History YMMV / TheByrds

** 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 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.

*** While most accept that Gene ultimately quite of his own volition, some fans accuse [=McGuinn=] and Crosby of creating an atmosphere in which he didn't feel that his contributions were valued or welcome.

** Some younger fans feel that 1960s music journalists' descriptions of Roger [=McGuinn=] read like they're talking about somebody with mild autism (in particular, his emotionally undemonstrative nature and his obsessions with planes and aliens).

** Crosby's onstage behavior at the Monterey Pop Festival (most notably, his rant about John F. Kennedy's assassination and his public proclamations in favor of LSD) seems to be this for him in the context of his time with the Byrds. It's commonly cited as being the reason why [=McGuinn=] and Hillman decided that he was more trouble than he was worth as a bandmate.

* TheWoobie: Gene Clark. Although blessed with the good looks and preternatural talent for songwriting that should have made him a major star, throughout his all-too-brief life he struggled with severe anxiety issues in an era when poor mental health was stigmatized far more than it is now. Furthermore his solo work--while earning him positive critical attention as well as an extremely devoted fanbase--failed to connect with general audiences.

* 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.

** David Crosby's firing. Some fans--particularly those who view Croz as a massive {{Jerkass}}--think it was the right call; others view it as a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that [=McGuinn=] and Hillman hadn't put a great deal of effort into resolving, and that the band never really recovered from the loss.

** Their first [=UK=] tour. From the getgo, the Byrds were overhyped to near impossible expectations, being billed as America's challenge to the British Invasion and specifically the Beatles[[note]]although the members of the two bands became friends[[/note]], which made more territorial British pop fans resent them even before they'd arrived. The tour itself was dogged by sound problems due to bad equipment, which wasn't made any better by the fact that Hillman, [=McGuinn=] and Clarke all wound up falling ill one after another. Not to mention that British audiences, used to musicians seeing themselves as entertainers first and foremost, didn't care for the band's cool onstage demeanor.

* TheWoobie: Gene Clark. Although blessed with good looks and a preternatural talent for songwriting, throughout his all-too-brief life he struggled with his mental health in an era when such difficulties were stigmatized far more than they are now. Furthermore his solo work--while earning him positive critical attention as well as an extremely devoted fanbase--failed to connect with general audiences.

** Skip Battin's songs on the later Byrds albums have drawn a mixed reception from listeners. Some really like them; others ''really'' don't.

* CommonKnowledge: Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his blond surfer-boy good looks, and had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. Well...not quite. Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, but he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967. Chris Hillman commented that Clarke [[BrilliantButLazy had the potential to become a legitimately great drummer had he been slightly more disciplined]].

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Some younger fans feel that 1960s music journalists' descriptions of Roger [=McGuinn=] read like they're talking about somebody with mild autism (in particular, his emotionally undemonstrative nature and his obsessions with planes and aliens).

** "Mind Gardens" is probably the most controversial song in the Byrds' canon. Some fans think it's an interesting and inventive musical experiment, some think it had potential but was undermined by Crosby's rather Shakespearian vocal performance (these listeners tend to prefer the alternate take that features Croz singing in a less dramatic manner), and still others just think it's an unlistenable track that nearly ruins the ''Younger than Yesterday'' album, and that it should have been bumped in favor of "It Happens Each Day," recorded during the ''Younger'' sessions but left on the cutting room floor.

** They've covered Music/BobDylan several times.

** Things shifted around later on, though. ''The Notorious Byrd Brothers'' and ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo'' got better chart placings in Britain than America. A couple of years later, "Chestnut Mare" was a Top 20 hit in the UK but didn't even make the charts in the US.

* HypeBacklash: 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''.

* CommonKnowledge: Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his blond surfer-boy good looks, and had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. Well...not quite. Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, but he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967. Chris Hillman commented that Clarke [[BrilliantButLazy had the potential to become a legitimately great drummer had he been slightly more disciplined]].
* CoveredUp:
** They've covered Music/BobDylan several times.
** "Turn! Turn! Turn!" was written (the music, that is) by Pete Seeger and was first recorded by The Limeliters in 1962.
** They Covered Up "Jesus is Just Alright", first recorded by the Art Reynolds Singers, only to have Music/TheDoobieBrothers' version Cover them Up.
** They recorded Crosby's OneTrueThreesome ode "Triad" for ''The Notorious Byrd Brothers'', but the others hated it and after Crosby got fired they saw no problem in leaving it off the album. Crosby gave it to Music/JeffersonAirplane instead, and the Byrds version sat on the shelf for 20 years.

