Chris and Matt called me to
tell me about how they were challenging each other to listen to the Black
Sabbath and Elvis Costello discographies, respectively. And that our homie Jack was doing all
the Bowie albums.
So, I reined it in a little
and went with all of Neil Young’s proper studio albums, a couple select live
albums, the three Buffalo Springfield albums, 4 Crosby Stills, Nash, &
Young albums (including one live album), two pre-Buffalo Springfield singles,
and Pearl Jam’s “Merkinball” EP, which is an accompanying piece to Neil’s album
“Mirrorball”. When all was said
and done, the playlist for this on my iPod was 500 songs and about 37 hours
long. I used Wikipedia and Neil’s
website discography for guidance in terms of releases to include, and order of
release.
I managed to get through
Neil Young’s discography in about 4 days, partly because I had a hurt ankle and
had a lot of time to just sit around and listen to music, and partly because I
have already listened to a good lot of his albums very intently over the years,
and so I was already very familiar with them. Of the 36 “Neil Young” albums on my playlist for this, I
have had about 18 of them in fairly regular rotation over the past 10 or so
years of my life. Which is a good
discography unto itself. But,
there are a stack of Neil Young’s albums I’m not familiar with, and so here we
are. My overarching impression
that I came away from this experience with, is that there are really no Neil
Young albums I consider bad. But
there are a bunch that are straight-up weird. I think all of them will be in my rotation more, now. OK. Let’s get into it.
I started this off with Neil
Young’s first band, The Squires.
The single for “The Sultan”, with the B-side, “Aurora” (1963), which I pulled off the Archives box set. This was some instrumental, surf-y
garage-y sounding shit from 1963.
Not really my bag, but still cool to hear where he got
started. It doesn’t sound far off
from any garage surf stuff to me, but, again I’m kind of ignorant to that
branch of the rock and roll tree.
Next up was The Mynah
Birds. The band that included Neil
Young and Rick James in 1966. I
got the single for “It’s My Time” b/w “Go On And Cry” off of the Complere Motown
Singles 1966 box set initially, but got the first-time 7-inch vinyl release of
it last year on Record Store Day.
These songs are awesome.
Rick James is doing his best Mick Jagger impersonation on this
stuff. “It’s My Time” is a solid
rocker, and “Go On And Cry” is a slow ballad that sounds exactly like the title
promises. I think I read somewhere
that The Mynah Birds broke up because Rick James had to go back to the Army or
something. Motown never physically
released the songs until that Singles box, and it never got proper release as a
single until that RSD version.
I listened to both versions
(mono, and stereo) of the first, self-titled Buffalo Springfield album (1966). The first few songs (written by Stephen
Stills) remind me of early Beatles, big time. The highlights on the album for me are Neil Young’s tunes,
which makes sense. I know these
tunes better from Neil Young-solo versions on the recently-released Archive
series live albums.
I don’t have much to say
about the second and third Buffalo Springfield albums, “Buffalo Springfield
Again” (1967) and “Last Time Around” (1968), respectively. Again, Neil Young’s songs were the
highlights, especially “Mr. Soul” and “On The Way Home”.
I’ve never really given
Buffalo Springfield much time before this, but I think these three albums will probably
get more play around my house and car.
Neil Young’s first,
self-titled, solo album (1968) starts off with the instrumental song, “The
Emperor Of Wyoming”, which sounds like it could have been a Buffalo Springfield
song. It’s kind of like a segue,
and him saying “so long, dudes” to Buffalo Springfield. Because when “The Loner” kicks in, it
sounds completely different, and it fuckin rocks. Hard. The riff
is heavy. The production is
heavy. Same with “I’ve Been Waiting
For You”. I feel like a lot of
people sleep on this album, but I’d recommend it to anyone. I have my Grandma Rita’s original LP
copy of this and his second album, (and first with Crazy Horse):
“Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere” (1969) starts right off with the stomper riff of “Cinnamon Girl”. That song is as heavy in 2013 as it was
in 1969. Listening to this right
after the first, the production is pretty different. There is a decent amount of orchestration on the first
album, and “Everybody Knows…” is pretty much straight forward guitars, bass,
and drums rock. The album has a
nice flow. The first 2 albums are
in my regular rotation of albums I listen to anyway, so it was almost routine,
listening to them in this context.
But, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to them back to back like this.
I’ve also never gone out of
my way to listen to Crosby Stills, Nash, and Young before this exercise. I was a little surprised at how many of
these songs on “Déjà vu” (1970) I recognized. Friggin, “Our house is a very very very fine house…” The album is good, but not really my
bag. And, I feel like it took me
out of the experience of listening to a “Neil Young” discography. It’s definitely jarring, but at the
same time, I can hear how working with Crosby, Stills, and Nash rubbed off on
Neil Young’s next album…
“After The Gold Rush” (1970). is another album that I have listened to like a thousand times. There isn’t much I can say about this album that hasn’t been said by every critic ever, or my mom. It’s a classic because it’s good. All the songs are “there”. Neil’s voice is starting to really find that “perpetual mourning” tone that is there in almost all of his slower, sadder songs (and, god damn, does Neil Young have a lot of sad songs… Which is fine, because I love sad songs.) I’ve always liked that “After The Gold Rush” ends with “Cripple Creek Ferry”, because the album, as a whole, is HEAVY. Every song is on some “weight of the world” shit, and “Cripple Creek Ferry” is light, and almost funny.
“4 Way Street” (1970) is a
CSNY live album that I included, because I noticed that it included some
Buffalo Springfield tunes, and proper Neil Young songs, in addition to the CSNY
songs. It’s cool to hear how songs
like “On The Way Home, and “Cowgirl In The Sand” translate with all those vocal
harmonies, but, honestly, I’m probably never going to listen to this album much
after this task. There’s a reason
I don’t listen to Crosby, Stills and Nash albums that don’t have Neil
Young. Those dudes just do nothing
for me. The only real highlight of
this album for me was “Ohio”, which is another of the saddest damn songs ever
written.
So, after 74 fucking minutes
of jammy, live Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, it was the ultimate relief to
listen to “Harvest” (1972). Like -
remember the bit in Eddie Murphy “Raw”, where he goes, “If you starvin’, and
somebody throws you a cracker, you’d be like ‘god DAMN! That’s the best cracker
I ever had in my life!!!’”? - That’s what Harvest felt like after “4 Way Street”. I’m pretty sure “Harvest” was my (and a
lot of people’s) first proper Neil Young album, and for me, it’s another
classic that never gets old. I’ve
always considered “Harvest” to be a “hot weather, back porch at night”
album. It’s a humid-sounding album. And it sounds like the album cover
looks. If you’d never heard
“Harvest”, and you were handed a copy of the record, and played it, it delivers
what the art promises. In fact, a
lot of Neil Young’s albums have that “complete package” deal going on, where
the album cover looks like the album sounds.
I included the soundtrack
for “Journey Through The Past” (1972) here because I’ve never listened to it
front-to-back before. It’s cool,
but it’s really exactly what the title promises, a chronical of the past few
years, at the time. It starts off
with some Buffalo Springfield live cuts, has some CSNY, including a studio
version of “Ohio”, which made me even more pissed that I sat through “4-Way
Street”, some jammy demo versions of Neil Young album tracks, like “Southern
Man” and “Words”, and some neat dialogue.
It ends with the Beach Boys song, “Let’s Go Away For A While”, which I
didn’t realize until listening to it here, and that was a cool surprise because
I love that song. I only have this
on my iPod, and I feel like this album was meant for its original vinyl record
format, so I’ll probably pick up a copy next time I see it.
Next up was the “Ditch”
trilogy: “Time Fades Away” (1973), “On The Beach” (1974), and “Tonight’s The
Night” (1975). I didn’t nickname
them the “Ditch” trilogy. I read
about it on that Neil Young Wikipedia article, and I like the reasoning behind
it. Dark times made for dark
music.
