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

love both of 'em - the wurlitzer (?) on the studio version sounds perfect to me.

here's a later song i might vote for...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9oVk1_-_Ck

I like the *sound* of Harvest, but I'm not sure I even own a copy. "Freedom" is as good as his best stuff, afaic.

Speaking of sound, can anyone pinpoint the moment when Neil reversed himself on digital sound? A bunch of his 80s stuff was recorded digitally, he used to talk up his Redwood studios in interviews as "finally going all-digital," and the cover of Eldorado proudly proclaims "A DIGITAL RECORDING." Did it take him x number of records to realize he hated the sound, or was there some specific incident/revelation that sent him back to analog?

Freedom is one of those instance of "return to form" actually being true. such a great record. even when you're sifting through the cliches of Rockin in the Free World, it's hard to deny the genius at work, lots of clever nuances/ambiguities built into it

not sure about the digital/analog timing -- he was heavy into HDCD for a while in the 90s, right?

Yeah, just remembered Broken Arrow has the HDCD logo on the back; but it also had a vinyl-only bonus track.

He was already bitching about digital in the interviews included in Shakey, which were mostly done in '91--'95, and IIRC, most of his new releases and all the reissues/archival stuff since then are HDCDs.

I sent a ballot! 30 songs cuz a 20-song ballot had to exclude my wtf picks.
(did you get my ballot, clemenza?)

I've responded to the eight that have come in so far, so if you didn't hear from me, no.

Unless otherwise instructed, I'll count all "Mr. Soul" votes as being for the original. That's one instance where I'd count the Buffalo Springfield and the Trans version separately. I've received a couple of ballots so far where the voter also had a track or two from Trans. The first was an easy call, because everything was listed chronologically. The second wasn't, so I went ahead and assumed.

Okay, ballot has been gotten! thanks

i'm kind of tempted to go acoustic only for my ballot. except for 'powderfinger'

Just did a quick tally of my own list (still unranked and points not awarded), and I'm just slightly over half that are acoustic and/or a ballad, with the rest electric.

what's the thinking on See The Sky About To Rain? I love the solo piano version on the Massey Hall disc but not as fond of the version on On The Beach.

― that's not my post, Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:16 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh this might be my favorite track on 'on the beach,' maybe tied with 'walk on.' so placid and beautiful. the 'ahhh ahh ahhhh' is neil at my favorite vocally. i played this album to death and kind of burned out on the sadness/frustration of the second half tbh.

xp to be real i think i'm gonna be one of those people who vote for something from 'dead man' and that's probably as late as i'll go.

If you want to rank 30, but can't be bothered doing any math, a voter and I just worked out a useful way to score them: 15 each for the first ten + 10 each for the second ten + 5 each for the third ten = 300 points.

ooh perfect!

Is anyone confused by choosing from 'My, My, Hey, Hey' and 'Hey, Hey, My, My'? They're kind of the same song!

hi funk79

discussed upthread iirc

I'm fully aware that my vote for "Rockin' in the Free World" will go to the studio electric version, but I'm really voting for this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp7awm_neil-young-01-rockin-in-the-free-world-1989_music?search_algo=1

If Neil Young has a the-Who-Rolling-Stones-Rock-and-Roll-Circus-"A Quick One" moment, it's this.

The story behind that in Shakey - I don't even need to watch the clip to know what it is - is great. BTW, for those who don't know, a) Neil Young doesn't use distortion pedals, he just turns the amp all the way the fuck up and b) he has this custom pedal board called "The Whizzer" that manually turns the knobs up on his amp for him. Which explains why the sound on the SNL clip is so far in the red.

The story in Shakey, I seem to recall, involved people visiting him in the studio around this time, when he was recording "Freedom," and basically being blown away by the sheer volume.

...and at lot of them being offended. Niko Bolas talked about how disgusted Graham Nash was, and how perhaps Neil recorded that way just to get that reation out of him.

Bolas and Neil are credited in tandem as "The Volume Dealers." One of my favorite artist-as-producer nickname credits.

I saw Neil play something with Pearl Jam on TV after Mirror Ball came out, but I think it was an award show, and I don't think it was "Rockin' in the Free World." I remember loving it.

