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Neil YoungAlbums ReviewedAfter The Goldrush (1970)Harvest (1972) Time Fades Away (1973) On The Beach (1974) Tonight's The Night (1975) Zuma (1975) Decade (1977) Comes A Time (1978) Rust Never Sleeps (1979) Live Rust (1979) Trans (1982) Eldorado (1989) Freedom (1989) Ragged Glory (1990) Harvest Moon (1992) Lucky Thirteen (1993) Unplugged (1993) Sleeps With Angels (1994) I guess it's a sign of Neil Young's status as a major artist that I have like 20 of his albums and am still missing some important ones (I especially need to hear Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere). After The Goldrush(1970)Young established popular recognition with his involvement in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu, but the early signs on After the Goldrush are that he seems intent on sabotaging it. Opener 'Tell Me Why' begins abruptly with Young ignoring the pleasantries of an introduction and whining the first line without accompaniment. In the title track, Young sings a long away above his natural voice range, rendering his not particularly attractive voice even more unattractive. But if the rough and ready nature of After the Goldrush can be endured, there is plenty to be admired; although 'Tell Me Why' would benefit enormously from a good solid introduction, the effect is generally liberating as the album gains life. Like Deja Vu, After The Gold Rush displays diversity; beautiful ballads 'I Believe in You' and the title track rub shoulders with rockers 'Southern Man' and 'When You Dance'. The title track is the standout; Young's vulnerable vocals bring life to the astounding lyrics, while the french horn player contributes a splash of colour. Other highlights include the anti-racist 'Southern Man', the sweet acoustic ballads 'I Believe In You' and 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', and the haunting and enigmatic 'Don't Let It Bring You Down'. While not flawless, After the Goldrush demonstrates a full breadth of Young's capabilities and is a good place to start an exploration into his extensive catalogue; it's pretty much the quintessential Young album. 
 Harvest(1972)Neil Young's most commercially visible album, Harvest went to number one on the U.S. charts - hard to imagine from someone whose songs include 'Down By The River', 'Roll Another Number (For The Road)' and 'Let's Impeach The President' - and spawned a number one single in 'Heart Of Gold'. Alongside with a couple of attempts over the years to repeat the formula (Comes A Time, Harvest Moon), Harvest is Young's most palatable album, recorded with a group of Nashville session pros rather than Crazy Horse, and with most of the songs sweetened up either by orchestration or by backing vocals from various permutations of Crosby, Stills, Nash, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt. For all the efforts to make a commercial album, Harvest doesn't end up as a particularly coherent album; the three orchestrated tracks are often overbearing, and unbalance the rest of the record. Of course, this means that the results are perhaps more intriguing than an album full of country-rock pop hits like 'Heart Of Gold' would be, but despite its commercial stature Harvest isn't really among Young's best albums. Assuming the listener is already acquainted with the five songs included on Decade, a great place to gain a handle on Young's seventies work, the only song that's really worth the price of admission here is the harder-rocking 'Alabama', a kind of sequel to 'Southern Man'. Otherwise 'Out On The Weekend' is a passable low-key starter, 'Are You Ready For The Country?' is awkward and grating, and the two orchestrated tracks that aren't 'A Man Needs A Maid' are overblown - the vacuous 'There's A World' might be the worst song in Young's entire catalogue. Fortunately the Decade songs are all solid - 'A Man Needs A Maid' is one of Young's most fascinating tracks, with its rich orchestration rubbing against Young's fragile voice, and its simultaneously vulnerable and misogynistic lyrics. The title track is also lyrically intriguing ("I see you give more than I can take/But I only harvest some"), while the solo 'The Needle And The Damage Done' is a eulogy for Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten, delivered over a terrific chord sequence. There's enough good material here to make Harvest well worth hearing, but if you're already familiar with Decade that's a different matter entirely. Of course, Young quickly moved on from this commercial phase, bemusing his newly acquired fan base with an apparently random and indulgent soundtrack Journey Through The Past and then a scrappy live album of new songs Time Fades Away.
