Christgau vs. Steven Sills, Part 1

As a Facebook timeline cover photo, this is worth an A+.
(photo credit: NNDB)

Let's face it: Robert Christgau has his favorites, and he'd probably be the first to admit that.

Every critic, every person who consumes anything (that is, you), we all have our favorites. If I could buy advance tickets for the next Coen Brothers movie, whenever that'll be, I would, even if it turns out less like Miller's Crossing and more like The Ladykillers.

Likewise, there are artists of every medium whom you probably can't stand: nothing they do is worthy of acclaim, even if they sell millions of tickets or albums. (Sometimes 50 million Elvis fans can be wrong.)

Based on Christgau's reviews of Stephen Stills, known to many as the "S" in CSN and CSNY, the Dean of Rock Critics is not a fan.

IT'S AS IF HE JUST GAVE UP ON HIM AFTER 1975
To be fair — that is, to be accurate — Christgau's site contains reviews for only four albums that could be categorized as "solo Stills," none after 1975, and one of those, Manassas, is the first of two albums by a Stills-piloted band of the same name, a band described by whoever wrote its Wikipedia page as "[p]redominantly a vehicle for Stills' artistic vision":

STEPHEN STILLS: Hey man, I'm starting a band. Wanna join?
MUSICIAN: What's the band gonna be about? Like, what kind of songs are we playing?
STEPHEN STILLS: Well, the band is being constructed predominantly as a vehicle for my artistic vision.
MUSICIAN: Predominantly as a vehicle for your artistic vision, you say? When do we rehearse?

But I'm already getting ahead of myself. Let us relish the four reviews, one at a time, starting with, well, the first one.




First victim: Stephen Sills (1970)

Stills always projects an effortless swing, and his tradeoffs with
Eric Clapton on "Go Back Home" are keen and then some.
He seems too damn skillful to put down. Yet there's something terribly
undefined about this record. Hmm--maybe it's the songs. C+

Ouch. This review has the most biting use of a "Hmm" that you'll ever see. Too bad Christgau doesn't review album covers, because I'd love to know his thoughts on this one.

ALBUM PHOTOGRAPHER: You want to what for the album cover?
STEPHEN STILLS: Sit on that log out there, playing my guitar.
ALBUM PHOTOGRAPHER: You know there's like six inches of snow on the ground.
STEPHEN STILLS: Yes! And I won't be wearing a coat or anything. And hey, can we get a large, red, replica giraffe?

But what about the album? Stills recorded this at the height of CNSY's success, and he recruited an all-star supporting crew. The people who appear on this record who are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (including Stills himself) include:

• Ringo Starr
• Booker T. Jones
• Jimi Hendrix (who died before the album was released)
• David Crosby and Graham Nash (the C and N of CSNY)
• Eric Clapton
• "Mama" Cass Elliot
• John Sebastian of The Lovin' Spoonful

They didn't all play on the same track, however, and that's probably a good thing. The album contains Stills' best-known song, "Love the One You're With." The single's cover has Stills riding a horse while sporting the same shirt he's wearing at the top of the post:

Let's hope the horse isn't the one he was "with."

In the interest of trivia, I tried to find out whether there's any significance with that jersey. It looks like a San Diego Chargers jersey, but there's no one of note that wore #41, according to a surprisingly helpful site I found. Maybe it was just a generic shirt, and it was one of his favorites. I had a shirt that had "99" on the sides of the shoulders. It was kind of a softball shirt, but the numbers weren't placed in a softball-uniform sort of way. But I loved that shirt and wore it throughout my senior year and college and yes I am digressing.

Back to the album: Allmusic likes it very much. In his 4.5-star review, Bruce Eder says that "listening to this album three decades on, it's still a jaw-dropping experience."

"Jaw-dropping" vs. "Hmm." This must explain why the Wikipedia article calls the reception to Stephen Sills "decidedly mixed."

One can call in Rolling Stone to break the tie. "I'm not saying I don't like this album" is the conclusion of the RS reviewer, who notes that "I must have played this album a dozen times, and have yet to distinguish between the songs, which must either have identical tunes or be in the same key." He does predict that "'Love The One You're With' will make a killer single."

With all that in mind, I'll have to side with Christgau, at least until I have a chance to listen to the entire album myself. I'll try to continue with the Christgau vs. Stills showdown in future posts, but until then, I'm going to work on variations of the Rolling Stone conclusion.

"No, Bill, I'm not saying I don't like that presentation..."

"No,  Mom, I'm not saying I don't like the way you and Dad raised me..."

"No, Honey, I'm not saying I don't like the way that dress looks on you..."