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