Neil Young - Homegrown (June 19, 2020, at long last)

xp whatever, you see my point. read Tyler's article!

same producer, same musicians, same cover artist, anyone seeing this back in the day if it had been released as planned would have seen the similarities immediately.

from Tyler's article:

“To be honest, I remember Harvest much more than I remember Homegrown,” Elliot Mazer says as he tries to cast his mind back to the sessions that began in November of 1974 at Nashville’s Quadrafonic Studio, the same spot where “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man” had been cut a few years earlier. And who can blame him? Harvest topped the Billboard charts for two straight weeks and ended up as the best-selling record of 1972 in the U.S. “It gave me a whole new career,” Mazer says.

But where the making of Harvest was relaxed and joyful, the Homegrown sessions were markedly different. “It was a different feeling — there was more stress,” Mazer recalls. “I didn’t think the songs were as good. He didn’t have ‘Heart of Gold.’ But believe me, you do not tell Neil Young that song A is not as good as song B.”

Mazer and Young had brought several of the Harvest musicians – loosely known as the Stray Gators – back into the fold: pedal steel master Ben Keith, ace session drummer Kenny Buttrey, and rock-solid/no-frills bassist Tim Drummond.

“Those guys lived off their ability to play well,” Mazer says. “The Nashville guys listen to the song. They hear a song and they communicate, saying, ‘You take the verses, I’ll take the choruses.’ There was always a meeting of the band. With Harvest, Neil just sat down with the songs, the guys played great, and he went ‘WOW.’ But Homegrown wasn’t quite like that, as far as I could tell.”

All her friends call her Little Whinge

At the risk of soliciting a heap of scorn, I definitely prefer Harvest (which I think has gone from being an album that was probably slightly overrated at the time to being--after Neil dismissed it in his notes for Decade--decidedly underrated). I will say, the opening to "Separate Ways" really reminds me of the opening to "Out on the Weekend."

In Christgau-speak, I'd give Homegrown an A-minus--that's a good, solid album. (As a point of comparison, my three A-plusses are Everybody Knows, Gold Rush, and Zuma, with a number of A's.)

Sleeve gets it.

A- is probably accurate, but people are complaining like it's a B-.

i feel the need to do a 60 seconds or less, gut feeling christgau style ratings rundown of neil's classic period in the homegrown thread. i am setting the timer AFTER i get the album names typed and in chronological order and if i don't get to the end, those are the rules. 11 albums, 60 seconds. 5.45 seconds per album. 0.1835 albums per second. 11 albums you know by heart. because if you don't know them all already, you're not even a fan. GO!

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A
After the Gold Rush A+
Harvest A
Time Fades Away B-
On the Beach A+
Tonight's the Night A
Homegrown A-
Zuma A-
American Stars n Bars B
Comes a Time B+
Rust Never Sleeps A

ok that only took me 23 seconds, sorry to build that up so much

I have to join you:

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A+
After the Gold Rush A+
Harvest A
Time Fades Away A
On the Beach B+ (kill me now!)
Tonight's the Night A
Homegrown A-
Zuma A+
American Stars n Bars B
Comes a Time B+
Rust Never Sleeps A

Left a few of yours as is--less than a minute.

Make On the Beach A-. I think it has undeservedly become this sacred album, but for "Ambulance Blues" alone, I can't rate it lower than Homegrown.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A
After the Gold Rush A
Harvest A
Time Fades Away A-
On the Beach A+
Tonight's the Night A+
Homegrown B-
Zuma B
American Stars n Bars B-
Comes a Time B
Rust Never Sleeps B

(I do understand ending that run with Rust, but I tend to stretch it out through Hawks and Doves and Reactor, both A-minuses for me. It all comes crashing down with the next one.)

I've been listening to reactor a lot lately,the closing track (shots?) is killer but I even enjoy the hell out of t-bone

fact: There are no C+ or below albums during the Neil Young undisputed classic era

(I do understand ending that run with Rust, but I tend to stretch it out through Hawks and Doves and Reactor, both A-minuses for me.

i considered going all the way to Trans (which i like better than the previous 2, but decided to cut them off, especially given the *absolutely impossible!* 60 second time limit

s/t being unfairly left out imo

that is a very fair opinion! but i'm going undisputed classic run, undisputeds only!

wait is "neil young" the "david bowie" of neil young ?

Missing Long May You Run (which ultimately is an EP of Neil curios saddled with Stills cocaine fantasies) as well.

uh oh

wait is "neil young" the "david bowie" of neil young ?