“Time Fades Away” is a rowdy
live album, and one of Neil’s albums that I listen to on the reg anyway. It’s an original live album, too, like
the first Jane’s Addiction album, or MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams” - all new songs
that pretty much have no recorded versions on any other albums. It’s kind of sloppy in places, and the
production is pretty awesomely stripped-sounding. This album is lesser known than Neil Young “classics”,
because it’s remained largely out-of-print since its original release, and I
think it has never properly released on CD.
“On The Beach” is full of
sad, gloomy rockers on the first side.
“Revolution Blues” is a monster.
“Vampire Blues” is an awesome hippy song about oil consumption. Side 2 is three slow, sad, stoned
dirges. The title track is a
crawler. Heavy as fuck, but not
loud. The riff and the overall
atmosphere of the song sound like sitting alone on a beach looking at a grey,
rainy sky over the ocean. “Motion
Pictures” is a nice bluesy joint.
“Ambulance Blues” is another mournful-sounding joint. Another one that I listen to fairly
regularly anyway.
“Tonight’s The Night” is the
third dark gloomy album in a row.
Deaths of close friends contributed to dark, mournful tunes. A lot of the songs sound like that
drunk who gets all leany and sluury, like “Speakin’ Out”, “Roll Another
Number”, and “Tired Eyes”. Loose,
and almost sloppy in places. This
is another humid-sounding album too.
“Mellow My Mind” and “Lookout Joe” especially.
“Zuma” (1975) brings back
the Crazy Horse band, and it’s more loose rockers. “Danger Bird” and “Cortez The Killer” have always stood out
for me because they’re long, doomy dirges.
“Long May You Run” (1966) is
an album that I have never listened to before the Challenge. It’s a split album between Neil Young
and Stephen Stills, and labeled as “The Stills-Young Band”. It’s a weird kind of split album,
because they trade off every other song.
Tracks 1,3,5,6, and 8 are by Neil Young, and 2,4,7, and 9 are by Stephen
Stills. Neil’s songs are pretty spot-on
for the kind of stuff he was doing in the mid-1970s. They could have been a sweet EP on their own. Stephen Stills’ songs remind me a bit
of Robin Trower’s album, “Bridge Of Sighs”, crossed with weirdo 1980s yacht
rock-type shit.
“American Stars N’ Bars”
(1977) is an album I was never too familiar with, going into this. I’ve heard it in the background, on
album shuffle, but I’ve never put it on to listen to it on purpose. This album is kind of a mixed-bag. It’s got rockers like “Bite The
Bullet”, country-type tunes like “Homegrown” and “The Old-Country Waltz”, and
nice slow and low joints, like “Will To Love”. In the context of the era, it felt familiar. I like this album a lot now, and I even
bought a real copy of it the other day.
“Comes A Time” (1978) is
another album I’ve never given a fair shake, and I’ve heard from all kinds of
folks over the years that it’s a classic and I’m a fool for sleeping on
it. And those people were
right. The first side of this
record is flawless, to me. The
title track is the rocking-est song on that side. The rest of that side is mostly love-type songs. Side 2 has “Already One”, a kind of
nostalgic love song, which is the first time we hear a riff that he uses again
and again over the years in songs about love. It’s the main riff in the song “Harvest Moon”, but
mentioning that here means I’m getting way ahead of myself. I’m gonna refer to that riff as the
“Love Riff” and make mention of it every time it comes around again. Off my head, I can think of at least 5
songs total where the Love Riff shows up.
The weirdest song on this album is “Motorcycle Mama”, mainly because
Nicolette Larson has very prominent vocal parts, and it’s not the kind of voice
I was expecting to hear on a Nail Young record. It kinda sounds like it’d fit better as part of a movie
soundtrack than a proper album. It
doesn’t ruin the album, but it does sound kind of out of place.
“Rust Never Sleeps” (1979)
is an album I’ve only really gotten into in the past few years, and another to
feature the Crazy Horse band. Half
of the album is acoustic, and half is electric. And most of the album was recorded live at shows, so the
album has the same kind of feel that “Time Fades Away” had. “Pocahontas” was really the song that
brought me to this album for the first time, after hearing Johnny Cash’s cover
of it. “Powderfinger” is the
anchor of the album, though. The
riff and the melody is a ghost that I’m always happy to let haunt my brain all
day.
