Crosby, Stills and Nash

While dominated instrumentally by Stephen Stills, founder of the pioneering folk rockers Buffalo Springfield, CSN's impressive debut album reflected three distinct sensibilities. Enraptured at the time with Judy Collins, Stills led with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"; the seven-minute mini-epic conveyed his easy mastery of a number of styles (folk ballad, light rock, Latin-inflected rhythm), highlighted his sharp guitar work, and introduced the soaring ensemble harmonies that would become the group's trademark. Nash's slight but charming "Marrakesh Express" extended from the fluid pop he'd perfected with the Hollies. Ex-Byrd David Crosby turned in the loosely structured ballad "Guinevere" -- all drifty atmosphere and wide-eyed poetry, it exemplified his hippie mysticism. Of as much sociological as musical interest, the album exactly captured the spirit of the last high moment of the American '60s. Exhausted by Vietnam, embarked upon mind expansion and lifestyle rebellion, the CSN generation found in the band both spokesmen and representatives; the singers' slightly weary utopianism, their bucolic fantasies, and their songs about love and its losses reflected the inward turning of an aging youth culture, the movement away from public struggle to self-examination.

By the time of CSN, the moment that lent intensity and credibility to the trio's songs had passed, and its music had become nice, bland, and comfortable. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nash's simple popcraft produced the most dependable of CSN's mild pleasures. Daylight Again was no great shakes, either, even if Crosby's voice sounded stronger than his years of highly publicized hard living might suggest. "Might As Well Have a Good Time" underscored the album's air of drastically lowered expectations -- and the song wasn't even an original. Live It Up was an embarrassment; overreliant on outside writers for inspiration, the group sounded tired and confused, and a techno-happy production, full of synthesizer rhythm tracks, didn't help. After the Storm, one more attempt to rekindle the fire, was also disappointing. Replay is a compilation of material from the debut and the singers' solo projects. With 25 of its 77 selections being alternate takes or previously unreleased rarities, the CSN box set not only documents the group's history thoroughly, but it unearths quite a few pleasant surprises. (PAUL EVANS)