Time Fades Away(1973)After the commercial success of 'Heart Of Gold', Harvest and CSNY's Déjà Vu threatened to make Neil Young into a superstar, he purposely chose a different route, into more dark and difficult "Ditch Trilogy" - as he wrote in the Decade liner notes "'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch." Recorded live and loose, and quite a contrast with the careful country-rock polish of Harvest, yet Time Fades Away actually was recorded with the Stray Gators, the band who backed Young on his previous album. Crucially, however, Time Fades Away was constructed under the shadow of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten's overdose. Whitten was invited to be the second guitarist on the tour, but was sent home when it was obvious he wasn't well enough to contribute, and he immediately overdosed on heroin that he bought with $50 that Young gave him as a parting gift to get help. Young felt responsible for Whitten's death, and although these songs were presumably written before Whitten's overdose, Young's guilt and resulting alcoholism inform the album's atmosphere. As a result, as well as Young's eagerness to distance himself from anything resembling commercial success, Time Fades Away is more ragged and personal than anything Young had released previously. The lengthy 'Don't Be Denied' is almost like a self-help mantra mixed with autobiography ("When I was a young boy/My mama said to me/Your daddy's leavin' home today/I think he's gone to stay/We packed up all our bags/And drove out to Winnipeg") over a repetitive blues riff. 'Last Dance' is more powerful riffing, while 'LA' and 'Yonder Stands The Sinner' slip memorable hooks into their chaotic structures. Despite the overall chaos of Time Fades Away, there are a couple of stripped down moments; 'Love In Mind' is a short, gorgeous piano ballad, while 'Journey Through The Past' is also just Young accompanying himself on piano, complete with wrong notes. Even more so, the simple, elegiac 'The Bridge' is one of simply one of Young's best songs ever. Young has never allowed Time Fades Away to be released on CD, despite petitions urging him to do so, and none of the tracks made it onto the 3-LP Decade either; there are, however, mp3 blogs sharing it around the net, so it's not too hard to find. Despite the legend that's built around it due to its unavailability, Time Fades Away is not quite Young's finest hour, but due to its personal and intimate nature, most dedicated Young fans will find it fascinating and well worthwhile.
On The Beach(1974)The second part of Young's "Ditch Trilogy", On The Beach is restrained compared to the ragged Time Fades Away and Tonight's The Night, yet it's the most effective of the three. The catharsis of those records is largely gone, and instead there's an eerie, world-weary calm as the lines "It's hard to say the meaning of this song" and "You're all just pissing in the wind" suggest. Opener 'Walk On' is the only song that isn't blues based or a reflective and somber ballad. Backing musicians include David Crosby on rhythm guitar, Graham Nash on Wurlitzer, Rusty Kershaw, and The Band's rhythm section, as well as assorted members of Crazy Horse and the Stray Gators. The first side of the record is devoted to shorter songs. It's the first three that stand out musically - 'Walk On' is a bouncy riposte to Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Sweet Home Alabama', 'See The Sky About The Rain' is a gorgeous ballad based around Young's electric piano riffing, while the startling 'Revolution Blues' finds Young entering the character of an unhinged Charles Manson figure. His delivery of final frightening verse, "Well, I'm a barrel of laughs, with my carbine on/I keep 'em hoppin', till my ammunition's gone.......I got the revolution blues, I see bloody fountains/And ten million dune buggies comin' down the mountains/Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars/But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars," is one of the most memorable moments of his career, while the Danko and Helm rhythm section puts in a compelling performance. The second side is dedicated to slow ballads - the highlight is the weary 'Ambulance Blues', with its somber violin, which gently unfolds over almost nine minutes. While On The Beach isn't one of Young's most accessible albums, it's easily one of his most consistent and it captures a mood of mature resignation that's not a common feature in rock and roll.