* MemeticMutation: Among fans of the group, Roger [=McGuinn=]'s apparent desire to be contacted by aliens--as evidenced by songs such as "Mr. Spaceman" and "[=CTA=] 102"--is this (as is his love of sea shanties).

* CommonKnowledge: Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his surfer-boy good looks, and that had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. Well...not quite. Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, but he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967. Chris Hillman commented that Clarke had [[BrilliantButLazy the potential to become a legitimately great drummer had he been slightly more disciplined]].

** "Mind Gardens" is probably the most controversial song in the Byrds' canon. Some fans think it's an interesting and inventive musical experiment, some think it had potential but was undermined by Crosby's rather Shakespearian vocal performance, and still others just think it's an unlistenable track that nearly ruins the ''Younger than Yesterday'' album, and that it should have been bumped in favor of "It Happens Each Day," recorded during the ''Younger'' sessions but left on the cutting room floor.

* FandomEnragingMisconception: That the band didn't play their instruments on the ''Mr. Tambourine Man'' album. In fact, it was only the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single and its B-side, "I Knew I'd Want You," that featured session musicians. Not to mention that [=McGuinn=] was featured instrumentally on both songs.

** The song also provides a case of HilariousInHindsight as it begins with the line "In 1996, we ventured to the moon." This is doubly funny because the first moon landing would occur only around eighteen months after the song's release, and because the idea of the year 1996 conjuring up futuristic imagery seems awfully quaint in the 2020s.

* HypeBacklash: After being initially rejected by fans and subsequently held up as a groundbreaking 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''.
* IAmTheBand: Downplayed, since the contributions of Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons in particular are considered to be essential to the group's music. However, Roger [=McGuinn=] was the main architect of their signature sound and sang many of their early hits, and the general consensus is that without his involvement, it's not the Byrds.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While their early jangly folk rock sound has aged surprisingly well--it was a major influence on alternative rock--the backwards guitars on ''Younger Than Yesterday'' and the Moog blorps and swirls on ''The Notorious Byrd Brothers'' clearly date these records to the [[TheSixties Psychedelic 60s]], when such sounds were in fashion. That hasn't stopped these two albums from being fairly widely considered to be the band's best.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Upon its release in 1969, ''Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde'' was considered a welcome return to form for the band after their commercially unsuccessful experiment with the country genre on ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo.'' Averted now that ''Sweetheart'' has been thoroughly VindicatedByHistory while ''Dr. Byrds'' is more likely to be seen as the beginning of the band's AudienceAlienatingEra.

*** 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 DeadArtistsAreBetter 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".

** The band's manager, Jim Dickson, was against their decision to release "Turn! Turn! Turn!" as a single, instead pushing for them to put out a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'." Not only was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" a huge success for the Byrds, but it has also become their best-known song in hindsight--it's currently their most streamed song on Spotify--as well as serving as an emblem for the counterculture movement and TheSixties in general. By contrast, the group's version of "The Times They Are a-Changin'", released on the ''Turn! Turn! Turn!'' album, is generally considered by fans to be one of their least satisfying Dylan covers (although a more energetic alternate take included on the album's [=CD=] reissue has been better-received).

* CommonKnowledge: That Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his surfer-boy good looks, and that had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. While Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967. Chris Hillman commented that Clarke had [[BrilliantButLazy the potential to become a legitimately great drummer had he been slightly more disciplined]].

** Their first [=UK=] tour. From the getgo, the Byrds were overhyped to near impossible expectations, being billed as America's challenge to the British Invasion and specifically the Beatles[[note]]although the members of the two bands became friends[[/note]], which made more territorial British fans resent them even before they'd arrived. The tour itself was dogged by sound problems due to bad equipment, which wasn't made any better by the fact that Hillman, [=McGuinn=] and Clarke all wound up falling ill one after another. Not to mention that British audiences, used to musicians seeing themselves as entertainers first and foremost, didn't care for the band's cool onstage demeanor.

*** 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 DeadArtistsAreBetter 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".

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Upon its release in 1969, ''Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde'' was considered a welcome return to form for the band after their commercially unsuccessful experiment with the country genre on ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo.'' Averted now that ''Sweetheart'' has been thoroughly VindicatedByHistory while ''Dr. Byrds'' is more likely to be seen as the beginning of the band's DorkAge (see below).

* DorkAge: Some see everything the band did after ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo'' (or, in a more extreme variant, everything after ''Notorious'') as this. Downplayed in that many Byrds devotees do appreciate the later era, particularly due to the undeniable quality of Clarence White's guitar playing. There's also the fact that the latter-day Byrds were a ''far'' better live band than the classic lineup, who were well-known for sounding sloppy and under-rehearsed onstage.

