Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill, Oct. 2012

xpost Ha no but it would be cool if he could touch on these things a little more artfully or obliquely, not just "Oh I remember Wavy Gravy/He was a funny guy/and he made us smile"

Also: "We came so close!" w/r/t sixties is just completely idiotic

Neil has never gone deep. He runs on instinct.

which kinda failed him now

"Oh I remember Wavy Gravy/He was a funny guy/and he made us smile"

If that's an actual lyric on this record, I'm cancelling my order.

americana was so fun i hoped this would be too, but nothing here suggests that's the case

this is a great record. don't know what you people are (or aren't) smoking

about 2/3rds through my inaugural listen to "walk like a giant" and yeah neil hasn't tossed off a solo like this for a while, but that lyric...yeah, no

"instead of free associating like i used to, maybe this time i'll just say 'riding the desert wind' a couple times cuz man that shit is profound"

i've never heard Dear heather, but the songs i've heard from pill are reminding of xgau's dear heather review

Dear Heather [Columbia, 2004]
I know it's hard to get a grip on, kids, but people keep getting older. They don't just reach some inconceivable benchmark--50 or, God, 60--and stop, Old in some absolute sense. The bones, the joints, the genitals, the juices, the delivery systems, and eventually the mind continue to break down, at an unpredictable pace in unpredictable ways. Leonard Cohen has had No Voice since he began recording at 33. But he has more No Voice today, at 70, than he did on Ten New Songs, at 67--the tenderness in his husky whisper of 2001, tenderness the way steak is tender, has dried up in his whispered husk of 2004, rendering his traditional dependence on the female backups who love him more grotesque. Nor does noblesse oblige underlie all the adaptations and settings--Lord Byron, Patti Page, a Quebecois folk song, various dead Canadian poets, himself. Rather they reflect the same diminished inspiration that makes you wonder whether his 9/11 song is enigmatic or merely inconclusive. Not only do I like the guy, I'm Old enough to identify with him. But I doubt I'll ever be Old enough to identify with this. On her deathbed, my 96-year-old mother-in-law was still relying on Willie Nelson's Stardust. That's more like it. B

though by xgau's own estimation cohen has perked up considerably since this, so knock on wood for neil won't be in king lear mode for the rest of his days

This was released here in Germany today (a few days before US and UK, for some reason). I'm really looking forward to listening when I get home.

(And I agree with the rants up-thread about Neil's vinyl releases: pricing the LP at six or seven times the price of the CD is just prohibitive. Such a pity)

Oh, and this might have Neil's worst cover-art ever. (Which might be an argument against getting the vinyl....)

Loving this album. But... it is pretty difficult to read the lyrics in the tiny half-CD-sized booklet. Maybe this is a buy-vinyl-nudge on behalf of Neil.

"Oh I remember Wavy Gravy/He was a funny guy/and he made us smile"

If that's an actual lyric on this record, I'm cancelling my order.

― 5-Hour Enmity (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, October 26, 2012 11:25 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

I mean, there were moments on Ragged Glory and especially Arc/Weld that you could have put up against Fushitsusha, almost, but these days the Horse is just a caveman garage rock band.

Please point me to the "caveman garage rock band" that sounds like "Walk Like A Giant" from around 9:38 to 12:29. SHOW ME THAT BAND!!!! Because that's some fuckin' raw shit, worthy of the PSF heights you speak of upthread.

I just listened to this album - twice - this weekend - and, uhh, I sorta love it, in spite of myself. And I really wasn't expecting to. I don't love all of it, but I love a good deal of it.

fixed, 46:06

A
1. Ramada Inn (16:51)
2. She's Always Dancing (8:33)

B
1. For The Love Of Man (4:15)
2. Walk Like A Giant (16:29)

― Hadrian VIII, Friday, October 26, 2012 10:42 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lose "For The Love Of Man" and replace with "Twisted Road" and that's my single disc version, and my favorite Neil since Le Noise

picked up the CD this morning at electric fetus - 16.99 on sale for the double...didn't even see the vinyl wonder if they were scared off by the list price?

gotta wait until tonight to listen cuz me and some bros are having a crazy horse beer drinking bro-down and we have to xxxSTAYPURExxx

beer and only beer will bro it down

The vinyl doesn't drop til November.

At $70, sadly out of the question for me :-(

It was $45 w/shipping on German Amazon. Just checked, though, and got the "we'll let you know when it's available" message (in German, though, so it looked threatening).

$12.99 for the CD on Amazon US. Gonna hit the local shop anyway, and if it's under $15, gonna buy it there and do the right thing.

I started to get a little worried when people were making comparisons to "broken arrow" since that's one of Neil's weakest, though occasional comparisons to "sleeps with angels" are more optimistic sounding, since that is probs his best album outside of the usually mentioned plethora of stone cold classics. Hideous '90s cover art aside.

I made it through the first disc. Don't know if I can face the second right now. Slog is a kind descriptor so far.

if it's broken arrow along the lines of "big time" I'm down but if it's more like "loose change"....idk.

Disc 2 >>>> Disc 1

But you really didn't like "Ramada Inn?"