Tonight's The Night(1975)The second of Young's "Ditch Trilogy" to be recorded but the third to be released, Tonight's The Night was withheld for release for a couple of years due to a perceived lack of commercial appeal, eventually appearing after the calmer On The Beach. Recorded with the Crazy Horse rhythm section of Molina and Talbot, as well as Nils Lofgren and Ben Keith, the record is inspired by the drug-related deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist and roadie Bruce Berry. The booklet art includes a pointed Danny Whitten caption under an empty spot on stage, while Whitten takes lead vocal on his 'Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown', recorded with Young and Crazy Horse at the Fillmore East, underlining his wasted potential (Whitten also wrote 'I Don't Wanna Talk About It', later popularised by Rod Stewart). Meanwhile, Berry is eulogised in the repeated title track: "Bruce Berry was a workin' man, he used to load that Econoline van." Elsewhere on the album, there's a feeling of indifference and weariness; "The world on a string/Doesn't mean a thing" Young notes on one song, while he admits that "I'm singin' this borrowed tune/I took from the Rolling Stones/Alone in this empty room/Too wasted to write my own." This sense of indifference is matched by the music - there are some accessible tunes here, but most of them sound not only like they've been recorded first take, but that they've been recorded first take while drunk. 'Mellow My Mind' features some of the least in tune singing ever to appear on a major label recording, while Young's piano playing in 'Speakin' Out' is bordering on incompetent. Of course, unless you're insistent that perfection is the be all and end all of record making, it's a non issue, and indeed adds to the charm of the songs; Young's records often contain elements of endearing amateurism, and Tonight's The Night just takes this one step further. Most of these songs are downbeat, although the two rockers 'Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown' and 'Lookout Joe' are far more lightweight, as is the hilariously drawn out chorus hook of 'Albuquerque'. Elsewhere, Young's playing up the beauty; 'New Mama' falls into a beautiful wall of harmonies, while "Borrowed Tune' is gorgeous in its despair. 'Tonight's The Night' and 'Tired Eyes' are simultaneously anarchic and jaded; as the representatives of this album on Decade, they give an indication of its mood but not its scope. Most of these songs rely on emotion rather than necessarily strong writing - I could conceivably compile a Young best of without including anything from here - yet as a whole, Tonight's The Night is mostly captivating and cathartic.
Zuma(1975)After getting a truckload of negativity out of his system with his Ditch Trilogy, aborting a reunion album with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and ending his difficult relationship with Carrie Snodgrass, Young reformed Crazy Horse, with guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro replacing Whitten. The result, named after the beach it was recorded at, is Young's most relaxed, sunniest album for quite some time; while there's venom, presumably directed at Snodgrass, in songs like 'Stupid Girl' and 'Drive Back', generally it's less introspective than almost anything Young's ever released. Instead, he lets his guitar take centre stage on extended workouts like 'Cortez The Killer' and 'Danger Bird', while a couple of acoustic songs, 'Pardon My Heart' and the Crosby, Stills and Nash leftover 'Through My Sails', also tangibly contribute to the more relaxed feel. The resulting album often gets overlooked when lists of Young's best work are compiled - Zuma isn't as substantial as his best works, and it often fills the role of fan favourite in his discography from enthusiasts wanting to avoid clichéd choices like After The Goldrush or Tonight's The Night. The centrepiece here is the seven and a half minutes of 'Cortez The Killer', with lyrics showing Young's fascination with native American cultures (see also 'Like An Inca', 'Pocohontas' and 'Ride My Llama') and an extended guitar workout. According to urban legend, a power cut occurred halfway through recording, before quickly coming back on, meaning that a fabled middle part of the song is absent and that the final product is a result of the beginning and the middle being spliced together. The folky 'Pardon My Heart' is the other standout here, with its sparse acoustic arrangement where the monotone backing vocals of Talbot and Molina provide an effective counterpoint for Young's heartfelt whine. The upbeat country rock of 'Lookin' For A Love' is symptomatic of Young's renewed optimism, while 'Barstool Blues' and 'Don't Cry No Tears' are memorable riff rockers. There are lesser tracks: 'Danger Bird' isn't quite the effective anthem that it's intended to be, even if it's entertaining enough, while 'Stupid Girl' is somewhat banal. Still, Zuma is one of Young's less picked over seventies albums, with only 'Cortez The Killer' making it onto Decade, and it's more than good enough to warrant further investigation, even if it's not quite first rate.