“Hawks And Doves” (1980)
starts off with 4 low-key songs on the first side, and picks up with 5
boisterous, shitkickin’ country songs on the second. “Captain Kennedy” kind of reminds me of “Runnin Dry” from
“Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”.
There is a similar chord progression and melody. Side 2 has some songs that get all into
some “USA all the way! Love it or
leave it!” kinda shit. I was about
as familiar with this album as I was “American Stars N’ Bars”, and I think I’ll
be getting more familiar as time goes forward.
“Re.Ac.Tor” (1981) is
another album that I had never listened to before. And it’s another album with the Crazy Horse band on
board. And, holy shit, why the
hell haven’t I listened to this album before? The whole thing is a manic, loud, ruckus beast of an
album. There is not a ballad or
low-key song to be found on here.
There is a lot of humor to be found here, like on “Opera Star”, and
“T-Bone”. “Southern Pacific” and
“Shots” sound completely paranoid.
I think this is Neil Young’s most underrated album.
“Trans” (1982) is the first
in a series of albums I’ve been referring to as “Neil Young’s Weird 1980s Period”. The period where the record label was
trying to tell him what kind of albums to make, so he made 4 weirdo albums to
fuck with the record label.
“Trans” starts off with a fast-paced poppy, country-tinged rocker called
“Little Thing Called Love”, and there’s an appearance by the Love Riff, I
mentioned earlier. But, “Computer
Age” is where shit gets weird, and starts to sound like the album cover
looks. Like, some Tron shit. There is stuff that sounds like
Kraftwerk or Devo all over this album.
“Computer Cowboy” has some awesome riffs, but it also has weird-as-hell
computerized vocals. There is even
an update (can you call it a cover?) of “Mr. Soul”, which Neil wrote as a
Buffalo Springfield song. It
sounds crazy with the synthed-out vocals and drum machine rhythms... The album ends with “Like An Inca”,
which has some familiar phrasings that Neil revisits on the “Le Noise” album,
but, again, that’s getting WAY ahead of myself. I’ve never actually listened to “Trans” before. I kinda thought it might be terrible,
because I knew it was his “electronic” album. But, I think I’m gonna listen to it a lot more now. It’s a really weird album, and I don’t
think I’d recommend it to most people.
But, I like that this album references the past, and references the
future, in places where I was more familiar already. I read that the record label was unhappy with “Trans” and
asked Neil for a “rock and roll record”, so he gave them:
“Everybody’s Rockin’” (1983),
credited to “Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks”. It’s a rock and roll record, all right… Like, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, or
Jerry Lewis – kind of rock and roll.
It’s got a handful of covers, and a handful of new songs, written in
that old-timey rock and roll style, like “Payola Blues”, about the old radio
tradition of “you pay us, and we’ll play your song”. “Wonderin’” is a great tune that I’m already familiar with a
different version from one of the “Archives: Live Series” albums. This album was a blast to listen to,
partly because it’s just good old-fashioned rock and roll, and partly because
you know it was just Neil giving the record label the finger.
“Old Ways” (1985) is another
shitkickin’ country-rock record.
The record label asked for a “country-type” record, but they were
thinking “Harvest”. Neil gave them
a real-deal country record. Waylon
Jennings and Willie Nelson play and sing on this album. So much fiddle on this album… "Once An Angel" is a beautiful, sad love song. “Misfits” is probably the standout track. It’s a huge-sounding
song. Paints a weird picture with
the lyrics.
“Landing On Water” (1986) is
the last of those “weird 1980s” albums.
And it’s fuckin’ weird. The
first song, “Weight Of The World” sounds like some 1980s Yes shit. It is probably the most
“dated”-sounding of any Neil Young album.
There are some heavy heavy 80s sounds going on here. After listening to all four of the
Weird 1980s albums, I love them. I
avoided them for a long time because I thought they would suck. They probably do suck,
technically. But the songs are
there. They just sound weird.
