Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – American Dream Review

Musings on the American Dream and its purpose, even now, filter into music. Be it the lucid pursuit of its meaning with Hunter S. Thompson or the microscopic impact on generations brought up by those who believed in it with LCD Soundsystem, the effect this so-called ambition has on culture is fascinating. David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young reunited a decade on from their solid but overblown Déja Vu album to consider the American Dream. An apt title for their album, too, which would be an inevitably sarcastic and scintillating knock at modern politics of the time. Young leads the charge on the title track, providing one of the few thrills on a lopsided, pop-rock oriented piece. Not a single song here feels ready for public release, and yet it is backed by cheesy production, backing vocal woes and a sense this partnership was more a self-serving nostalgia trip than a creatively viable project. 

“You’re all washed up,” Young sings on the opening, title track. He could easily be referring to the band, but is instead taking aim at the sitting duck targets of politics. Where the four-piece does not get close to the core of the problem with the American Dream, they also find themselves further adrift from one another. Retrospective looks at Déja Vu can highlight the independent working conditions of each member as the strongest, yet weakest, part of their debut. The inverse is true for American Dream. There is an overlap of each member trying to piece together a read on the world around them. What occurs is a maddening, hour-long experience where each song takes an eternity to conclude, yet says nothing of value. A bit like listening to Bryan Adams, though with more warmth. 

Because even with the dispiriting, sluggish tone of This Old House, there is conviction and chemistry. They may have wanted to hammer one another to death with their instruments but when they find the time to work over a harmony or to strip back a song to its primitive acoustic core, American Dream succeeds. The unrelenting force of pop-slop tones meets the evidently moveable object of four musicians who were lost in their solo careers. Shadowland may be the worst song each man has ever been involved in, and that includes T-Bone. It has the band sounding more like a Genesis tribute than a set of seasoned instrumentalists chasing down and torturing information out of the American Dream. Most of the songs featured on American Dream lack the heart which guided their solo works, with much of it a relatively flat hit out at the powers that be.  

Like the Elephant’s Foot radiation pile or failing to accurately compile tax, as Drivin’ Thunder warns of, American Dream inspired change. Young would ditch the chilling 1980s instrumental choices of Trans and Everybody’s Rocking for a more acceptable, less infuriating noise. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young suggest the American Dream is not an ideal or an achievement, but what you can hold onto. When the government comes for you, when the banks are on the hill, scoping out what they can haul away in tax or treasure, keeping hold of your worth is what matters. A neat message which is more projected onto American Dream than appears throughout. What American Dream offers is minimal and expired instrumental structures for the four songwriters, who deal with cliché and taxingly dull similes throughout their mismanaged reunion.