Decade(1977)I was watching a music documentary featuring footage of Neil Young at Woodstock. He sung four words - "down by the river"- and I was instantly enchanted. If I'd known that the next four words were "I shot my baby" I mightn't have been so keen, but I rushed out and bought his 2CD retrospective Decade at full price. A large handful of Young albums later Decade is still my favourite, cramming 35 great Young songs onto 2CDs. Neil Young was incredibly prolific during his first ten years; the songs on Decade draw from fourteen studio albums, as well as previously unreleased tracks. Virtually every track is significant, and virtually every kind of Neil is on Decade: hippie Neil, country Neil, rock-epic Neil, and singer-songwriter Neil are all encapsulated for the listener's convenience. The first disc begins with tracks from Buffalo Springfield, the group that Neil started his career with. Their most famous song was 'For What It's Worth', written by Stephen Stills and featured in Forrest Gump and every documentary about social upheaval in the 1960s. Neil's contributions to the group are more distinctive and obscure, notably the epic multi-part 'Broken Arrow' and the beautiful strings and acoustic guitar of 'Expecting to Fly'. His solo career begins with 'Sugar Mountain', a folk song he recorded on his home stereo on his 19th birthday, and which inspired Joni Mitchell's 'The Circle Game'. Decade really kicks in at the time of Young's second solo album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Young wrote the guitar epics 'Down by the River' (with a memorable one note guitar solo) and 'Cowgirl in the Sand' on the same day, and recorded them within two weeks of enlisting his backing group Crazy Horse. The selections from After the Goldrush and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are wonderful, especially the non-album single 'Ohio' written about the Kent State University killings and featured in every documentary about social upheaval resulting from the Vietnam war. On the second disc the five selections from Harvest, Neil Young's favourite Neil Young album, are splendid, including Young's number one single 'Heart of Gold', the dramatic 'A Man Needs a Maid' with the London Symphony Orchestra and the solo 'The Needle and the Damage Done'. Decade loses momentum towards the end of the second disc, as though Young hadn't gained enough distance from his material to judge it objectively; the scratchy 'For The Turnstiles' is arguably the worst song from On The Beach. While the last few songs are the patchiest, they still include the beautiful 'Deep, Forbidden Lake' and the soaring epic rockers 'Like A Hurricane' and 'Cortez the Killer'. Decade is so large and diverse that it is difficult to get a grasp on, but once hooked it's a fully rewarding experience. My advice is to first accustom yourself with the middle portion of the album, from track ten on disc one to track eight on disc two. These tracks form the most accessible and consistent part of Decade, and serve as an introduction to the more difficult material on the rest of the discs. Even if you have all of Young's albums, this collection is still essential for the handful of outtakes and Young's delightful handwritten liner notes.
Feedback: from Donna Comes A Time(1978)If Neil Young's musical leanings can be broadly broken down into rock, country and folk, Comes A Time is clearly from the latter camp, resulting in a Neil Young album that's more commercially appealing than anything since Harvest. Even the cover image speaks volumes - Young in down-home garb, holding an acoustic guitar, with a goofy smile on his face - and the enclosed album captures him at his most settled, a series of relationship songs dedicated to his new marriage. And in comparison to his other blatantly commercial albums, Harvest and Harvest Moon, it's the most artistically successful - Young's songs are pretty and hooky, yet there's enough realism to make these sometimes sentimental songs work. The only songs that break from the melodic, well written folk template substantially are the bluesy duet with Nicolette Larson on 'Motorcycle Mama' and the country hoedown of 'Field Of Opportunity', while there's also a rare cover in the form of folk standard 'Four Strong Winds'. All of these non-conforming songs are tacked on the end of Comes A Time, meaning that the first two thirds of the album is relatively homogenous, devoted to acoustic folk. Like much of Young's best work, these songs are largely simple and straightforward. 'Goin' Back' sets the agenda, the drummer punctuating the lines "Driven to the mountains high/They were sunken/In the cities deep/Livin' in my sleep." The title track, 'Look Out For My Love' and 'Lotta Love' take in elements from country, blues and pop respectively, forming perhaps the most accessible three song sequence in Young's catalogue. The latter in particular is one of the catchiest songs in Young's ouevre, with its distinctive electric piano part and touching lyrics ("My head needs relating/Not solitude"). Further in, there's the gorgeous, understated 'Peace Of Mind', where the sparse moody strings are a contrast to the overbearing arrangements on Harvest, and 'Already One' , explicitly about love and fatherhood. The more diverse stuff fits in fine, adding some fun to the record: the electrified 'Motorcycle Mama' provides a nice change of pace, while the goofy 'Field Of Opportunity' ("it's plowing time again!") is still melodic and well written. Comes A Time and Rust Never Sleeps are arguably the best pair of albums in Young's career - both capture him at a point in his life where he's content, relaxed and full of great songs.