I'll only do this periodically, but a couple of notes after the first 10 ballots. 1) The song that's leading, named on 9 out of 10, would, to me, be a big surprise if it hung on. It's not obscure or anything, but I never expected it would do this well. The song I assumed would win is hanging very close. 2) 112 different songs have been listed--111, really, plus a cover. 3) One album has had every song listed. It wouldn't surprise anyone. (There are probably three albums where you could say that.)

Oh--lots of feedback, and one vote for "T-Bone."

My list keeps getting longer ... :/

ha, i haven't even started my list. eek!

Yeah, it's going to hurt to trim this thing down to 30...

Anyway, no one has mentioned "Lookout Joe" yet. I feel like this is the one song from Tonight's the Night that is never really discussed, but to me it always felt like such an important part of the record. Does it just not hold up outside of the context of the album to most people?

those times were good times

Nils' solo on that kills me every time.

Wouldn't be surprised if Lookout Joe winds up on my ballot. Those power chords are like hammers to the head.

I first heard "Look Out Joe" because my bootleg CD copy of Time Fades Away had, as bonus tracks, the first seven songs from the Bakersfield 3/11/73 boot, which is killer. It has a nice short ballad called "Sweet Joni" that I've never heard anywhere else. Anyone voting for "Sweet Joni"?

I like "Lookout Joe" a lot in the context of the album, but yes, Tonight's the Night--maybe more than any album I own--works as a whole for me. I will be voting for three songs that I love as stand-alones, and there are a handful of others that work fine that way too. But "Lookout Joe" is one that, for me, needs the context.

Never heard "Sweet Joni"--an answer song to "The Circle Game"'s answer to "Sugar Mountain"?

love sweet joni, i think that is the only time he played it. probably wrote it that night. "Lookout Joe" is great, but it is a track (like borrowed tune) that was recorded on the time fades away band tour, rather than during the tonight's the night sessions. it fits, though!

not to keep linking to this, but hey, if you want to hear sweet joni, it's on this: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/11101846032/sad-movies-a-secret-history-of-neil-young

Whoah, thanks for that link.

Thanks, Tyler--can't access it at work, will listen later.

get it while you can! who knows what will happen to bootlegs in the upcoming dark ages.

Tell the RIAA to hold off till 6:00-6:30 tonight.

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)

Well whaddaya know? It is amazing, I'd definitely have it in that top tier. Yet the internet tells me Neil hates it. I need to try and find my copy of Unknown Pleasures when I get home, iirc there's a piece on it in there.

Listening to Time Fades Away in the car on my way to work, I came to the conclusion that it's a good minor album, that I'd overrated it. Lots of solid second-tier songs and a couple that might make the lower reaches of a list ("Don't Be Denied," "Love in Mind").

I want to say it's less that Neil hates it and more that it was mixed live to tape, so that there's no way to re-release it? Here:

Time Fades Away was recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track using the Quad-8 CompuMix, the unreliable first digital mixing soundboard—against the wishes of producer David Briggs, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release.

"There were no 2 track masters ever made of this record. The master discs were cut directly from the 16 track masters through the Compumix system. A mix was recorded to a second 16 track machine--we had 2 that would run perfectly together--to feed the variable pitch system of the lathe--but was discarded when we were through. I was the mastering engineer who cut the masters."
—Phil Brown

Because no two-track stereo master tape was ever made as would commonly be done, the album cannot be remastered in a traditional manner. If any new release was to be attempted, a new mix would need to be made from the original multitrack tapes.

yeah he's said he has better recordings from that tour that he can mix to his liking. guess the plan is to include it on the next archives set? whatevs, that remaster that leaked out a while ago sounds great to me. but what do i know.

album i haven't listened to in forever that's better than i remembered: American Stars 'n' Bars. My cassette as a teenager had "Homegrown" at the end of BOTH sides, though, which makes side 1 seem more insipid than it is.

side 1 is kinda slight on that record, but pretty entertaining. hey babe is such a cool, breezy tune.

yeah i think as an adolescent i just had no time for lightweight country genre exercises when "Like A Hurricane" awaited

going through all the albums this week has underscored what hodgepodges most of them are - even if most tracks are associated with a specific band and vibe, that stray outtake at track 7 can be disconcerting. wish neil could be trusted to really make the archives boxes complete and purely chronological, but he wouldn't be neil if he didn't drop the stray track and fiddle with it a little

"Don't Be Denied" is easily top 5 for me.