but I like their instrumentals. The guitar noodling is very well done, and it's no wonder it's actually more of the showcase of the song than the melody. The melody isn't memorable whatsoever, though, so the guitar noodling isn't really, either. They bring in a banjo in the last half of the song (without doing anything to improve the melody), and I like that sound! (The banjo is an awesome instrument!!!)

Hung Upside Down 8.5/10

A nice old Beatlesesque ballad ... That bass guitar is melodic in a very Beatles way. The bland melody certainly isn't that Beatlesesque, but I guess nothing is unless it's from The Beatles!! The song sounds solid, well-structured and fully developed. The instrumentation is wonderful --- they usually know how to vary sounds to keep the experience interesting.

Sad Memory 7/10

Here is Furay's second foray into songwriting on this album, and it's easily the most boring song of the album so far. I don't have anything against songwriters just strumming an acoustic guitar and singing, but the melody should at least be somewhat engaging. There's some electric guitar piddling in the "distant background," but that's not really enough. To make matters worse, the lyrics are trite.

Good Time Boy 7/10

It is an upbeat though sterile rocker written by Foray and the gruff vocals from drummer Dewey Martin take over! I like his vocals, but that doesn't do a whole lot for the mediocre songwriting. They bring in some session horn musicians to keep the swing... hm...

Rock 'N' Roll Woman 8/10

This is so rocking that I guess it proves that women can't rock! (Hey, it's not me being sexist, it's Stephen Stills!) That riff they use is pretty sterile and their attitude is QUITE wimpy! I can't say that listening to this is a bad experience or anything, because there's some nice guitar noodling through this, and the development is interesting. But --- well, it's unmemorable.

Broken Arrow 8/10

And they let the Supreme Being's six-minute collage ends the festivities. It begins with some audience screaming and a sound snippet of "Mr. Soul." That all stops suddenly, and Young starts to sing the "Broken Arrow" ballad. He recycles his idea to change intermittently between 4/4 and 3/4 time that he tried earlier in "Nowadays Clancy Can't Sing." That all completely ends, and we hear audience noise. An organ begins to play "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and then it fades out into a psychedelic void... OK... that was pointless. The "Broken Arrow" ballad pops up again --- and ya know, that's not a bad ballad at all. That all suddenly stops again, and there's a drum roll that starts up and then fades back into the psychedelic void. Why he has to reuse a gimmick again that didn't work the first time is kind of silly. And, *HMMM* the "Broken Arrow" ballad starts for the third time. The final minute consists of some jazzy noodling... And then some heartbeats (sort of going Pink Floyd there) and that's it. So, let me tell you what I think of this song. I like the "Broken Arrow" melody nicely. But the development is as awkward and clunky as it gets. Not that I don't appreciate Neil Young's creativity, but he should leave that kind of thing to the innovators. (I'm fully expecting him to smite me now...)