Rust Never Sleeps(1979)After spending the mid seventies making relatively anarchic records, Young found a new lease of life by the end of the decade, reuniting Crazy Horse with new guitarist Frank "Pancho" Sampedro, recording an album with Stephen Stills and writing a falling in love album 'Comes A Time', all signs of a refocusing and more positive outlook that culminated in Rust Never Sleeps, arguably his finest studio album. There's a sense of purpose and of clarity here that's not always present in his recordings - Young's unusually focused and accessible, and even the fillerish tracks are very approachable. Rust Never Sleeps is divided into an acoustic side, where Young plays the clean-cut folkie, and an electric side, where Crazy Horse tear through an aggressive set. The key track appears on both sides, an acoustic version titled 'My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)' and an electric version titled 'Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)', affirming the power of rock music and comparing the legacies of Elvis and Johnny Rotten. Of course, it's also linked with another famous rock figure, with the line "It's better to burn out than to fade away" quoted by Kurt Cobain in his suicide note. There's a clear sense throughout the album of Young declaring his intention to stay relevant, whether he's criticising the complacency of his former band mates Stills, Crosby and Nash in 'Thrasher' ("I got bored and left them there/They were just deadweight to me") or adopting a punk-derived thrash in 'Welfare Mothers' and 'Sedan Delivery'. There's debate over whether Rust Never Sleeps was recorded live, but either way it's economically arranged and stripped down. The album's centre piece is the epic 'Powderfinger', not only providing the name for an Australian punk band, but another portrait of a loner character, this time a young man left to defend his family farm from raiders. Musically it's a guitar epic, akin to 'Cortez' or 'Cowgirl In The Sand', albeit a little more concise showing that Young had taken some pointers from the punk movement. The remaining electric songs confirm this, leaner and punchier than almost anything else in Young's catalogue, with the simplistic and repetitive lyrics of 'Welfare Mothers' appearing to parody the punk genre. Contrastingly, the acoustic half is often gorgeous, there's a gentle purposefulness to these songs and performances, calm yet expressing Young's restlessness. 'Thrasher' is perhaps the most solidly written, but the shorter songs are idiosyncratic and interesting lyrics, and 'Sail Away' is peaceful, with pretty backing vocals from Nicolette Larson. Like anything Young's been involved with it'd be a stretch to describe Rust Never Sleeps as perfect, as several of its nine songs are less than significant on their own terms. Still, as an album it hangs together remarkably well, and it provides an excellent introduction to Neil's rock and folk sides - you'll need to look elsewhere for his country material.
Live Rust(1979)I'm a little apathetic towards Live Rust; it's a strong live album, but it's nothing revelatory. Young's studio recordings are typically raw in any case, so a lot of these songs aren't noticeably different from their studio counterparts. Live Rust was recorded during the Rust Never Sleeps tour, famous for its oversized amps and for making the road crew dress as Jawas from Star Wars, and the soundtrack for an accompanying movie. A two record set fitting on one CD, like Live Rust is divided into an acoustic and electric half like Rust Never Sleeps, although Crazy Horse are the only backing musicians throughout. The opening pair of 'Sugar Mountain' and 'I Am A Child' aren't a promising start, as two of the more sentimental and less focused pieces in Young's catalogue, while the four songs repeated from Rust Never Sleeps seem redundant given that the latter was allegedly recorded live with the crowd noises removed. These aside, the rest of the album has its charms; it's nice to hear live versions of Young classics like 'After The Goldrush', 'Cinnamon Girl' and 'Lotta Love', but the only song that's substantially altered is the bizarre reggae ending to 'Cortez The Killer'. Potentially interesting songs like 'Cowgirl In The Sand' and 'Down By The River' with scope for improvisation are left off, while the fire of 'Southern Man' would have also been welcome. Most of what's on Live Rust is good, so it's unfair to be too harsh, but it's not the dynamic statement it could have been. 1991's Weld often gets singled out as a great live record, so that might be a better option than Live Rust if you have a hankering to hear Young live.
