American Dream is the fifth studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their second with Neil Young. Released in 1988 on Atlantic Records, it peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. To date, it is their final album of original material to receive either a gold or platinum citation by the RIAA. It is the highest-selling album by Neil Young in the 1980s. The album is dedicated to Jan Crosby, Anne Stills, Susan Nash and Pegi Young.

Background

Neil Young promised David Crosby in 1983 that he would reunite with Crosby, Stills & Nash if Crosby could solve his problems with drugs and clean himself up. Five months in prison in 1986 for Crosby at the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville following his 1985 arrest for possession of illegal drugs and a semi-automatic firearm in West Palm Beach, Florida accomplished exactly that, and, good to Young's word, the quartet assembled to record the second official CSNY studio album at Young's ranch in Woodside, California with his handpicked production team. The title song, written by Neil Young, is a satire of then-sensational political scandals involving Oliver North, former presidential candidate Gary Hart and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, and was promoted with a filmed music video directed by Julien Temple that featured members of the band portraying exaggerated caricatures of North (Stills), Hart (Nash), and Swaggart (Crosby) with a disguised Young acting as narrator to their "downfall" and a Punk Rocker. Released as a single, it missed the Billboard Hot 100 completely, as did three of the other four singles released from the album but managed to peak at No. 4 on Album Rock Tracks Chart (now Mainstream Rock). The only single to chart in the US, "Got It Made", peaked at No. 69 on the Hot 100, though it charted much higher on two format-specific Billboard charts— #11 on Adult Contemporary and #1 on Album Rock Tracks. In Young's native Canada, the single "American Dream" was a substantial hit, peaking at #3, while "Got It Made" peaked at #16.

Recording

David Crosby recounted, "The whole thing, the recording of American Dream, it got stretched out. And we did not have, really, the best group of songs to work with. Then, even though we did not have enough good songs, we ended up putting fourteen of them on the album! I think that was stupid." For the first time in the group's history, none of the songs from a studio album became standard items in the group's live repertoire.

Reception

Writing in Rolling Stone, critic Anthony DeCurtis wrote that "Despite pleasant melodies, the occasional interesting song, and the signature harmonies, American Dream is, for the most part, a snoozefest." The album was voted number 614 in the second edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (1998). Cash Box called the title track "the best thing out of CSN or Y since Deja Vu."

Track listing

Personnel

CSNY

Additional personnel

Handclaps on "American Dream" Sound effects on "Shadowland" The Volume Dealers Choir on "Soldiers of Peace"

Production

Charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

In popular culture

An early version of the track "Night Song" (with alternate vocals) was a major plot point in the 1986 Twilight Zone episode "Nightsong".