“Life” (1987) is another
album with Crazy Horse. It’s also
kind of “80s-sounding”. But it’s
yet another album I’ve avoided for a while because most artists who were great
in the 1970s stunk in the 1980s.
The song “Inca Queen” sounds like another chapter in the story Neil and
Crazy Horse started telling on “Zuma” with “Cortez The Killer” and continued
with “Like An Inca”. The songs on
this album are pretty good, but listening to it feels like listening to Springsteen’s
“Born In The USA”, where the production kind of distracts from the actual songcraft.
“This Note’s For You” (1988)
was recorded by Neil Young with the Bluenotes, minus Harold Melvin. It’s a groovy, soulful album. Lots of horns, and lots of cool R&B
tropes. The standout for me was
“Married Man”, with lyrics like “I’m a married man. Please respect my happy home…” Another album I’ve slept on, but I’ll probably listen
to more, moving forward.
After the awesomeness of
“This Note’s For You”, I had to suffer through another Crosby, Stills, Nash,
and Young album. They decided to
get the band together again in 1988 and make the album “American Dream”. The first song, the title track, sounds
like some bad Huey Lewis shit. Neil Young’s songs are the only things worth listening to on
this album. Overall, listening to
this album was a hellride for me.
I’ll probably never ever ever listen to this album again.
“Eldorado” (1989) was an
oasis for me after sitting through “American Dream”. “Cocaine Eyes” is a kick-ass start to this short 5-song EP,
and it is so much better than anything on that shitty CSNY album. “Eldorado” is weird because 3 songs on
it are on the album that immediately followed, “Freedom” (1989), and I kind of
feel like they could have just included “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love” on “Freedom”,
and it would have been a stronger album.
“Freedom” kind of feels like “Rust Never Sleeps”, to listen to because
of the way it is bookended by acoustic and electric versions of an
instant-classic rocker song – in this case, “Rockin’ In The Free World”. It’s a solid album, and yet another
that I have never given enough time, honestly.
“Ragged Glory” (1990) is a
jammy fucker of a record that Neil brought Crazy Horse around again to
record. There are a couple
songs that cross the 10-minute
mark. “Fuckin’ Up” is a song that
I first got to know because Pearl Jam covered it quite a few times – most
notably on a major-release live album.
But, every song on here sounds like they had a friggin blast writing and
recording it. The riffs are colossal. “Love To Burn”, “Over and Over”, and
friggin “Love And Only Love” are jamsterpieces that sound like a band who know,
love and respect one another like family.
I only recently became familiar with this album, but it’s not one I play
a lot. This exercise reminded me
how much this album rips.
“Harvest Moon” (1992) is
considered by many people to be a sequel to 1972’s “Harvest”. It’s pretty much a perfect album, and
one of the first albums of Neil’s that I was ever very familiar with. All the songs have an air of
sentimentality and love. The title
track’s main riff is the “Love Riff” I mentioned a few times earlier. That riff comes around again a few more
times in recent years. I don’t
really have much else to say about this album that hasn’t been said by people a
million times. As well, I am so
familiar with this album that it will disintegrate into my own personal
feelings and memories linked up with this album. It’s great.
“Old King” makes me want to get a dog.
“Unplugged” (1993) is another
live album I decided to include.
I’d heard how good it is from a number of people. The coolest thing was hearing a
stripped-down version of “Transformer Man” from “Trans”. It’s a cool live album and worth
listening to.
“Sleeps With Angels” (1994)
has a weird sentimentality for me, because I got my grandmother’s copy of the
CD after she passed away. She was
a huge Neil Young fan, and I think this was the last of his albums she got into
before she died. I slept on this
album for a long time. It’s
another Crazy Horse album, and it’s a heavy and dark album. “Driveby” and “Western Hero” are moody,
creepy, and sad songs that make me want to listen to the whole album on
repeat.
“Mirror Ball” (1995) is the
album where Neil recruited Pearl Jam to be his backing band. It’s a loose-sounding album. It sounds like everyone involved with
creating this album had a blast.
