David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

David Crosby got fired from the Byrds in October 1967. This came after a long period of instability within the band, which lasted for the greater part of the year and culminated in the band's disastrous appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. In it, Crosby constantly talked in between songs about conspiracy theories involving John F. Kennedy's assassination, and to further the other members' annoyance, sat in for a revolting Neil Young at the Buffalo Springfield's performance as a favor to his friend Stephen Stills. Tensions furthered when the band refused to record his song "Triad", objecting to its' sexually charged lyrics, and when Crosby in turn refused to participate in the recording of "Goin' Back", believing the band should record only original material. Because of that, Crosby was finally fired and original member Gene Clark was invited to rejoin the band and finish the album they were working on, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. While Clark himself wouldn't last long, David found himself aimless for a few months, spending most of his time sailing, writing songs, and staying with friends, without any definitive plans going ahead. In March 1968, armed with a few songs and with the idea to begin a solo career of some sort, David entered the studio with The Doors, Love, and Janis Joplin producer Paul Rothschild at the helm, planning on recording some demos to see if any record labels would be interested in signing him. Although label interest proved slow, Crosby came out of this session with about four songs or unfinished ideas that showed great promise, such as "Games".

In April of 1968, Buffalo Springfield, the band Crosby had sat in with just a few months prior, had finally split up for good, which meant that his friend Stills was also unemployed. The two proceeded to reconnect and start working together in earnest, collaborating with the Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner to write lyrics to David's "Wooden Ships", and record a studio demo for a song of Crosby's called "Long Time Gone", as well as some other songs written by Stills sometime in June. Meanwhile, the Croz kept on recording solo demos in the hope of getting picked up by a label, recording the first versions we know of the great "Guinnevere" and "Laughing" right about this time. However, everything changed in July, when at a party at former Mamas & Papas member Cass Elliot's Laurel Canyon home, the two met Graham Nash from the Hollies. Jamming together to one of Stills' new compositions and immediately noticing a musical bond, especially when it came to three-part harmonies, the three quickly get together and become one of rock's very first supergroups, the very creatively titled Crosby, Stills & Nash. With that, any plans David had of recording a solo album became secondary to the new group, which very quickly took priority over them. With the trio succeeding in attracting major label interest and recording one of the most successful debut albums of all time in early 1969, those plans became virtually non-existent, with DC only returning to the idea of recording a solo album by the time CSN(and Y!) had spectacularly disbanded in late 1970, with If I Could Only Remember My Name.

This whole story leaves us with the question: What if David Crosby had succeeded in recording his first solo album in mid-1968? In order to answer that, we must first gather together all of the songs he had available to him at this moment, either in finished form or that he had begun writing during this period and would finish at a later date. After that, we must select the version of said song that most closely matches Crosby's vision circa 1968, and that features the least involvement from Stills and Nash. While Stills and possibly Nash would have most likely guested on the record on guitar and vocals, we're talking about an actual solo album here, meaning this is a timeline where CS&N either didn't happen or happened later than it did in ours, giving him the time to release this album. Considering Crosby's songs are relatively long at about 4 to 5 minutes each, and it was becoming en vogue within the rock world to release albums with fewer and fewer songs starting at about this time, I reckon an eight-song, 40-minute long record would be plenty. And considering he probably didn't have any more songs than that written, it'll have to do nonetheless. Because of that, songs written before The Byrds' breakup can also be considered for inclusion, if he continued performing them regularly after his break from them and they weren't released elsewhere by the band, and solo songs that weren't in a particularly advanced state of completion will also be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to inclusion here. With all of that out of the way, here's what I think Croz's first solo album could have looked like:

Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

Tamalpais High (If I Could Only Remember My Name)
Guinnevere (CSN)

Laughing (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

-

Triad (Deja Vu)

Games (Graham Nash, David Crosby)

Long Time Gone (CSN Demos)

Kids and Dogs (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

Download link:
David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

The Croz, pictured sometime in early 1968 in California.

We start off this album with a blast, with "Wooden Ships" from the first CSN record. Although co-written by Stephen Stills and the Airplane's Paul Kantner, the original idea for the melody of this song came from David, as can be seen in his solo demo, which makes it fair game for inclusion here. He'd sing lead on the full song, as he did live with the Lighthouse band, but other than that the song would be unchanged. A great opener to any album, it starts things off strong for David. Up next is "Tamalpais High", demoed during the March 1968 Rothschild session as an acoustic guitar instrumental with scat singing, the kind of song he seemed to be very keen on writing around this time. The arrangement on the 1971 album is a bit different from what I envision for this album, but it'll have to do as no other versions exist. In the third slot, we have "Guinnevere", from a studio session in mid-1968 with Cyrus Faryar of the MFQ on bouzouki and Jack Casady of the Airplane on bass. The only real glimpse we get of what this theoretical album would actually sound like, and by this sample, it would be pretty amazing. Easily the high point of this reconstruction. "Laughing", inspired by a conversation he had with his friend George Harrison, finishes off side one. It was demoed in the studio in May 1968, shortly after the others, warranting its inclusion here. Two completed studio versions of the song exist, one on his first record in 1971 and one on the shaky Byrds reunion album from 1973. Out of the two, the one that sounds the most like Croz circa 1968 is the first, which means it gets to be included here.