Trans(1982)This has to be the most atypical album in the Neil Young catalogue, excluding perhaps the feedback experiment of Arc. Trans was the first of five genre albums from the 1980s which provoked a law suit from Geffen for making uncommercial music. Rather than being purposely oblique, however, Trans was inspired by Young's difficulty communicating with his cerebal palsy affected son. Young filters his vocals through a vocoder, creating an unsettling electronic effect. Trans is sometimes compared to Kraftwerk, but it still features prominent guitars, and it's not so far removed from Young's usual strengths to be inaccessible to fans. The album's biggest problem is that it comes across as a novelty record; some of the electronic effects haven't aged gracefully, and it's hard to take the technological themes seriously for the same reason. Each side of the original LP opens with a relatively straightforward and innocuous country rock tune; suffice to say that if the rest of the album was cut from the same cloth, Trans would rate as one of Young's most inessential releases. The lengthy 'Like An Inca' is perhaps the most quintessentially Young song here; the romanticisation of America's native people came up previously in 'Cortez The Killer' and 'Pocahontas', and it would have been a feature on any of his seventies albums, but its repetitive riff fits the style of this album perfectly. Electronics come to the fore in the highly entertaining 'We R In Control' (with phone tones used amusingly as percussion) and 'Sample And Hold'. Buffalo Springfield's 'Mr Soul' is reinvented electronically, although it still features the same guitar riff, while 'Transformer Man' holds up well as a song in 1993's Unplugged rendition. Trans doesn't perhaps hold up as the big statement about technology and society that Young intended, but it's a good collection of tunes and completely different from the rest of Young's catalogue, and more open minded fans would be well advised to check it out.
Eldorado(1989)The EP Eldorado was filleted from an aborted rock album Times Square, and there are only 5000 copies in existence. Young was largely absent from the musical mainstream of the 1980s, experimenting with guise albums that were largely unsuccessful to the extent that Geffen sued him for making uncommercial recordings. While the subsequent album Freedom was hailed as the significant return to form, Eldorado packs even more of a punch over its five tracks. Not only is it consistent (especially by Neil Young's standards), but it's also Young's most chunky album ever with a lot of grunt and minimal aimless jamming. Working in a three piece named Neil Young and the Restless, Young is very focused and dealing with good material; 'Don't Cry', the title track and the hard rock cover of 'On Broadway' are three of the best songs on Freedom, while the otherwise unreleased 'Cocaine Eyes' is arguably the best song on the disc. 'Heavy Love' is the least memorable piece, but it's still stylistically appealing. Apart from the flamenco stylings on the title track, Eldorado is straight hard rock. Young excels at this; his vocals are strong, and he crashes his guitar all over the place. A whole album in this guise would have been outstanding (the tracklist of Times Square indicates that it would have been a much stronger release than Freedom), but twenty five minutes is powerful in itself. If you're a Neil Young fan you should try to track down 'Cocaine Eyes', and should also note the version of 'Don't Cry' is slightly different than that on Freedom. Interestingly, Young has informally sanctioned pirating this release; he's actually self-conscious of his peversity for withholding great material.
Freedom(1989)While Young's return to form in the 1990s has produced some good music, his best music from the 1990s is still a level below his best music of the 1960s and 1970s. Young balances the rock tracks from Eldorado with tender ballads 'Wrecking Ball' and 'Hangin' on the Limb', with harmony vocals from Linda Ronstadt. Young's spectrum is also expressed in the two alternate treatments of 'Rockin' in the Free World' that bookend Freedom: a rock anthem and the acoustic live version with a crowd that is too busy cheering along to the ironically peppy chorus to listen to the despairing social commentary of the verses. Unfortunately not all of Freedom is as memorable; the worst moment is the banal 'The Ways of Love', a previously unreleased seventies song that should still be gathering dust in the archives. The epic 'Crime in the City' gets monotonous, but has intriguing lyrics. Freedom is an archetypal Neil Young album; some of it is noisy and some of it is subdued, some of it is great and some of it is awful. On balance, it's nice to have Young back.