“I’m The Ocean” is a heavy rocker with a great riff that chugs along
hard. “Truth Be Known” wouldn’t
sound out of place on “Tonight’s The Night”. I included Pearl Jam’s “Merkinball EP in this challenge
because it was released to be an accompaniment to “Mirror Ball”. Neil Young contributed pump organ to
the two songs on “Merkinball”, and I think I read somewhere that those songs were
meant to be part of “Mirror Ball”, but they were left off at the last
minute. If you have both of these
albums on your iTunes, I recommend placing “I Got Id” between “Peace And Love”
and “Throw Your Hatred Down”, and “Long Road” at the end of the album, after
“Fallen Angel”. They flow really
nicely.
“Dead Man” (1996) is a film
score Neil Young did for Jim Jarmusch’s movie of the same name. It is mostly improvised guitar
noodlings, interspersed with even sparser noodlings overlaid with dialog from
the movie. It’s a cool
listen. “Organ Solo” is very
similar to “Fallen Angel” from “Mirror Ball” – so much so that I thought it was
an instrumental version at first.
This album makes me want to pick up and watch the movie again. There is a lot of themes that crop up
and reappear throughout Neil Young’s catalog, and this album is almost like a
prequel to “Le Noise” because of the loose guitar and feedback sounds rattling
around it.
“Broken Arrow” (1996) is
another Crazy Horse album, and another album I’ve been told for years and years
how great it is, but I’ve slept on it.
From the opening, I am glad I have finally listened to it. This album feels like a sequel to
“Ragged Glory”, in the way that the songs are loose and jammy and some of them
sound like they were written then recorded immediately. The first three songs are long,
meandering pieces. “Slip Away”
feels like another chapter in the “Cortez The Killer” story, in that it’s got
that crawling, meandering guitar feel.
At this point in my writing, and thinking about it, I think I might go
back and just listen to the Neil Young And Crazy Horse albums, to see how they
feel as a body of work.
“Looking Forward” (1999) was
thankfully the last goddamn CSNY album I had to listen to. Just as “American Dream” sounded
1980s-as-fuck, so does “Looking Forward” sound 1990s-as-fuck, at least in the
beginning. The opening song, “Faith
In Me”, sounds like if Blues Traveler and Smash Mouth had serious love sex and
then wrote a song about it after.
But, then, that is a Stephen Stills song. The title track is written, and led by Neil Young, and it’s
actually pretty great. After
listening to this album, and the other CSNY albums, I realized that the smart
thing to do, at least for me, would be to go through the three proper CSNY
studio albums, and make a compilation playlist of just the songs written and
lead-sung by Neil Young. Because
Crosby, Stills, and Nash are what make those albums annoying as shit. Those dudes are lucky Neil Young came
around once in a while to class up the joint. Listening to a CSNY album is like a 45-minute douche
chill. All those dudes did some
drugs in their day, but Neil Young is the only one who was left not-damaged by
it.
Listening to “Silver And
Gold” (2000) after sitting through a whole CSNY album was like brushing your
teeth after eating spinach. It’s
mostly low-key, acoustic-y, country-ish feeling stuff, and yet another album
that I’ve just never listened to before the challenge. And another that I will be listening to
a lot more, moving forward. “Without
Rings”, the album closer, is that perfect melancholy sad.
“Are You Passionate” (2002)
is the album that I think “This Note’s For You” wanted to be. Neil recruited Booker T and the MGs as
his band for most of this album, and it resulted in a straight-up soul music
album. The songs on this album
sound like they could have been Motown singles from like 1967. I was already very familiar with this
album going into the challenge, but it still was a fresh listen because of the
context of a chronological listen.
The guitar in “Mr Disappointment” just rings out a sad melody. “Differently” has that same thing going
for it, with some great, classic-soul “whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” backing vocals in
there. Crazy Horse appears on this
album too, on the rocker, “Goin’ Home”.
