American Dream (Album)

American Dream is the second studio album by the rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The reunion of Crosby, Stills & Nash with Neil Young 18 years after their debut album, Déjà Vu was eagerly awaited, but could neither total artistic yet commercially build on the great success of Déjà Vu.

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After their success with the albums Daylight Again ( Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1982) and Rust Never Sleeps ( Neil Young, 1979) were all four musicians have gone through artistically and commercially difficult phases of their careers since 1983: David Crosby, who with especially had massive drug problems to deal with and even spent nine months in prison, had arrived by the connected with drug use vocal problems at the low point and was noticeably absent as a musician at this time of publication. Stephen Stills was with his 1984 solo album, Right by You flunked buyers and critics alike and then largely disappeared from the public. Similar thing happened to Graham Nash, whose solo album Innocent Eyes (1986 ) was equally rated poorly and sold even worse than Stills ' Right by You. Neil Young put fans and critics 1983-1988 have a set of musical directionless works, but none of which can also be referred to as chart success.

With American Dream Neil Young broke a promise that he had given David Crosby: He'll work on a CSNY album, if Crosby his serious drug problems should finally get a grip. Crosby in turn had now brought in prison actually a successful rehab behind him, so that the album nothing stood in the way. American Dream was planned as a concept album about the American dream, but this could give many critics say hardly. While the different songwriting talents of all four musicians had formerly led to stylistically diverse yet musically dense Publications, American Dream gathered mostly average material which " lacked the spark just that this group made ​​it so much more than the sum of its parts" how the Allmusic guide stated. However, the album contained some real highlights, including Neil Young and David Crosby's This Old House Compass include; and the single Got It Made, a composition by Stephen Stills and Neil Young, was quite successful: Although it only reached number 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but was the eleventh place of the AC charts and even first place in the mainstream rockcharts conquer. To immaturity of the album put the criticism of the magazine Rolling Stone stated, " Despite pleasing melodies, from time to time an interesting song and the characteristic vocal harmonies American Dream is mostly a bore. " ( " Despite pleasant melodies, the occasional interesting song and the signature harmonies, American Dream is, for the most part, a snoozefest. " ) In contrast, Allmusic Guide remarked in retrospect, rightly, that the expectations for the album were so ambitious that it seemed much worse then the critics than it actually was. The German music journalist Frank Laufenberg called the album even " very strong".

American Dream reached # 16 on the U.S. charts and even received platinum status. It was for all four musicians to long " dry spells " again a success - though not altogether in an artistic sense, yet in commercial.

Was it after the successful CSNY tour 1974 the Missing album, which disappointed the fans, now the tour failed to materialize after a successful album, as Neil Young himself wanted to dedicate his solo career again.

Title list

Instrumentation and instruments

  • David Crosby: lead vocals ( 6,11 ), Acoustic Guitar ( 9:11), vocals
  • Stephen Stills: lead vocals ( 2,8,10,14 ), electric guitar ( 3,4,6,8,9,10,14 ), Keyboards ( 1.2 ), Bass Synth ( 4), Guitar Solo ( 6), Percussion ( 8), Acoustic Guitar (12) synthesizer (14 ), handclaps (14 ), bass (14 ), singing
  • Graham Nash: lead vocals ( 4,7,9,12 ), Piano ( 4), electric guitar (6 ), sound effects ( 7) Keyboards (9 ), vocals
  • Neil Young: lead vocals ( 1,3,5,8,13,14 ), electric guitar ( 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,12,14 ), percussion (3, 13), Piano (4 ), all instruments ( 5), harmonica (11) Acoustic Guitar (13 ), singing

Other musicians

  • Joe Vitale: Drums ( 1,2,3,4,6,8,9,14 ), synthesizers ( 4), almost all the instruments ( 7), sound effects ( 7), Percussion ( 8:13) Keyboards ( 9,10,11,12 ), Vibes (13 )
  • Bob believers: Bass ( 1,2,3,6,8,9,10,12 )
  • Joe Lala: Percussion ( 2,7,9,10 ), drums (12 )
  • Niko Bolas, Tim Mulligan, Tim Foster, Brentley Walton: handclaps ( 1)
  • Brian Bell: Synthesizer Programming ( 5)
  • Michael Finnigan: Hammond B3 organ (6 ) Keyboards (12 ), background vocals (12 )
  • Rhett Lawrence: Additional Synthesizer Programming
  • The Volume Dealers Choir: Final Chorus (12 )
  • Bill Boydstun, Don Gooch, Bill Lazerus: Sound Effects ( 7)
  • Chad Cromwell: drums (10 )
  • The Blue Notes, Larry Cragg, Steve Lawrence, Tommy Bray, Claude Cailliet, John Fumo: Winds ( 10)

Documents

  • Album ( rock )
  • Album 1988
  • Crosby, Stills and Nash
Record label Genre Rock music
58075
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