Ragged Glory(1990)Freedom might have been inconsistent, but its best moments unequivocally showed the re-emergence of Young as a relevant artist. To complete his renaissance, Young reunited with Crazy Horse for the most ferociously electric set of his career. The "Godfather of Grunge" tag that Young enjoyed during the nineties largely springs from Ragged Glory, released just a year before the emergence of Nirvana, Pearl Jam et al, laced in distortion and feedback, raw and pared back to a simple four piece. Perversely, if the social commentary of Freedom felt relevant and forward-looking, much of Ragged Glory is firmly set in the sixties: 'Farmer John' is a blazing cover of a Nuggets staple, while 'Days That Used To Be' is a blatant cop from Dylan's 'My Back Pages'. The lyrics of the latter and 'Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)' obviously carry nostalgia, while the opening 'Country Home' even states "I'm thankful for my country home/It gives me peace of mind/Somewhere I can walk alone/And leave myself behind." This leaves the aggressive 'F*!#in' Up' as virtually the only song that's angst ridden enough to fit on an actual grunge album, and it's no coincidence that it's made Pearl Jam's live set. The only song that really adds in any diversity to the album is the closing 'Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)', a slightly awkward attempt at a universal statement on environmentalism, but with a slower and more pompous feel than anything on the disc. It's difficult to find anything else as unambiguously sleazy as 'Farmer John' in Young's catalogue; as simple as his writing can be, he seldom writes anything as gloriously stupid and he attacks it with relish. Of course, the heart of the album lies in the long epics like 'Over and Over' and 'Love and Only Love', and even if they're not as revolutionary as earlier Crazy Horse epics like 'Down By The River' and 'Cortez The Killer', they're melodic and enjoyable, and there's little resembling a bad cut on the record. While a lack of diversity and long track running times do dull its impact somewhat, Ragged Glory is a surprisingly tuneful and fun record and, if Lucky Thirteen is anything to go by, it's easily Young's best record since Rust Never Sleeps a decade earlier and arguably better than any studio record he's released since.
Harvest Moon(1992)An equally appropriate title for Harvest Moon would be Neil Young Calms Down and Makes Bland Music for His Mellow Fans Who Don't Like His More Raucous Music. Apparently Young had hearing difficulties after 1990's Ragged Glory, and was forced to record something quieter. But what is unfair is that the lightweight Harvest Moon became Young's highest selling release since the original Harvest in 1972. The man deserves a medal for not selling out and becoming a country-pop lounge king-of-the-road. Harvest Moon is pleasant but that doesn't compensate for the dull songs. 'Old King', a tribute to Neil's dead dog, is arguably the most tacky moment of his entire catalogue, although it is catchier than most of the other crap here. The only songs that I enjoy are 'Such a Woman', which is strangely affecting, 'From Hank to Hendrix', and 'Natural Beauty'. At over ten minutes long, unplugged and using the same four chord sequence that Young used for 'Cortez the Killer', 'Natural Beauty' is slightly monotonous, but is carried by the engaging lyrics like "I heard a perfect echo die behind an anonymous wall of digital sound." Otherwise Harvest Moon is too bland to be interesting, although I'm holding out hope that I may enjoy it more as I get older.
Lucky Thirteen(1993)Collated from Young's five 1980s records on the Geffen label, who famously sued Young for making uncommercial music, Lucky Thirteen is a somewhat bemusing trawl through some of Young's more perverse music making. While Geffen planned to release Young's singles from the era, Young took control of the project, omitting hits and including studio outtakes, live recordings and alternate versions. Additionally, the last two songs are drawn from his first album back on Reprise, 1988's R&B This Note's For You - since they're also genre experiments, they fit in fine. To recap, Young's five Geffen albums were the electronics of Trans (1983), the rockabilly of Everybody's Rocking (1984), the country of Old Ways (1985), the mid-eighties generic rock of Landing On Water (1986), and the Crazy Horse reunion Life (1987). Based on the tracks featured here, I wouldn't be tempted to hear most of these individual albums - Trans is actually pretty good while I like the selections from Old Ways - but otherwise Lucky Thirteen is a useful shortcut to the most bizarre phase of Young's career. On the other hand, it's probably fine to skip over this era of Young's career altogether unless you're a serious fan - of the thirteen songs featured here, there are only five or six that I'm particularly fussed about. The extended version of 'Sample And Hold' is of course enjoyable, and it's a shame that the other epic Trans song, 'Like An Inca', isn't also included. The three selections from Old Ways are melodic and sincere, if somewhat generic; the sentimental 'Once An Angel' is a touching song of devotion ("It's been six years since my ring slipped on your finger/And those years have made a better man of me") , while Waylon Jennings sings backing vocals on 'Where Is The Highway Tonight?'. 'Hippie Dream' tends towards generic eighties rock, as you'd expect from a Danny Kotchmar collaboration, but it's at least intense and provocative ("And the wooden ships/Are a hippy dream/Capsized in excess"). Best of all, 'Mideast Vacation' uses a less sympathetic update of 'Powderfinger' story over a surprisingly effective eighties backing; "They chanted "death to America"/I was feeling like a fight....When they burned me in effigy my vacation was complete." Beyond the above listed songs, there's little to be excited about on Lucky Thirteen; plastic rock, bad rockabilly and hokey R&B, although the lack of ideas and inspiration through this era is far more telling than the distracting style jumps. There's some passable stuff on Lucky Thirteen, and if you're a fan it's interesting to hear Young attempt some unfamiliar styles, but overall it's annoyingly frustrating and most other parts of Young's lengthy career should be explored first.