That song should feel out-of-place, but doesn’t. I don’t know what else to say about
this album. It was the first of
three in a row that I hold in really high regard. It’s a fun album to listen to, and one that will always be
in regular rotation for me.
“Greendale” (2003) is
another album to feature the Crazy Horse band, and one of my favorite Neil
Young albums. It’s like a movie
that you can listen to. It’s a
concept album about a fictional town called Greendale, and the fictional people
who live there. “Bandit” is among
my very favorite Neil Young songs.
The whole album chronicles a typical small town that gets stormed by
media and controversy when something unthinkable happens in town. The first 3 songs set the stage and
backstory of the town. An
accidental bad decision on leads to tragedy in “Leave The Driving”. “Carmichael” tells of the immediate aftermath
and sadness. “Bandit” and
“Grandpa’s Interview” deal with regret and remorse, and with a family becoming
embroiled in a controversy because of an incidental black sheep among them. The whole album speaks a lot about
privacy in the modern age, and how small things can lead to big changes. DC Comics published a “graphic novel”
adaptation of this album, and it was a pretty solid adaptation. The storytelling in the album is kind
of non-linear and jumps around a lot.
The book is more straight-ahead, and adds elements that weren’t there in
the album, but it enriches the story.
“Prairie Wind” (2005) was an
instant classic, and the album that I feel rounds out a trilogy started with
“Harvest”, and continued with “Harvest Moon”. It’s an introspective, love-filled album. “It’s A Dream” is another of my
all-time favorite Neil Young songs.
Sad-sounding and full of pretty strings. “This Old Guitar” features another appearance from the Love
Riff, and is a sweet love letter to his guitar as a friend that has stood by
Neil’s side forever. “He Was The
King” is an awesome rocker about Elvis.
I’d give this album to anyone who already loves Neil’s mellower albums.
Neil cranked it back up with
“Living With War” (2006), a protest album about the Iraq war, President Bush,
and American consumerism in the 21st Century. It’s an album that I don’t listen to a
lot, and I remember not liking it a lot when it came out, going. But, listening to it now, I liked it a
lot more, probably because I keep up with the news more now. “Let’s Impeach The President” and
“Looking For A Leader” are a pair of serious “fuck you”-s to the Bush
administration. I like “Roger And
Out” best on the album. I think
it’s the most music-focused, rather than idea-focused song. There is also a version of the album
called “Living With War: In The Beginning”, which is the album without
additional instrumentation and chorus vocals. I skipped this version because I didn’t want to essentially
listen to this album twice in a row, but I intend to revisit that version to
hear how it sounds.
“Chrome Dreams II” (2007) is
a sequel to the album “Chrome Dreams”, which was supposed to be released in
1977, but never was, and “American Stars N’ Bars” came out in its stead. This is a kind of mixtape-y album, with
many different types of songs. I
always liked “Ordinary People”, the 18-minute, horn-filled jam that dates back
to the 1980s, but never found a home on an album until 2007. “Dirty Old Man” is a hilarious
stomper.
“Fork In The Road” (2009) is
one that I have slept on since its release. I remember seeing Neil live a month or two before it was
released, and he was playing a bunch of these songs at that show. I remember the songs striking me as
weird, so I unconsciously avoided this album. A lot of songs are about Neil’s LincVolt project – the
conversion of Neil’s old Lincoln Continental to an electric car. Overall, this album is a pretty kickass
rocker and it sounds like they had a lot of fun recording it.
“Le Noise” (2010) is another
recent album that I listen to a lot.
It’s a noisy record with no band – just Neil and guitars and amps and
pedals. “Sign Of Love” brings up
the Love Riff again, but more riffy than in its other appearances. “Hitchhiker” recalls lyrical and melody
themes from “Like An Inca” from “Trans”.
“Peaceful Valley Boulevard” is another haunting song that feels like it
was written after Neil revisited the “Dead Man” soundtrack. This is a solid album that gets better
every time I listen to it, and I’ve listened to it a lot. Nate Hall, from the band U.S.
