May You Live in Inneresting Times: The Neil Young Voting Thread (deadline July 8)

I've been marking the albums as I go along - boring to say so, but After The Gold Rush, Harvest and On The Beach are definitely the top three (unless Time Fades Away is amazing, I haven't got there yet). He's had a lot of decent albums since, but those three are the pick.

Not to say I'll be voting for lots of tracks off those albums, necessarily. A lot of Harvest is relatively weak imo, but it hangs together so well.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

pistols at dawn, Klata

:)

Oh, and speaking of which, I listen to "Freedom," "Ragged Glory," "Harvest Moon" and "Sleeps With Angels" as much as I listen to any prime Neil
yeah, add in the live albums from this time period and the el dorado ep, and you've got an amazing run.

started going through the albums today. not gonna start putting the ballot together until i reach the end, but if we were doing worst neil tracks I think "Last Trip To Tulsa" and "There's A World" might still be in the top 10 when I wrap this thing up.

last trip is definitely a drag -- i came around in a big way on that self titled debut when the remasters came out, but i still turn it off when we get to Tulsa.

yeah, it's totally enjoyable until then - at least for being such a weird, anomalous curio

as much as i like his early years, the only album of '62-'72 that I'd recommend to a casual fan is Gold Rush - the rest are summed up by Decade fine

I have lots of love for Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, especially in light of the remasters. Totally launches that record into the stratosphere.

yeah that's one of my favorites too

I genuinely love Harvest as an album for the most part. Not quite as 'every song is awesome' perfect as Gold Rush but with a couple of exceptions still really listenable. I find the plaintive autobiographical stuff like Man Needs a Maid really affecting even now. And the title track still gets me.

also it was my first Neil album so I have a bit of nostalgia working too

just listened to it now and the artier stuff on side 2 gets reaaaalll rough, only songs not on decade I'd like to keep around are "Out On The Weekend" and maybe "are you ready for the country"

granted half the album is practically on decade

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade. Played it to absolute death and sort of never need to hear it again. I'm cool hearing songs from it but as a record it's a bit too much.

After The Gold Rush was played to death when I was 19 and working at a record store. One of the only records (along with Mingus Ah Um) that everyone who worked there could agree on so we probably played it every other day. However, unlike Harvest, I still enjoy hearing it.

i thiiink my first neil album was a cassette of American Stars'n'Bars in middle school though I was already checking out Decade and Ragged Glory from the library and soon bought Rust Never Sleeps and Freedom around the same time

One of my favorites from Year of the Horse -- and a case for including post 70s stuff if you tend to favor dirgey jams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MmFql2BizA

Harvest and Gold Rush were my first two as well - had them copied back-to-back on the same tape, strong memories of listening to both albums a lot in the second year of university, particularly a) the time I fell asleep listening to Harvest one afternoon and got startled awake by the applause at the end of 'Needle and the Damage Done' and b) the time I had 'After the Gold Rush' stuck in my head while out bowling with my housemates and it came on over the PA in the alley bar.

Harvest Moon was the third one I got and for ages I thought it was pretty corny but I came around to it eventually.

i can't really remember what my first neil album was -- i think they all came pretty fast and furious once my brother and i got into him. maybe it was weld...

Pretty sure After The Gold Rush would've been mine, and that it would've been the St Étienne cover that led me there. Boy, was I disappointed.

ha, that would be a weird way to be introduced to neil young, yes.

I got a ballot today that specified a certain live version, so I'll do what was suggested upthread: count all votes together, but make note of any versions in a follow-up post.

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade.

Almost identical, but the time frame might be different--5th grade, trip to Florida, 8-track.

i missed the 8 track era, but couldn't resist buying this one when i found it in a thrift store
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/6034e96c6697da9d983271fcbdc1dfb3/1874011.jpg

My parents were not hip at all, but I remember when I found a copy of "Everybody Knows ..." my dad had recorded from someone on 8-track reel to reel.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere was my very first record! Well, first one I bought at least.

lol, 'God Save The Queen' will not be troubling my ballot. I think it's the snare-on-every-beat, it just drains out all the funk

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade.

Almost identical, but the time frame might be different--5th grade, trip to Florida, 8-track.

Mine was 83-84? After the 8-track's height, if memory serves. Though my best friend from those days had a boombox that played 8-tracks and cassettes, and it had short wave radio too. Loved that thing.

Relistening to Comes a Time now, the first half of this album is so strong.

As a teenage Pearl Jam nerd I came in search of Neil because of 'Rockin In the Free World'. The only Neil album my local record store had was Harvest on cassette so I snagged it. Got home so excited to hear this rock genius that everyone was praising up and down and put on the tape.... and out comes the whiny strains of 'Old Man'.
"Huh? where's the crunchy guitar? where's the rawk?" I dunno what I expected but it wasn't that. I mean, pre-internet, no older siblings or cool parents I honestly didn't know Neil's span of material or styles or anything. I was a kid. So I was like, wtf is this Cat Stevens sounding dude. Lame. So it took me a little while to come around but I kept circling back and eventually I fell in love once my teen ears could appreciate something a little slower, lol.