** The final couplet of "Artificial Energy" - ''I'm coming down off amphetamine/And I'm in jail 'cause I killed a queen.'' Overtly discussing drugs and homophobic hate crimes was edgy even in 1967-68 (although, surprisingly, the song wasn't met with much controversy upon its release); nowadays, the latter reference in particular is quite shocking.
** The controversial "Triad" may well have been boundary-pushing when David Crosby wrote it back in 1967, but it's aged rather poorly--nowadays, the whole thing comes across more like a cringe-inducing boast about the singer's sexual prowess than anything else.

* CommonKnowledge: That Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his surfer-boy good looks, and that had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. While Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967. Chris Hillman commented that Clarke had the potential to become a legitimately great drummer had he been slightly more disciplined.

** Things shifted around later on, though. ''The Notorious Byrd Brothers'' and ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo'' were better received in Britain than America. A couple of years later, "Chestnut Mare" was a Top 20 hit in the UK but didn't even make the charts in the US.

* DorkAge: Some see everything the band did after ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo'' (or, in a more extreme variant, everything after ''Notorious'') as this. In recent years, though, appreciation for the band's later era has increased, particularly due to the undeniable quality of Clarence White's guitar playing. There's also the fact that the latter-day Byrds were a ''far'' better live band than the classic lineup, who were well-known for sounding sloppy and under-rehearsed onstage.

** The band's manager, Jim Dickson, was against their decision to release "Turn! Turn! Turn!" as a single, instead pushing for them to put out a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'." Not only was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" a huge success for the Byrds; it's also become their best-known song in hindsight--it's currently their most streamed song on Spotify--as well as serving as an emblem for the counterculture movement and TheSixties in general. By contrast, the group's version of "The Times They Are a-Changin'", released on the ''Turn! Turn! Turn!'' album, is generally considered by fans to be one of their least satisfying Dylan covers (although a more energetic alternate take included on the album's [=CD=] reissue has been better-received).

* CommonKnowledge: That Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his surfer-boy good looks, and that had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. While Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, he had played drums before, and his abilities quickly improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967.

* CommonKnowledge: Michael Clarke was hired purely because of his surfer-boy good looks, and that had no idea how to play the drums when he joined the band. While Clarke's appearance did play a major role in his becoming a Byrd, he had played drums before, and his abilities improved to the point where he drummed on the vast majority of the songs that the band recorded prior to his departure at the end of 1967.

** The reverb-heavy drum overdub on the ''Never Before'' mix of "Lady Friend" is almost universally regarded to be terrible, but fans are more split on the merits of some of the other edits made, such as the acoustic guitar solo that Chris Hillman added to "It Happens Each Day."

* GrowingTheBeard: The band's first three albums are well-regarded by fans, but ''Younger Than Yesterday'' is often considered to be a turning point, due to factors such as Chris Hillman's emergence as a songwriter and the fact that for the first time they were working with a producer (Gary Usher) who genuinely shared their interest in studio experimentation.

** Their first [=UK=] tour. From the getgo, the Byrds were overhyped to near impossible expectations, being billed as America's challenge to the British Invasion and specifically the Beatles[[note]]although the members of the two bands became friends[[/note]], which made more territorial British fans resent them even before they'd arrived. The tour itself was dogged by sound problems due to bad equipment, which wasn't made any better by the fact that Hillman, [=McGuinn=] and Clarke all wound up falling ill one after another.Not to mention that British audiences, used to musicians seeing themselves as entertainers first and foremost, didn't care for the band's cool onstage demeanor.

* NeverLiveItDown: Crosby's onstage behavior at the Monterey Pop Festival (most notably, his rant about John F. Kennedy's assassination and his public proclamations in favor of LSD) seems to be this for him in the context of his time with the Byrds. It's commonly cited as being the reason why [=McGuinn=] and Hillman decided that he was more trouble than he was worth as a bandmate. Downplayed in that [=McGuinn=] and Hillman have said that they didn't actually have anything in particular against what Crosby was saying; rather, they thought it was inappropriate for the environment, and they resented Crosby's increasingly diva-esque behavior and willingness to go off-script. (Crosby's eventual firing post-dated Monterey by some three months.)

* IAmTheBand: Downplayed, since the contributions of Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons in particular are considered to be essential to the group's music. However, Roger [=McGuinn=] was the main architect of their SignatureSound and sang many of their early hits, and the general consensus is that without his involvement, it's not the Byrds.