Side two starts off with his ode to menage a trois "Triad". Since this song was (allegedly) the reason Croz got kicked out of the Byrds, it's only fair we should include it in his first solo album, right? Presented here in a beautiful solo acoustic arrangement from the Deja Vu sessions, David gets to sing it instead of giving it away to the Jefferson Airplane. Next comes album highlight "Games", another song that was performed for Paul Rothschild in March '68, this time presented in completed form, before being inexplicably shelved for another four years. We can use the Crosby & Nash version as its arrangement is pretty close to the original and sounds like something Croz would come up with back then, Graham's harmonies notwithstanding. We follow it up with the only other rocker on the album alongside the opener, which is "Long Time Gone". Demoed in the studio in July 1968 with help from Stephen Stills, we use this demo version to provide the album with yet another authentic recording that comes from the 1968 sessions, alongside "Guinnevere". Again, as would be the case with "Wooden Ships", David sings the full song instead of sharing the lead with Stephen. "Kids and Dogs", the final song on the album and also the last from the March 1968 demo session, is another haunting song with scat vocals, which was inexplicably left off the If I Could Only Remember My Name album in 1971, despite being recorded in a beautiful 7-minute version with guitar by Jerry Garcia and some fantastic multitracked vocals by David. And it's that very version that ends our album.

This hypothetical debut is 40 minutes long with two roughly 20-minute sides, about what you'd hope for in length for an album back then. One shortcoming this album does have is its absolute lack of potential singles, but since David's material was probably meant for the album-oriented FM radio format that was beginning roughly at this time anyway, that isn't that much of a problem. Self-titled for the lack of a better title, it features a painting of him by his friend Joni Mitchell as the cover, the two of them spending a lot of time together at this point as he had produced her debut album for Reprise Records. Speaking of which, this album would've probably been released by either Reprise, due to the Joni connection and the fact other similar artists were also signed to them, or by Elektra Records, of which Rothschild was an employee. This album probably wouldn't sell that much, but would be rightly lauded as a great record by the critics, with Crosby's jazzy melodies and beautiful voice propelling the songs, and great songwriting throughout. A moody album without many fast-paced songs, it provides a great continuation to the sound Croz had already been hinting at with songs such as "Everybody's Been Burned" and "Tribal Gathering" with the Byrds. I honestly believe that grouping together to form Crosby, Stills and Nash might've been detrimental to Crosby and Stills as songwriters, as illogical as that sounds. That move might've prevented him from getting the individual praise he so deserved as a singer and songwriter, something we've tried to do right by in this reconstruction.

Sources:

- David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN [Box set]

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN Demos

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Dejá Vù [Box set]

- Crosby & Nash - Graham Nash David Crosby

Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy (2001)

After four years of demos, rehearsals, and the departure of all members of the band with the exception of Dizzy Reed and Axl Rose, recording in earnest for the sixth Guns n' Roses album began in early 1998 at Rumbo Recorders. Alongside Axl and Dizzy, guitarists Paul Tobias and Robin Finck, keyboardist Chris Pitman and drummer John Freese completed this new lineup of the band. Recording with the seven of them went on for a while, with Axl being described as "a couple of weeks on, a couple of weeks off" during this period, and the band being in "writing mode", with much more writing than recording going on at that time. Producers such as Youth were considered, with him doing some pre-production work on the album right around this time, before being replaced by Sean Beavan, who'd produced Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails before joining the project in July 1998. During this timeframe the band wrote and recorded much new material, filling many CDs with ideas and fragments of songs, as well as recording many fully fledged songs, such as "Madagascar" and "Prostitute", which Pitman and Rose had begun writing early in '98. This new material was very inspired by hip hop and industrial music, with the influence of Nine Inch Nails clearly showing in the music, but not many vocals were recorded during this first year of recording, though, with Axl mostly laying down ideas rather than finished vocals, leaving the material unfinished until then.