I heard tons of singles on classic rock radio throughout my youth and they always kept me company, then I bought Harvest after getting overdue fines on it from the library, and snatched up every NY record/CD I found after that, reaching a pinnacle/nadir with Tonight's the Night, which I listened to on repeat for like 6 months while I was trying to get my footing back after a series of...missteps. I feel like Neil Young has been my friend for an absurdly long time.

That said, I hope you guys can represent for "Albuquerque" -- so much to love in that song.

It's probably a little stereotypical to get wasted to Tonight's the Night, but yes, "Albuquerque" is the perfect soundtrack to getting fall down drunk, and is definitely on my ballot.

Harvest is the only major Neil I don't own: I'm saving it for a rainy dya.

who said i was getting wasted?! i was just in the pits.

picturing alfred hearing "alabama" for the first time on a rainy day is pretty lol

i have to thank my older brother for turning me on to NY. he was away in the States working and he left some tapes behind. luckily, 'after the gold rush' was one of them. found a secondhand copy of 'decade' on vinyl soon after.

reaching a pinnacle/nadir with Tonight's the Night, which I listened to on repeat for like 6 months while I was trying to get my footing back after a series of...missteps.

xpost haha, i guess it's sad that the only way i can imagine doing this is by drinking heavily.

the parts about moving away where no one knew me and driving at night were the parts that always resonated with me. that and being really really tired.

Bought "Freedom" the day it came out. Who knows how I knew about Neil Young back then, but if I'm being honest I'm sure the five-star Rolling Stone review helped push me in that direction. Back when, iirc, a five star review meant something. In fact, I wonder what the last few five-star reviews were before "Freedom?"

xp i sing "albuquerque" to myself every time a diner menu has country ham on the menu.

songs that I'll rank highly that haven't gotten discussed yet: "Losing End", "There Goes My Babe", "Prime of Life", & "Don't Cry".

& "Razor Love"!

razor love, yeah. that's probably the most recent song i can see voting for.

"Cocaine Eyes" def in my top ten. Looove the Eldorado ep

I love "Don't Cry" and "Eldorado" both for featuring perhaps the loudest guitar explosions of Neil's career.

"Cocaine Eyes" and "Heavy Love" are both great from that EP.

those Eldorado tracks led me into years of alt.country fandom, through Uncle Tupelo, looking for someone else who could sound like Neil did on those tracks. aside from UT here & there, I never found it, & bought a lot of bad records.

I had "Razor Love" on a year-end Top 10, but it won't quite make this list; "There Goes My Babe" will.

I enjoy all these autobiographical posts about where and when you first heard Neil. Here's my own story, which was part of a larger inventory I did of my album collection almost 10 years ago. Neil came towards the end, which was perfect, because everything beforehand had basically been working towards him. He was like the Captain Kurtz of this project.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/records-w3-x-y-z.html

I'd like to find a reasonably priced copy of Life on vinyl, then I'd have all records up to and including Ragged Glory. (Well, I'd still have to buy the Budweiser album. If I found Life, I'd cross my fingers, close my eyes, and buy the Budweiser album.) Of course, I had ample opportunity to buy it at the time, but coming right after Landing on Water, I was really off Neil for a couple of years.

I bought ATGR in '99 and recoiled -- I'd never heard a voice that high singing lyrics which on first listen were so twee. It took RNS, which I bought months later as a second-chance provision, to make me understand the fuss. Buying Zuma next helped.

Bought "Freedom" the day it came out. Who knows how I knew about Neil Young back then, but if I'm being honest I'm sure the five-star Rolling Stone review helped push me in that direction. Back when, iirc, a five star review meant something. In fact, I wonder what the last few five-star reviews were before "Freedom?"

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 25, 2012 5:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To put things in perspective, the Who's It's Hard got five stars in 1982. There were many instances of RS giving 5-star reviews in exchange for exclusive access to the bands (and lo and behold, a Who cover story a couple months later). iirc around 1986-87, they abandoned star reviews for a couple of years.

I actually bought After the Gold Rush after seeing that review for Freedom; I thought, better start with the canonical shit, and work up to the later stuff. I appreciated ATGR more than I loved it, and didn't seriously follow up on it until a year later. But Ragged Glory killed me, and I can still hum every single solo from memory. Tonight's the Night soon followed, then Freedom, Everybody Knows, Zuma, and a blinding show in early 1991 that still stands as one of the most intense I've seen, by anyone.

I must be getting old--I am getting old. Alfred's acronyms went right past me (honestly--went to Wikipedia for help). ATGR is Gold Rush to me, RNS is Rust.