Buffalo Springfield

Artist Rating: 74%

Peak Album Score: 22

Average Album Score: 19

Development Score: 7

- The change from mediocre folk-rock songs to crazy, ambitious folk-prog suites and orchestrated rock songs is a notable one. They really branched out.

Originality Score: 7

- Again, the group's second album is quite unlike anything else, but the elements are all familiar.

Personal Bias Score: 19

- Neither Stills' songwriting brilliance nor Young's spare emotional genius really bloomed until after the group split up, but it's neat to see those two seeds in growth. Plus, the songs aren't bad.

Buffalo Springfield (1966) - 78%
This album finds three songwriters with potential failing to exhibit much of it at all. Very few songs surpass the muck of total unmemorability, and while I don't usually criticize songs for not being too catchy, when simple pop songs are unmemorable it is a bad thing. Even the album's popular single ("For What It's Worth") is pretty placid and uneventful, leaving Neil Young's the only songs of any interest, which are at least weird, if still messy and unmemorable.

- Highlights: "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing", "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong", "Burned"

Buffalo Springfield Again (1967) - 86%
This album makes no sense to me. To say that Stills and Young came of maturity between this and the previous album is absurd, especially given that Young's songs here are hardly similar to what his style would ultimately become, but the songs are that much better. Young's two hodgepodge epics ('collages'), "Expecting to Fly" and "Broken Arrow" work perfectly well here, and manage to be both beautiful and avant-garde. "Mr. Soul", also Young's, is the group's most convincing rocker by far. Stills' songs are also infinitely better here, with "Hung Upside Down" and "Rock 'n' Roll Woman" boasting really memorable progressions and structures, and "Bluebird" great energy.

- Highlights: "Mr. Soul", "Expecting to Fly", "Bluebird", "Hung Upside Down", "Rock 'n' Roll Woman", "Broken Arrow"

Last Time Around (1968) - 79%
This is Buffalo Springfield's (inexplicably called The American Beatles in their heyday...I guess everybody in the band wrote songs?) Abbey Road, you might say: the band was totally fragmented and about to explode in different directions. Young, in particular, was expecting to fly (hah...), as the album cover well displays. I still enjoy his songs best, though this album is pretty consistently good (not great). Stills' songs cover a nice range, from weird lounge things to latin jams, while Young's two contributions turn out to be the major highlights for me. I'm definitely, absolutely biased towards anything he wrote (I'm an enormous fan, and am probably just geared towards melodies of his style by now), so maybe that's it.

- Highlights: "On the Way Home", "I Am a Child"