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Live It Up (Crosby, Stills & Nash album)

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Live It Up
Studio album by
ReleasedJune 26, 1990
RecordedFebruary 1, 1986 – February 5, 1990
GenreRock
Length39:17
LabelAtlantic
ProducerCrosby, Stills & Nash
Joe Vitale, Stanley Johnston
Crosby, Stills and Nash chronology
American Dream
(1988)
Live It Up
(1990)
CSN
(1991)

Live It Up is the sixth studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their fourth studio album in the trio configuration, released on Atlantic Records in 1990. It peaked at No. 57 on the Billboard 200 with current sales of 300,000. It is the first of their studio albums not to gain either a gold or platinum certification by the RIAA.[1] It was issued in all formats at the time (compact disc, cassette tape, and vinyl record) and was later released for streaming.

Background

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After David Crosby's release from prison, he reunited with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash for CSN tours in 1987 and 1988.[2] The recording of American Dream with Neil Young took place over the course of those years, but the quartet opted not to tour to promote it. The album was not well received, and Stills viewed it as "contrived".[3] In 1989, Stills and Young commenced tours with their own bands, while Crosby and Nash began work on what was to be a new Crosby & Nash record. Crosby also released his second solo album Oh Yes I Can that same year.[4] Stills regrouped with Crosby and Nash to perform at the collapse of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, and the sessions for the new Crosby & Nash album evolved into the new Crosby, Stills & Nash one instead.[5] Atlantic had encouraged the inclusion of Crosby into the Stills–Nash project that became Daylight Again back in 1981.[6]

Recording

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The album was recorded at several recording studios around Los Angeles, the majority at The Record Plant, although part of "Live It Up" began at the Home-Brew Studio in Ohio and was finished at the professional location. "If Anybody Had a Heart", "Arrows", and "After the Dolphin" were recorded at Devonshire Studios; "(Got to Keep) Open" was recorded at Capitol Records studios.

Nash, the nominal leader of these recordings, expressed misgivings about the sessions. In addition to feeling uncomfortable in a leadership position, he stated that "only once did we sing together on one mike. So in that sense, it was not really a true CSN record."[5]

The band toured to promote the album in 1990, but none of these songs found a permanent place in the group's repertoire, with only "House of Broken Dreams" and "Yours and Mine" being performed a handful of times beyond the 1990 outing.[7]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[8]
Entertainment WeeklyC+[9]
Select[10]

Greg Sandow commented in Entertainment Weekly that Live it Up is dominated by tunes which are catchy but generic and mindless. He added that the songs "Yours and Mine", "Arrows", and in particular "After the Dolphin" offer genuine depth and meaning, but that the overall product is "a strangely bland album that only die-hard fans will love."[9]

Jeff Giles covered Live it Up in his retrospective series "Whoops!", assessing it as an embarrassingly failed attempt to marry the hippie sensibilities of Crosby, Stills & Nash's past with the glossy production values of the era in which the album was recorded. He cited its contemporary, Don Henley's The End of the Innocence, as a much more successful attempt at this combination.[11] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann praised both the band's singing and the performances of the session musicians, and argued that it is only a complete lack of good songs which makes Live it Up the weakest Crosby, Stills & Nash studio album.[8]

Track listing

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Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead VocalsLength
1."Live It Up"Joe VitaleNash3:54
2."If Anybody Had a Heart"John David Souther, Danny KortchmarNash4:28
3."Tomboy"Stephen StillsStills3:22
4."Haven't We Lost Enough?"Stills, Kevin CroninStills with Crosby & Nash3:06
5."Yours and Mine"Craig Doerge, David Crosby, Graham NashCrosby4:21
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead VocalsLength
1."(Got to Keep) Open"Stills, NashStills4:40
2."Straight Line"Tony BeardNash3:12
3."House of Broken Dreams"NashNash3:18
4."Arrows"Michael Hedges, CrosbyCrosby3:51
5."After the Dolphin"Nash, DoergeNash5:05

Personnel

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Crosby, Stills & Nash

  • David Crosby – backing vocals, electric guitar (3), lead vocals (5, 9, 10)
  • Stephen Stills – backing vocals, lead guitar (1), guitar solo (2), lead vocals (3, 4, 6, 10), keyboards (3), electric guitar (3, 7), acoustic guitar (4, 6), bass (6)
  • Graham Nash – backing vocals, lead vocals (1, 2, 7, 8, 10), acoustic guitar (3, 8)

Additional personnel

Production

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  • Crosby, Stills & Nash – producers
  • Stanley Johnston – producer, engineer (1, 3–9), mixing
  • Joe Vitale – producer, additional engineer
  • Niko Bolas – engineer (2, 10)
  • Allen Abrahamson – additional engineer
  • Ray Blair – additional engineer
  • Scott Gordon – additional engineer
  • Charlie Paakkari – additional engineer
  • Jim Mitchell – additional engineer
  • Eric Schilling – additional engineer
  • Mike Bosley – assistant engineer
  • Darryl Dobson – assistant engineer
  • Larry Goodwin – assistant engineer
  • Bill Dooley – editing
  • Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York)
  • Jimmy Wachtel – art direction
  • David Peters – cover art
  • Sarajo Frieden – logotype

References

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  1. ^ "RIAA - Soundscan". Greasylakes. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  2. ^ Zimmer, Dave. Crosby, Stills & Nash The Biography. Da Capo Press 2000, ISBN 0-306-80974-5, p. 265.
  3. ^ Zimmer (2000), p. 266.
  4. ^ Zimmer (2000), pp. 267-268.
  5. ^ a b Zimmer (2000), p. 268.
  6. ^ Zimmer (2000), pp. 229.
  7. ^ "Crosby, Stills & Nash Tour Statistics | setlist.fm". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  8. ^ a b Ruhlmann, William (2011). "Live It Up – Crosby, Stills & Nash | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
  9. ^ a b Sandow, Greg (July 20, 1990). "Live it Up". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 30 December 2018.
  10. ^ O'Connell, Clodagh (August 1990). "Crosby Stills And Nash: Live It Up". Select. No. 2. p. 92.
  11. ^ Giles, Jeff (March 4, 2010). "Whoops!: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Live it Up". Pop Dose. Retrieved 30 December 2018.