Christmas, released a solo album called “A Great River”, which sounds and feels
like a companion piece to “Le Noise”, and I’d recommend to anyone to listen to
these albums back to back. They
work really well together, and you can fit them both on one CD.
“Americana” (2012) was yet
another album I didn’t get into immediately upon its release. It’s an album of loose, jammy versions
of traditional American folk songs through the filter of Neil Young and Crazy
Horse. I friggin love the way they
do “Clementine” and “Jesus’ Chariot (She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The
Mountain)”. The arrangements turn
these tunes into scrappy Crazy Horse songs. It’s a cool album, and it’s awesome to hear dudes who’ve
been in this music game forever reinterpret songs much older than they are, and
reveal the dark heart of a lot of these songs that we forget about because the
traditional melodies are so friendly-sounding.
“Psychedelic Pill” (2012) is
the second album that Neil Young and Crazy Horse released in 2012, and the
longest of Neil Young’s studio albums, so far. It’s got 2 songs that are over 16 minutes long, and the
album opener, “Driftin’ Back” is over 28 minutes. This album, while long and imposing, is enjoyable to listen
to. It feels like another chapter
in the story they started telling in “Ragged Glory” and “Broken Arrow”. All the songs have a very natural
feel. The title track has a
heavier, more distorted variation of the Love Riff. I like “Ramada Inn” and “Twisted Road” a lot. Front to back, “Psychedelic Pill” is
solid. I got real into it when it
came out, and the challenge has reinvigorated my interest in it. This album is huge, and the last Neil
Young album, so far. But that dude
keeps busy, so I’m sure there will be another one soon enough.
So there you go. My massive stack of one-paragraph
reviews of all the Neil Young releases over the past 50 friggin years. He has been consistently playing,
producing, and releasing music since 1963. Unlike a lot of other older rockers, he is still making new
albums at an average of one every year and a half or so. As I said in the beginning of this
writing, I took on this challenge to force myself to listen to albums I have
been sleeping on. And I’m glad I
did, because I really dig those albums now too. It also helped me appreciate the albums I already love even
more, to listen to them in a time-driven context with Neil Young’s other
albums.
I think that whoever
accepts, or takes on a Neil Young Challenge next should not have to do all of
the albums I did. The Buffalo
Springfield and especially the CSNY albums are ancillary to Neil Young’s career
as a solo artist (and his albums with Crazy Horse). I think you can leave off the singles by The Squires and The
Mynah Birds. You can leave “Buffalo
Springfield”, “Buffalo Springfield Again”, and “Last Time Around” by Buffalo
Springfield, and leave “Déjà vu”, “4-Way Street”, “American Dream” and “Looking
Forward” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. You could leave off the “Journey Through The Past”
soundtrack and “Neil Young Unplugged” too. The only live album that is necessary is “Time Fades Away”.
If you want to do the Neil
Young Challenge, just do these 36 albums:
Neil Young
Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere*
After The Gold Rush
Harvest
Time Fades Away
On The Beach
Tonight’s The Night
Zuma*
Long May You Run
American Stars N’ Bars*
Comes A Time
Rust Never Sleeps*
Hawks & Doves
Re.Ac.Tor*
Trans
Everybody’s Rockin’
Old Ways
Landing On Water
Life*
This Note’s For You
Freedom
Ragged Glory*
Harvest Moon
Sleeps With Angels*
Mirror Ball
Broken Arrow*
Silver & Gold
Are You Passionate?**
Greendale*
Prairie Wind
Living With War
Chrome Dreams II
Fork In The Road
Le Noise
Americana*
Psychedelic Pill*
* denotes albums with Crazy Horse.
** denotes one song featuring Crazy Horse
That should be enough for
anyone. All the other EPs, and
live albums, and other bands like Buffalo Springfield and CSNY are ancillary
and unnecessary. Especially the CSNY albums. Listen to them if you want to, but you'll be happier if you don't. If you’re still
here, thanks for reading all of this.
I’m gonna go listen to a “Re.Ac.Tor” again, because I found out how much
that album rules. And I think I might do a mini-Neil Young go of just his albums with Crazy Horse sometime soon.
