Younger Than Yesterday (1967)

Younger Than Yesterday is the fourth studio album by the American rock band the Byrds, released on February 6, 1967, by Columbia Records. It saw the band continuing to integrate elements of psychedelia and jazz into their music, a process they had begun on their previous album, Fifth Dimension. In addition, the album captured the band and record producer Gary Usher experimenting with new musical textures, including brass instruments, reverse tape effects and an electronic oscillator.

The album also marked the emergence of the band's bass player Chris Hillman as a talented songwriter and vocalist. Prior to Younger Than Yesterday, Hillman had only received one shared writing credit with the Byrds, but this album saw him credited as the sole composer of four songs and a co-writer of "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star". Byrds expert Tim Connors has remarked that two of Hillman's compositions on Younger Than Yesterday exhibited country and western influences and thus can be seen as early indicators of the country rock experimentation that would feature—to a greater or lesser degree—on all of the Byrds' subsequent albums.

Upon release, the album peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and reached number 37 on the UK Albums Chart. It was preceded by the "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" single in January 1967, which reached the Top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100. Two additional singles taken from the album, "My Back Pages" and "Have You Seen Her Face", were also moderately successful on the Billboard singles chart. However, none of the singles taken from the album charted in the United Kingdom. Music critics Richie Unterberger and David Fricke have both remarked that although it was largely overlooked by the public at the time of its release, the album's critical standing has improved over the years and today Younger Than Yesterday is considered one of the Byrds' best albums. The title of Younger Than Yesterday is derived from the lyrics of "My Back Pages", a song written by Bob Dylan, which was covered on the album.

Background

The Byrds had initially come to international prominence in mid-1965, when their folk rock interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number 1 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart. Further commercial successes followed, with the band releasing two hit albums and reaching number 1 for a second time in the U.S., with a cover version of Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season)". Throughout the latter half of 1965, the band enjoyed tremendous popularity among teenage pop fans and their music received widespread airplay on Top 40 radio. In early 1966, the Byrds' principal songwriter, Gene Clark, departed the band, leaving Jim McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke to complete the band's third album, Fifth Dimension, without him. Upon release, Fifth Dimension received a mixed critical reception and was less commercially successful than the band's earlier albums. As a result, the Byrds' popularity began to wane and by late 1966, they had been all but forgotten by mainstream pop audiences.

Shortly after the release of Fifth Dimension, the Byrds found themselves without a record producer, when Allen Stanton, who had worked with them on that album, left Columbia Records to work for A&M. The band chose to replace Stanton with Gary Usher, a former songwriting partner of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who had recently co-produced Clark's debut solo album, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. In addition to producing the recording sessions for Younger Than Yesterday, Usher would produce the band's next two albums. The Byrds' biographer Johnny Rogan states that Usher's wealth of production experience and love of innovative studio experimentation would prove invaluable as the group entered their most creatively adventurous phase. Author David N. Howard has also remarked that despite the hodgepodge of styles and genres present on Younger Than Yesterday, Usher's studio expertise gives the album an impressively uniform consistency.

Following an intensive period of rehearsal at their Sunset Boulevard headquarters, the Byrds completed the entire Younger Than Yesterday album at Columbia Studios, Hollywood, during a work-intensive, eleven-day period, starting on November 28 and finishing on December 8, 1966. The original working title for the LP was Sanctuary, but ultimately this was dropped in favor of a title inspired by the chorus lyrics of the album's Bob Dylan cover, "My Back Pages":

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.