Search and destroy: Neil Young

I rocked out to Year of the Horse yesterday for the first time since I bought it, and LOVED it (even, maybe especially, the Broken Arrow songs). I'm as into Neil now as I've been since high school, probably. So yeah, search it all---though maybe I'll change my mind when I put on Are You Passionate? a little later today.

maybe to be a little more precise: search the performance of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" on the Dylan 30th anniversary show.

"like "t-bone" off re-ac-tor must be the laziest dumbest song ever "written" but i'm glad it exists"

I LOVE T-Bone (and Homegrown too!)

T-Bone is great! It's so dumb it's genius.

Harvest is not a big favourite of mine. It has one great song (Out On The Weekend), a few nice ones, but also some dull ones, like Heart of Gold and Words, and some out and out stinkers (Man Needs A Maid). Harvest Moon is better. The title track is one of Neil's sweetest, most touching songs, and Dreaming Man is a sweet sigh.

Search (top rank) Everybody Knows, Tonight's The Night, On The Beach, Zuma, Rust Never Sleeps
Also great: Ragged Glory, Time Fades Away, Goldrush, Sleeps With Angels, Trans!

Disappointed to see so much hate for Sleeps With Angels. It's one of his boldest records, with all that spooky stuff like Safeway Cart (there's nothing else like this in his ouvre), some heavy (emotionally as well as in terms of density) sludge, the beautiful tack piano ballads, and weird songs like the title track. He pushes Crazy Horse to be subtle throughout much of this album, resulting in some slightly clumsy, and all the more effective and characterful, arrangements and moods. Best out of tune flute solo ever from Neil on Change Your Mind. I think it's a brilliant album.
Year Of The Horse live album deserves more love. It's sludgy as hell, but if you're a fan of The Melvins or Harvey Milk then that's a positive. The version of Danger Bird is so heavy on here, the lumbering chord changes verge on doom metal territory. Some incredible leads from Neil too. Also, a couple of slightly underwhelming songs from Broken Arrow are gloriously realised.

Sorry, flute solo is on Proof Of Life. Both great songs, with the Horse playing almost jazzy chords, like a grizzly bear trying to do melancholy.

For what's worth, I totally love Sleeps With Angels too: it may be flawed, but most of it has the harrowing tone of some of his best stuff.
Safeway Cart and Trans Am are top notch depressed Neil and I also quite like the eerie blues of Blue Eden.

The BBC doc. was pretty interesting, thanks for the link.

Since "star of bethelem" and "hurricane" are on decade I'd say destroy American Stars'n'Bars entirely if it wasn't for the seven minute song about being a fish. Gotta search that.

'will to love' is killer though.

I dunno if you read my post as being sarcastic or if you don't realize "will to love" is the seven minute song about being a fish, but that's exactly what I said.

i did not realise it was about a fish!

Are You Passionate? is pretty great! I'm not sure I'd listened all the way through before, but I really dig the kinda spare groove throughout, almost Aja-like; and there's a nice separation of instruments, very clear sounding. I'm not sure if it's Neil on guitar on "She's a Healer", but the tone is really distinctive for a Neil album. And it starts very strongly: "Mr. Disappointment" and "Differently" are highlights, I think. I thought it let up a little on the second half, but probably I'll hear more goodness there as I listen more.

Anyway, this is a good reason for me not to get caught up in hype or backlash of new albums from old artists that I like, and just to wait a few years when I can hear it clearly. I remember the reviews being harsh for this one, but in 2009 that doesn't matter at all.

Will To Love is one of Neil's best songs of the 70s, and yeah, it is about being a fish, among other things:
And now my fins are in the air
And my belly's scraping on the rocks
I still think someone really cares
And I'll keep swimming till I stop.
I'm with M@tt in that I wouldn't destroy a thing, even the crap! Still haven't spent a lot of time with the newest one, though. Too busy with the Archives!
But I'd agree that Are You Passionate is a bit underrated -- I think it got attention for the weird 9/11 song, but the rest of the album isn't really like that, it's more of a slow-burning soul album, or at least Neil's version of a slow-burning soul album. I think at some point I need to go back and give all the 00s albums a good listen ...