Fuck Vinyl, Bring On The PONO!

PONO #PONO

Psychedelic Pono

Oh my god, "For The Love Of Man" is the longest 4 minute song I've heard in years. I'm sorry, but I'm basically hating this record. Just another pile of Neil droppings to add to the tall tower of crap he's released this millenium.

I was in a record store that threw this on tonight, and I thought the first three or four minutes of "Driftin' Back" (had to abandon for a movie) were really great--decided on the spot I'd buy this. (But not from this particular store, which was charging $25.) I've scrolled back and discovered I heard barely a fraction of the song, and that most of you don't care for it. I'll look for the whole song online tonight.

Dudes I got drunk listening to this, it basically rules

Listened to the whole "Driftin' Back" online last night, and think it's pretty great. A couple of clunky lines in the middle, maybe--weren't those Apple ads at least 10 years ago?--but the part about getting a hip-hop haircut made me laugh. The music is vintage, and worth the whole 27 minutes, I think.

It's an OK song, just doesn't warrant its length, and as such, is one of the lesser songs on the album. If it had been, say, 8 minutes, I'd like it better.

this album is pretty good!

yeah i think driftin' back is pretty rad, i mean, i really like the way neil young plays guitar so ... [lyrics are a little unfortunate, but the "driftin' back" chorus thing is lovely]

was genuinely disappointed when "don't want my mp3" wasn't followed by "want my PONO!"

the lyrics are pretty awful throughout but the guitars sound great

got pretty drunk last night w/some friends at an informal listening party, was a super fun time

track impressions:

driftin' back - i like it! i'm a fan of year of the horse and it reminds me of the way they jammed on that album, very dreamy and floaty feeling....parts of the guitar jams actually remind me of television a bit...the lyrics are ridic, but honestly lyrics are probably what, 5 minutes out of 30 so who cares? again, this is about as hardcore crazy horse fan shit as you can get, seems like something that should be a "legendary" bootleg or something, obv super weird choice for the first track....but i like the endless feeling of it, i feel like i could leave the house for a week, come back and they'd still be jamming until infinity....

psychedelic pill - holy fucking phaser! honestly it's like they literally ran the entire master mix through a fucking cheap DOD pedal....my friend had really nice speakers and it was kind of bizarre in a way that you don't want to listen to a gain...i've made an itunes playlist where i replace this song with the regular alt mix that they tacked on the end and i think it helps the album tremendously...the phaser really robs the guitars of their heaviness and the alt mix is really pummeling...i like it because it's a good uptempo song in the flow, but the mix on the regular one is too distracting

ramada inn - heard this on the concert boots, and it's a great song, some of neil's best lyrics in recent years, one of the better songs he's written plus some really great solos in the jams that recall ragged glory solos

born in ontario - heard the acoustic solo version on the boots, the band version is way better, kind of a fun throwaway that i'll tolerate from neil and pretty much no one else...kinda reminds me of the song "homegrown" in vibe and general goofiness...catchy as hell though

twisted road - man the lyrics to this are really bad, seems like he's pandering to the hippies/deadhead types that go to his shows...i could see this one being a fan favorite w/a certain crowd...i actually really like the chorus's melody and descending chord change....but yeah pretty lightweight....

she's always dancing - i think lots of ppl on lukewarm on this but i love it...lyrics are again throwaway but i like the horse's singing on this and the dark chord changes are a nice takeoff point for jams...really really dig this one

for the love of man - pretty spare arrangement, and feels out of place on the album...it's ok in a hokey 50s kinda way but probably the weakest song overall

walk like a giant - don't know if anything could top those colorado show boot versions of this, but goddamn this comes pretty fucking close. i love this song so much, i think it's a truly great song, best thing he's done in years and years, could be a future neil show staple like hurricane or cortez IMO...love it. giant godzilla/transformers shit at the end is genuinely bizarre and awesome, so many great things about this....

it's like they literally ran the entire master mix through a fucking cheap DOD pedal

On Pono, it sounds like a Behringer pedal. Vast improvement.

lol

one thing i like about this record is that you can totally tell it's all live in one room, you can hear the bass rattling the snare drum

yeah totally. here's the console neil uses -- the Green Board!
http://www.uaudio.com/media/blog/2008/december/heritage_610.jpg
interview w/ his engineer http://www.uaudio.com/blog/john-nowland-ua-interview/

one thing i like about this record is that you can totally tell it's all live in one room, you can hear the bass rattling the snare drum

― seasonal hugs (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, October 31, 2012 12:32 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe because when they tried to edit things together in the first two minutes of "Driftin' Back" it was such a mess that they didn't try it again

you mean the acoustic to electric thing? i guess i thought that was jarring on purpose just crossfading two different performances

either way the snare thing just means the bass cab was pretty close or maybe they don't like to use baffles

You can hear the snares buzzing on Ragged Glory, too. The cover photo is from one of the sessions: live vocals, no baffles/separation.

ah cool, it's just kinda awesome that they record like some local band in a basement

yeah i kinda like records where you can hear the snare buzz. tempted to do a thread about that.