― budo jeru

i'm willing to say that yes, "neil young" is the "david bowie" of neil young

there's so much promise there and some damn good performances too

I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed American Stars N Bars when I finally checked it out recently.

Haven't listened to the debut in a while, but I've always loved "The Loner," "The Emperor of Wyoming," and "I've Been Waiting for You," and the there are other good ones too--A-minus? Not a big fan of Stills-Young, except for "Ocean Girl," which is (I know I'm alone on this one) one my 10 favourite Neil songs.

The Loner and The Old Laughing Lady are huge classics.

well, the part of “old laughing lady” with the chanting and funky drumming anyway

I kind of love that "Ocean Girl" is a rewrite of "War Song".

lol you squares are just not getting it

this is the FOLLOWUP TO HARVEST. it's a context thing. who gives a shit what happened to some of these songs afterwards? it was all 100% new when released. you can look through your shit-colored glasses of historical reassessment and alt-version snobbery, but the true heads all know what's up here.

y'all need to suck down some honey sliders and make like you've been eagerly awaiting this moment without any preconceptions, you are hippies who dig Neil and it is 1973, time to put the new album on.

THIS

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A-
After the Gold Rush A+
Harvest B-
Time Fades Away A+
On the Beach A+
Tonight's the Night A+
Homegrown B+
Zuma B
American Stars n Bars B+
Comes a Time C
Rust Never Sleeps A+

I kind of love that "Ocean Girl" is a rewrite of "War Song".

Forgot about what a shock it was to hear "War Song" for the first time on Archives--basically the same song with new lyrics.

one of his very early garage band tunes on Archives has the melody for Barstool Blues can't remember the name offhand

"I Wonder" got retooled into "Don't Cry No Tears"--is that what you're thinking of?

That's the one. Was just checking, couldn't find a "Barstool Blues" soundalike, but now I remember the same surprise hearing "I Wonder" for the first time.

oops yeah sorry Don't Cry no Tears, been a long time since I listened to the box

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A
After the Gold Rush A+
Harvest A-
Time Fades Away B
On the Beach A+
Tonight's the Night A+
Homegrown A-
Zuma A
American Stars n Bars B-
Comes a Time B
Rust Never Sleeps A-

As much of an unholy mess as it is, I'd probably give Journey Through the Past a B--for "Soldier," for an even more epically dirge-like "Words" than on Harvest, and for the way it previews what's coming down the road. The film is also a fascinating mess.

OK if we're doing this

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere B+
After the Gold Rush A+
Harvest A
Time Fades Away A
On the Beach A-
Tonight's the Night A
Homegrown B-
Zuma B
American Stars n Bars A-
Comes a Time B
Rust Never Sleeps A+

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere A
After the Gold Rush A
Harvest B
Time Fades Away B+
On the Beach A+
Tonight's the Night A+
Homegrown B+
Zuma A-
American Stars n Bars B
Comes a Time B-
Rust Never Sleeps A+

Hitchhiker - B+ if that counts

Can't say I expected anyone to rate ASnB over Zuma, but hey.

Zuma is uneven and lacks the pathos of previous Crazy Horse albums (maybe blame Pancho for this), also "Stupid Girl" is an abomination

AS&B is great

paul, coming in with the wrong takes left and right in this thread!

is there something I'm missing in the lyrics that makes "Stupid Girl" abominable?

it's not called "girls are stupid"...it's addressed to one person the narrator is calling stupid!

anyway it's a jam

i agree. i still wouldn't put it on a mixtape for someone i saw in mercedes benz or is a girl, though.

It's not just the lyrics (which are, come on, pretty dumb), it's the double high / low vocal, so grating

haha I can see that

xp oh ok, I like those vocals! Anyway I'm guessing maybe about half of neil's best songs have pretty dumb lyrics

surely a heart of gold could not even contract and relax to perform its primary function!

for real and what cowboy ever had anything to do with computers

it's not called "girls are stupid"...it's addressed to one person the narrator is calling stupid!

Yeah--I think the worst you can accuse it of is rock-star pettiness, Neil getting his back up over some perceived but specific slight, the kind of song Dylan wrote routinely in the mid-'60s (not all directed at a woman, but some were, I think). It's not a sweeping indictment of women. Wasn't Neil in general pretty good in that area during the '70s?

I know, "A Man Needs a Maid"...which is more complex, I think--because of the Carrie verse--than a quick reading suggests.

right...but you don't have to be a rock star or even petty to be upset with a person and vent in song. Maybe the slight was legit! We just don't know.