Tyler, I just listened to your Bad News I mp3 comp from your blog; I think I need to give the 80s albums a good listen again b/c those are great songs. "Interstate", "Boxcar", the early "Eldorado". I hope he makes it long enough to compile the archives for that era.

guitar playing below par

LOLs from 2001

Cool, Euler, glad you're enjoying that comp -- I think it just shows that Neil was pretty confused during that era, but still capable of incredible music.

i'd avoided the Hawks & Doves album until someone sent me "Lost In Space" last week. Fucking great. There's actually a lot of worthwhile material on the album too.

I just recently picked up Harvest Moon, which is the first Neil thing I've owned post-Live Rust. So I pretty much have skipped the 1980s. And I really like it a lot - more than Stars n' Bars or Comes a Time, both of which I enjoy quite a bit.

hawks and doves is amazing, especially the 1st side -- even though the 2nd side has a cantankerous charm, too ...

listened to the new live release today, all the songs from harvest moon, and it sounds pretty great, better than you would think he would sound in the 90s.

Yeah, Dreamin' Man Live has me appreciating some of the lesser Harvest Moon songs, and everything sounds great stripped down and solo.

Plus he gets big points from me for changing up the sequencing. Makes it a new experience.

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Damn, I screwed that up big time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WfUzNYPwo

homegrown's alright with me

I don't pay much attention to Fallon, so maybe thats a recurring thing for him, but I found it interesting to see him do a parody as early 70s Neil. I mean, does the average Fallon watcher even know who Neil is?

My guess is yes.

Ah, I must have a fairly skewed image of his audience.

I don't know, most of what I have watched of the Fallon show consists of aging rockers (like Christopher Cross) performing live on his show. His Neil impression is the best one I've ever see him do, so, can't hurt to trot it out in front of a young audience, imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvAZjefHoiQ

Stringman is such a great song. weird that its only official appearance is on that Unplugged CD.

love love love that Unplugged disk though...the "Transformer Man" is so great.

yeah! I just got it recently after having lost my copy years ago. kinda annoyed it doesn't include the other Trans track he did for the taping, or Dreaming Man

what was the other trans track he did? love unplugged -- thought it was weird that the Shakey autor thinks it's horrible. Only thing that's not terribly exciting are the too-close-to-the-album Harvest Moon songs.

Sample and Hold

no kidding! are there bootlegs of it?

thought it was weird that the Shakey autor thinks it's horrible

and yeah I thought this was inexplicable too but put it down to Neil himself hating it. which is also kinda inexplicable but lolz temperamental artists...

the pump organ Like a Hurricane is another standout for me

he should play trans songs live again -- "computer age" and "sample and hold" live w/ Crazy Horse were pretty awesome

agree mostly about the Harvest Moon stuff but I did love that he had some backup guy actually SWEEPING WITH A BROOM for the title track

xp

ha, i forgot about that -- is unplugged on DVD?

I don't think so - feel kinda lucky I caught it when it aired tbh. VHS copies probably out there somewhere tho lolz

yeah ... i have Weld on VHS, haha. No VCR to play it on anymore ... Actually come to think of it, in Shakey, they talk about how the *laserdisc* of Weld has different David Briggs mixes of the songs ... Anybody ever found audio of that?

Yeah I'm normally not so keen on "Hurricane" but the Unplugged version is great.

Tyler - check your mail.

An oddball "search" (also hated by Neil & Jimmy MD): The 45 mix of "Cinnamon Girl". I got ahold of a copy (b/w "Sugar Mountain") over the weekend and had a listen last night. It has a different mix on the vocal, w/Danny Whitten given prominence over Neil. Sounds kinda fresh and cool--almost makes up for the the solo guitar at the end getting chopped off. Would have been a neat bonus on the Archives box.

I was just thumbing through my copy of Shakey and now I'm kinda curious to hear exactly what makes Landing on Water so bad (given that I pretty much never agree with any of the opinions of Young's material expressed in the book)

"Hippie Dream" off Landing on Water is great, the rest not so good

it's a weird record -- not a lost classic or anything, but worth hearing at least once.
Did everybody hear Neil is touring with Bert Jansch this summer!? Whoa.

wtf?!

yeah! http://bit.ly/bdoSud
also, here's a link to that batshit Hal Wilner tribute from last month: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=436

haven't heard Landing on... in years, but i seem to recall "Pressure" was pretty great

OMG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSamboTHc7U

Kaneoism is this a real record?

Haha. Kind of my reaction.