Younger Than Yesterday
Four of the five original Byrds were aboard for this folk-rock landmark. Within months of its release in the summer of 1967, David Crosby would move on and the group would enter a permanent period of flux.Younger Than Yesterday, however, finds songwriters Crosby, Roger McGuinn, and Chris Hillman prodding one another with varied but complementary triumphs. "My Back Pages" is one of their best Dylan covers (and the Byrds had plenty of them), while "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (written as a jab at the Monkees) represents two minutes of compressed pop cynicism that's as valid today as it was when it hit the airwaves.--Steven Stolder