So it seems that between mid-1998 and early 1999, the band was now in "recording mode", recording the basic tracks to many songs that would be worked on further during this period. By mid-1999, work had slowed down a bit, with work on the instrumental parts being mostly done by then but no finished vocals in sight just yet. Guitarist Robin Finck left to tour again with Nine Inch Nails, while Axl finally began recording lead vocals for the album in August 1999, practically finishing recording them by November. With Finck gone, Axl had Queen guitarist Brian May overdub guitar solos onto three or four songs the band had been working on at the time, without yet focusing on finding a full-time replacement for Finck. At roughly the same time, the first results of the sessions were released, the very industrial "Oh My God" on the soundtrack to the film End of Days in November. It seems that by the time 1999 ended, the basic tracks of the record were virtually finished, with only some overdubbing and mixing left to be worked on. Even the album title was decided at this instance, with Axl commenting on interviews that the new album had been christened Chinese Democracy, after the song of the same name. Songs such as "Catcher in the Rye", "I.R.S.", "If the World" and "There Was a Time" were even previewed for Rolling Stone magazine that November, most of them seemingly in an advanced state of recording and showing a lot of promise for the future of the band.

With 2000 coming, more lineup changes came: guitarist Buckethead joined the band as Finck's replacement, while drummer Josh Freese finally got fed up with waiting for the album to get ready and left to form A Perfect Circle, replaced with frequent Buckethead collaborator Brain a few months down the line. Buckethead joined the project and immediately started recording demos and ideas for new songs at his notoriously fast pace, while Brain seemingly didn't replace Freese's drum tracks then. In April, and with the album apparently in its final stages of completion, producer Sean Beavan was replaced with former Queen and The Cars producer Roy Thomas Baker, with label Interscope Records and their boss Jimmy Iovine seemingly unhappy with the sound of the album under Beaven's helm. Further mixing and overdubbing took place from then until November, with Bucket adding guitar to songs worked on previously such as "Madagascar" and "Rhiad and the Bedouins". Plans were even made for the band to tour in the summer of 2001, with warmup shows scheduled at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and the Rock in Rio 3 festival in Rio de Janeiro that January. It seemed like a mid-2001 release with a tour to follow in the Summer was slowly becoming a reality for Chinese Democracy, with the record seemingly only needing mastering and artwork to be ready. But as you probably already know, things weren't going to be that simple for Axl and his bandmates.

In November 2000, Bob Ezrin, formerly producer of Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd, signed on as A&R man for the album and listened to what the band had made so far. He came out of it claiming they had only come up with "three good songs". The album proceeds to go into development hell for eight years, with Axl essentially losing his sanity in the process. That leaves us with the question: what if Axl had released Chinese Democracy in the summer of 2001? Luckily for us, four discs of Rough Mixes in varying degrees of completion dating from both Beavan's March 2000 and Roy Thomas Baker's October/November 2000 mixing sessions, as well as instrumental demos and other curios were created in March 2001, and very infamously leaked in 2019. That means whatever was under consideration for GnR's sixth record was probably in those CDs, leaving for us the mission of making an album out of those. The first disc is clearly the ten most finished songs at the time, with a couple of other finished songs sprinkled throughout the other three discs, some of which would even make the album in 2008, in a heavily different form. Speaking of which, one of the few things Axl eventually got right in '08 was the album's sequencing, which means we'll emulate it as much as we can here, replacing eventual absentees with available songs that have the same vibe. We'll also be aiming at about 14 songs to make the album, as most GnR releases do. With all of that, let's have a look at what we've come up with:

Chinese Democracy (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Hard School (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Perhaps (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Street of Dreams (Rough Mixes CD-1)
If the World (Rough Mixes CD-2)
There Was a Time (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Catcher in the Rye (Rough Mixes CD-1)

State of Grace (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Rhiad and the Bedouins (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Silkworms (Rough Mixes CD-1)
I.R.S. (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Madagascar (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Atlas Shrugged (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Prostitute (Rough Mixes CD-1)

Bonus tracks:
Oh My God (The End of Days OST)

Eye on You (Rough Mixes CD-2)

Nothing (Rough Mixes CD-4)

Axl Rose and Buckethead performing during the 2002 VMAs

Starting off the album the only way we possibly can we have the great version of "Chinese Democracy" mixed by Roy Thomas Baker in November 2000, starting off the album with its title track and with a great rocker, that would sound right at home with some of Guns n' Roses' more famous output. Released a couple of years ago by the Axl/Slash/Duff lineup by all people, "Hard School" serves the function of being one of the few authentic rockers on the album, that being the reason I pulled this November '00 Baker mix off the third CD and slotted it into the equally aggressive "Shackler's Revenge"'s place. Following is the first song on the album that's still officially unreleased, "Perhaps" was mixed in March 2000 by Beaven and is the closest this version of the album can come to an obvious first single. Sequenced as track no. 3 as it's equally as poppy and accessible as "Better", and it works well in that role. Since Sean Beavan confirmed that "The Blues" was only a working title in an interview this year, we can retitle this to its eventual name, "Street of Dreams". An October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, this ballad was already one of the highlights of the 2008 album, and is even better here. As track five we have another song that would eventually make the album in a superior, earlier version, "If the World" was mixed in November 2000 by Roy Thomas Baker and taken from the second disc of Rough Mixes, taking up the same spot it always did in CD's tracklist.