Unplugged(1993)Recorded at a time when everybody from Mariah Carey to Nirvana was appearing on MTV and unleashing the results on the public as Unplugged records, I daresay that Young's effort is one of the better efforts to emerge from the movement. A more idiosyncratic revisiting of his back catalogue than the career overview of Live Rust, it's more interesting to long-time fans, throwing in rare songs and drastic reinterpretations alongside a handful of Young standards and material from the recent Harvest Moon. Young is supported by most of the Stray Gators, his backing band from Harvest, along with Nils Lofgren on guitar, and Nicolette Larson, who popularised 'Lotta Love', on backing vocals. The most notable song here is the Stephen Stills tribute 'Stringman', written in 1976, but never officially released until this album, possibly because of its personal nature; it's a gentle piano piece, with lines like "There is no dearer friend of mine/That I know in this life/On his shoulder rests a violin/For his head where chaos reigns." From the drastic reinterpretations pile, 'Like A Hurricane' is given a dramatic pump organ backing, while the previously electronic 'Transformer Man' stands up as a solid song in acoustic form. As much as I find Harvest Moon monotonous, the three songs from it here sound fine when they're nestled alongside some of Young's more idiosyncratic songs like 'Old Laughing Lady' and 'World On A String'. Like most live albums, Unplugged isn't essential by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a nice little addition to Young's catalogue nonetheless.
Sleeps With Angels(1994)In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain quoted Neil Young's line "It's better to burn out than to fade away". Young responded with the title track for this album, dedicated to Cobain, while the terminal illness of producer David Briggs, a longtime Young collaborator, also casts a shadow over the album. On some levels, it's perhaps the most satisfying of Young's comeback albums; it's more varied than Ragged Glory, harder edged than the divertingly light songs on Freedom, and more thematically powerful than either, successfully updating Young's seventies style with a heavier, more distorted production. Yet, it's also a little underwhelming; the songs rarely are much more than competent, the best song is drawn out to almost fifteen minutes of running time, while two of the other songs even go as far as sharing the same melody. It's well produced, and well played, and it's solid, enjoyable Neil Young, but it's hardly as memorable as his best seventies work; I just don't buy any arguments that his best nineties work is anywhere the same level as his seventies output, and this is no exception even if it has lots of Neil Young trademarks about it. As indicated above, the fifteen minutes of 'Change Your Mind' is the best song here; in some ways it's a wasted opportunity, as it's melodic and hooky and could have made a great three minute single a la 'Cinnamon Girl', but there's enough going on to overcome the awkward lyrics ("When you feel used/And you just can't play the clown") and lengthy soloing. The other standout is opener 'My Heart', with Young playing creaky tack piano and cracking his voice. 'Blue Eden' has a neat drone thing going, while the New Zealand cricket board should really start using 'Trans Am' for marketing purposes ("A nasty wind was blowing through the gates of Eden Park/One was swinging and one was hanging"). The punky 'Piece Of Crap' has terrific anti-materialist lyrics ("Saw it on the tube/Bought it on the phone/Now you're home alone/With a piece of crap"), and is a welcome change of pace from the torpid songs here, but it's not helped by the loud, abrasive backing voice. Sleeps With Angels is one of Neil's more substantial post seventies records, but there's not a whole lot here to get excited about; I always feel like I have too many post-seventies Neil Young albums lying around, and this is just another one.
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Written 2001-2009, Graham Fyfe
