History YMMV / TheByrds

* SoOkayItsAverage: The 1973 reunion album is often viewed in this light by fans. While the record is certainly listenable, its rather middle-of-the-road '70s country-rock stylings are considered to be a significant disappointment given the talent involved--although, according to nearly everyone, Gene Clark and David Crosby were the only ones who were really invested in the project--and the hype surrounding its release.

%%* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: This 2018 Website/{{Twitter}} exchange.
%%-->'''David Crosby''': I don’t play stoned...used to long ago ...but it turns out I do better work if I’m clear headed.'\\
'''Roger [=McGuinn=]''': Now you tell us! Could have used that advice 50 years ago.

* GenreTurningPoint: The band was a key voice in the formation of the folk rock genre. Notable was their cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", which they performed for him in studio. The next day, as David Crosby put it, he ran out and hired an electric band - and the rest is history.

* ArchivePanic: Their twelve studio albums, and associated bonus tracks on the '90s reissues, seem pretty manageable at first--but when you factor in the archival live releases, the ''Preflyte'' compilations, and the various boxed sets featuring alternate mixes and, in some cases, newly recorded songs, things start to get more complicated. Not to mention the various former Byrds' other musical projects (CSNY or the Flying Burrito Brothers, anyone?) and solo careers...Needless to say, a true Byrds completist has their work cut out for them.

*** As for their post-Byrds careers, both have solo works that are now canonised as masterpieces, especially Clark's ''No Other'' and Parsons' ''GP'' and ''Grievous Angel''. Parsons was also a founding member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, whose two albums ''The Gilded Palace of Sin'' and ''Burrito Deluxe'' are likewise regarded as major works in country-rock, and Clark's work with banjo and fiddler player Doug Dillard, especially ''The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark'', is now retroactively regarded as presaging even much of Parsons' and the Byrds' explorations of country music. While PosthumousPopularityPotential may have something to do with it in both cases, they are both regarded as misunderstood geniuses who never got their due during their lifetime. Indeed, ''No Other'' was a disastrous flop during Clark's lifetime - adjusted for inflation, it cost some $500,000 to make, and it was a commercial failure that went out of print within two years; moreover, Asylum Records head David Geffen infamously hated it. It wasn't until the 2003 reissue that it underwent a critical reappraisal; today, of course, critics routinely call it "a lost masterpiece" and "one of the greatest albums ever made".

** After being initially rejected by the record-buying public and subsequently held up as a seminal country-rock masterpiece, ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo'' has come all the way around to experiencing this. Some feel that it's overrated, that [=McGuinn=]'s affected southern accent on certain tracks demonstrates a lack of respect for the country genre, and that it's an inferior predecessor to the Flying Burrito Brothers' ''The Gilded Palace Of Sin''.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Song, in this case. Internal competition ensured that several excellent Gene Clark compositions were kept off the band's first two albums, sometimes being used as single B-sides and at other times being left unreleased altogether until the CD reissues came out in TheNineties. Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan has commented that the ''Turn! Turn! Turn!'' album in particular would have been substantially improved by the inclusion of these songs.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: This 2018 Website/{{Twitter}} exchange.
-->'''David Crosby''': I don’t play stoned...used to long ago ...but it turns out I do better work if I’m clear headed.
-->'''Roger [=McGuinn=]''': Now you tell us! Could have used that advice 50 years ago.

** Crosby pushed back hard against the group's decision to release versions of Dylan's "My Back Pages" and Goffin/King's "Goin' Back", and in fact refused to participate in recording sessions for the latter. Always on the pulse of what was considered hip and fully in thrall to Music/TheBeatles, he believed that putting out covers was hopelessly retrograde and un-cool in 1967. He was overruled by [=McGuinn=] and Hillman, and both songs were moderately successful singles, and are regarded as gems in the catalog in the present day.