While many fans miss Buckethead's solo that we got in the song's finished version, I like this mix of "There Was a Time" just fine, in an October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, a nice change of pace from the hip hop weirdness of "If the World". As the seventh song on the album, "Catcher in the Rye" is another power ballad with the services of Brian May on guitar,  given to us in a March 2000 mix by Sean Beavan, which again is much better than the eventual replacement. Given that we have thirteen more or less finished songs, we have one spot open. And out of the remaining unfinished songs that have vocals ("Eye on You", "Nothing" and "State of Grace"), the one that's most release-worthy and finished-sounding is by far "State of Grace", which grants its spot as the eighth track on the album, replacing the similarly industrial "Scraped". Mixed in March 2000 by Sean Beavan. Up next is "Rhiad and the Bedouins", in a November '00 Baker mix which is miles better than the Chinese Democracy version and the best rocker of the album. A song that was given a rather atrocious reworking by Slash and Duff, "Silkworms" comes in a November '00 mix by RTB from CD1 of Rough Mixes. By far the song that's most far removed from the original Guns n' Roses sound, it takes the place of Buckethead oddity "Sorry" in the tracklist. It's missing its bridge vocals, as we'd grown used to in the 2001 Rock in Rio version, but other than that it's a pretty solid mix. About half an hour's work is needed!

Taken from CD3 of the Rough Mixes in a March 2000 Sean Beavan mix, "I.R.S." is a much-needed rocker, which alongside "Hard School" breaks the rather slow pace of the CD1 material and gives us some authentic Gn'R rock. The song earmarked to be "the epic" of the album comes next in the form of "Madagascar", in a November '00 Baker mix which closely resembles the version of the song performed at Rock in Rio in 2001, MLK speech and all. As the second to last track of the album, we have the last song in this reconstruction that is still officially unreleased "Atlas Shrugged", in a March 2000 Beavan mix. Also, the last song to feature a Brian May solo, it takes the place of the ballad "This I Love", which in turn was only added to the album at the eleventh hour, replacing "Atlas Shrugged". Historic reparations! Closing things off is "Prostitute", coming again in a much superior version to what we ended up getting in 2008. Coming in a March 2000 Beavan mix, it delivers a pretty balanced album, with an 8 to 6 ratio between Baker and Beavan mixes, respectively. Released nearly two years before this album would hypothetically come out, "Oh My God" didn't make much of an impression on anybody, and wasn't worked on further as demonstrated by the Rough Mixes CDs. All of that leads me to think this song wasn't meant for inclusion on the album at this stage. It's still good enough for a bonus track and non-album B-side, though, which is what it becomes here.

Clocking in at about an hour and four minutes, this version of Chinese Democracy would most certainly benefit from the timing of its release. Hip Hop and Industrial-influenced based bands like Limp Biskit were all the rage back in '01, and this album would sound right at home on modern rock radio at the time, both hip and nostalgic. Critically, seven fewer years of hype and unrealistic expectations would certainly soften the reception to the album, and releasing an album that's actually way better than the one we got would also help things too. There's no understating what damage the eight years of promises and delays did to Guns n' Roses Mk II, turning the album and the new lineup into a joke before anyone even heard a note from them. We also use one of the many alternate covers proposed for Chinese Democracy before the record's release, and the one that I've always liked best, as corny as it is. One of the main problems of the album, and what's probably the reason that Interscope didn't want to release it, is that it has no clear lead single. If I had to nominate one, though, I'd be tempted to go with "Atlas Shrugged" or "Perhaps", the two poppiest songs on the album. It really is a shame what was supposed to be a creative rebirth to one of the most successful bands of the world ended up essentially becoming its death sentence and transformation into an "oldies" act through a further eight years of misery and promises. Both this material and the fans deserved a lot better.

Sources:

- Guns n' Roses - Rough Mixes (CDs 1 - 4)

- Music From the Motion Picture End of Days

- Chinese Whispers - The Secret History of the New Studio Album