Untitled (The Byrds Album)

Untitled (The Byrds album)

(Untitled) is the ninth album by the American rock band The Byrds and was released in September 1970 on Columbia Records (see 1970 in music). It is a double album, with the first LP featuring live concert recordings from two early 1970 performances in New York City and with the second LP consisting of new studio recordings. The album represented the first official release of any live recordings by the band as well as the first appearance on a Byrds' record of new recruit Skip Battin, who had replaced the band's previous bass player, John York, in late 1969.

The studio album mostly consisted of newly written, self-penned material, including a number of songs that had been composed by band leader Roger McGuinn and Broadway theatre director Jacques Levy for a planned country rock musical that the pair were developing. The production was to have been based on Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and staged under the title of Gene Tryp (an anagram of Ibsen's play), with the narrative taking place in the south-west of America during the mid-19th century. However, plans for the musical fell through and five of the songs that had been intended for Gene Tryp were instead recorded by The Byrds for (Untitled)—although only four appeared in the album's final running order.

The album peaked at #40 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and reached #11 on the UK Albums Chart. A single taken from the album, "Chestnut Mare" b/w "Just a Season", was released in the U.S. in October 1970 but missed the Billboard Hot 100 chart, bubbling under at #121. The single was later released in the UK in January 1971, where it did considerably better, reaching #19 on the UK Singles Chart. Upon release, (Untitled) was met with positive reviews and strong sales, with many critics and fans regarding the album as a return to form for the band. Likewise, the album is today generally regarded as being the best that the latter-day line-up of The Byrds produced.