1 So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star
2 Have You Seen Her Face
3 The Girl with No Name
4 Renaissance Fair
5 Time Between
6 Everybody's Been Burned
Given the tumult surrounding the Byrds at the end of 1966, it’s a wonder the group created such a stellar album as Younger Than Yesterday. Yet hindsight of over a half-century is particularly revelatory, both in terms of how this iconic American band found new resources within itself even as the members struggled to rise above the growing discord in their ranks.
This fourth Byrds album is as remarkable for what it might have been—a work of invention comparable to the Beatles’ Revolver–as for what it actually is as originally released: a formidable transitional work. On this first album to be entirely recorded by the Byrds without Gene Clark’s participation, guitarists Roger McGuinn and David Crosby continued to hone their songwriting skills; they even co-wrote “Why” in an attempt to fill the void left by that founding member and chief composer’s abrupt departure early in the year prior to the release of Younger Than Yesterday.
Yet the paucity of original ideas for self-composed material that would plague McGuinn’s solo career (and the latter days of the Byrds’ existence) also manifests itself here. “CTA 102” continues his fascination with science fiction as introduced with “Mr. Spaceman,” but hardly extends the stylistic reach of this record (or its predecessors): it might well have been excised altogether and replaced with “It Happens Each Day,” a radiant, fully-formed outtake written by Crosby. “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” however, is something else again, a wry commentary of pop celebrity set to an insistent rhythm from co-author Chris Hillman’s bass, over which South African Hugh Masekela plays a bracing trumpet.
It is the first use of brass on a Byrds recording but hardly the last. Such instrumentation is integral to a superb cut of David’s not appearing on the album, the exalting “Ladyfriend; ” indicative of the author’s fundamentally argumentative nature, he fought almost as vociferously for the inclusion of the extremely self-indulgent “Mind Gardens” as the aforementioned gem as a single. The recognition sought and most righteously deserved by this future collaborator of Stills, Nash & Young would’ve otherwise been based on his other splendid contributions to the album, “Everybody’s Been Burned” and especially “Renaissance Fair,” which prominently feature the Byrds signature sounds of chiming guitars and soaring vocal harmonies.
Along similarly, readily-recognizable lines lies the most surprising development within the Byrds at this juncture: the emergence of Hillman as both a lead vocalist and songwriter. Besides collaborating with McGuinn on the aforementioned swipe at ephemeral stardom, he also contributed “Have You Seen Her Face,” thereby reinstating a tangible emotional quality largely missing from the Byrds oeuvre since Clark’s departure. In addition, the former bluegrass musician proved prescient by contributing two-country rock-flavored songs, “Time Between” and “The Girl with No Name,” both of which feature session musician Clarence White’s innovative guitar playing via the B-Bender device (he and Gene Parsons invented ; both of the latter musicians would further distinguish themselves as official members of the band in the years to follow, circa Untitled and The Ballad of Easy Rider (not to mention the long-shelved concert recordings on Live at Fillmore East eventually released in 2000).
Meanwhile, Chris’ “Thoughts and Words” is distinguished by its author’s plaintive vocal as much as the sitar-like sound of backwards guitar effects. Such imaginative arrangements, reminiscent of “Eight Miles High” and the title cut of the Fifth Dimension album, belie the lack of commercial response to this album, as well as the otherwise sterling cover of Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages;” only moderately successful as a single, that track provides a deliciously tranquil closing to a uniformly impeccable track sequence offered by reprogramming the expanded CD of 1996. From: https://glidemagazine.com/270003/55-years-later-revisiting-the-byrds-inventive-fourth-lp-younger-than-yesterday/
