Half of the songs here I've already heard on the band's Carry On double CD compilation - "Teach Your Children", "Our House", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Helpless" and "Woodstock", so in a way I'm already partially familiar with this record. I've always wanted to check this album out for some time now, but of course, never got around to it, so now's my chance. It's an OK album, I guess - "Our House" and "Teach Your Children", the songs most people would be most familiar with, are the go-to songs on the album for me, and "Woodstock" and "4 + 20" are quite enjoyable to say the least. It's an overrated album as far as I'm concerned - 8 million copies in the States alone suggests that it was a hugely popular album - but I can't really see much here to justify the fanfare that it received. Still, it is comparatively much better than Hotel California by the Eagles, which is certainly overrated, my least favorite of the classic rock albums, and one that's most likely to see my life cut short by it's most adherent fanatics if I'm not too careful. My biggest surprise about this album, however, is the remarkable guitar work on certain songs, such as "Woodstock" - as a hard rock/heavy metal nut, this isn't quite what I was expecting to hear, but then again, given the song's context, I probably shouldn't be so surprised, I suppose. Not quite what I was expecting a magnum opus record to be, nonetheless it is definitely an album you should check out sometime. B+
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