Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Déjà Vu (Atlantic 1970)

‘Déjà Vu’ was the first, and surely best, studio album from this supergroup. It has long been among my favourite albums from the early 70’s, simply because of all the wonderful songs here. It’s a quite rocking album too, actually, and the most rocking song of them all is the classic ‘Almost Cut My Hair’, written by David Crosby. Check out the unbelievably authoritarian vocal on this one! That alone makes the song a masterpiece, but also the tight arrangement and wonderful early 70’s-feeling. Certainly my favourite track on the album, but let’s not forget about the driving opener ‘Carry On’ – with CSN&Y’s trademark vocal harmonies that could rival even The Beatles. The album also features more laidback songs, like the well known classics ‘Helpless’, ‘Our House’ (can music be more cosy than that one?) and not at least ‘Woodstock’ (originally by Joni Mitchell, of course) – the most well known song here. If one should want to be very critical, one could say that the album is a bit like ‘here are my songs, and there are your songs’, making ‘Déjà Vu’ not as stylistically coherent as for instance the first Crosby, Stills & Nash-album. But why the hell should you care about that? Every song here is a classic, and the album is essential for all lovers of not only folk rock, but early 70’s music in general.