Search and destroy: Neil Young

Prairie Wind is ok. (rehashing old country ideas, of course, which he had already rehashed in Harvest Moon)

anyway...

Silver & Gold is better than Prairie Wind in the folkie Neil vein, thought Harvest Moon isn't really a country album anyway and I don't really think
Neil Young writing Neil Young songs constitutes "rehashing" stuff.

Anyway...I'm a Mirror Ball guy (Pearl Jam as his backing band) but opinions vary...
Living With War was pretty divisive but I think people should at least check out the later version where the children's choir was scrubbed from the record...

obviously, Psychedelic Pill would probably be most ppl's choice, there's some pretty vintage Crazy Horse on that and a couple of tunes that I put in the company of all time Neil jams

Le Noise is a really cool sounding record, solo electric, swamped in weird Lanois reverb etc...so maybe that might appeal to you if you like the kinda weird throbbing vibe of Sleeps With Angels...it's definitely like nothing else he's done...also features the first proper recording of Hitchhiker, a 70s song that's up there among his best

Greendale is a weird, low key concept/story album that some ppl love, i'm not super huge on it...

Chrome Dreams II is assembled from tracks from the 00s and I think maybe some 80 stuff, not bad...

Broken Arrow is pretty solid stuff

Are You Passionate and Fork in the Road I would avoid

also assuming that you've dived into the Archives material because if not you're basically missing some of the best music of his career that's ever been released

Broken Arrow is great; I'd put it just a slight notch below Ragged Glory (and largely for the weirdly desultory Jimmy Reed cover that closes the record). UMS OTM re: Le Noise. And A Treasure (live mid-80s stuff) is shockingly good, and arguably better than any of his pre-Freedom 80s stuff.

thanks john. ive heard some of mirror ball, i remember thinking it was pretty good atm. no i havent heard the archives stuff either!

Are You Passionate and Fork in the Road I would avoid

imo :)

Also Americana is worth hearing at least once.

oh yeah americana and the new covers album stuff i've heard as well sounds cool

i don't mind fork in the road but i was sort of assuming that the asker of the question was not as far gone as me personally so like it's not exactly the first one i would point anyone to

are you passionate does have one REALLY good song, a crazy horse raver stuck in the middle for no reason

I agree, Fork in the Road is probably like my 4th/5th favorite from the era in question, whereas Are You Passionate is my least favorite thing he's ever done. But yeah it has "Goin' Home" and I think "She's a Healer" is OK, too.

i'm actually super pumped for a letter home based on the song i heard on the radio

"Ordinary People" - 18:13 - on Chrome Dreams II is worth a listen.

The anecdotes about/responses to "Ordinary People" in "Shakey" are pretty funny ("Neil doesn't fucking know any ordinary people!")

i think the solo live recordings of neil playing/explaining Greendale are generally more successful than the album itself.

since sleeps with angels, i spent a lot of time listening to broken arrow & mirror ball. mirror ball has a couple of incredible cuts, 'i'm the ocean' is a towering tune imo. broken arrow is good but it doesn't really thrill me to death. it's one of the jammiest NY&CH albums and at the same time it moves along pretty slowly, ranges from slow cuts to midtempo jams. vocally, neil sounds like he's gonna pass out most of the time. i do like it, though. it's just the guys doing their thing. 'big time' and 'music arcade' are especially strong imo.

living with war was good the one time i heard it. i like silver and gold and prairie wind well enough, agree that the former is better.

chrome dreams II has some great tunes on it and if you're a neil fan probably worth the $1 the CD will cost.

another vote for Le Noise

Le Noise is really good, as is Pill. Even Americana clicked with me, eventually. Imo "Broken Arrow" should be called "No, I am Not Passionate." Almost everything (including that one) has one or two worthwhile tracks.

I like Are You Passionate, "Differently" is a jam

another vote for the Le Noise album, video, and pertaining tour documentary by Demme, and also for 'Harvest Moon' the song and video, and for Neil the guy. that's the extent of what I know about him so far.

see also Julian Cope's 'Feels Like a Crying Shame' for a 10 min+ Youngian epic. it's on his Citizen Cain'd album.

Love that song and it is a killlller crazy horse vibe. Also "I Will Be Absorbed" from the same Cope album.

Listened to mirror all last night. Pearl Jam compliment NY nicely. "I'm the ocean" and "downtown" are great tunes.

Mirror Ball is a good un. I've heard people say it would be better as a Crazy Horse album, but it's really a different kind of rock record to one he'd make with them: Neil's take on 90s alt rock with four guitars and dynamic drumming. CH don't really have the stamina or chops for that.
That's not a diss of CH though - I love the slightly knackered, drawn out jams of Broken Arrow. Again, he takes them to a different place (as he had with the great Sleeps With Angels) with quite gentle, wistful melodies over blown-out Crazy Horse jams, something he perfects on the gorgeous Ramada Inn from Psychedelic Pill. Damn fine album. Giant Sand's cover of Music Arcade is excellent too.
I must give Le Noise a proper listen. The Hitchhiker is excellent. Americana is a lot of fun. The version of Oh Susannah that sounds like Shocking Blue's Venus is a hoot.
Are You Passionate was a huge disappointment on arrival, but I should maybe revisit it to give it a fairer listen.

Neil's take on 90s alt rock with four guitars and dynamic drumming.

I think one reason I never really got into Mirror Ball (with the exceptions of the songs Michael B mentioned, which are great) is that the Eldorado EP struck me as a far more dynamic and agitated realization of that approach.

Well, that EP is particularly awesome. Stealth Japan-only comeback! "Mirror Ball" ... eh, I'm not sure Pearl Jam brings anything that Neil needs. His b-team did just fine with a similar (iirc) sound on "Living with War."

Just to reiterate Neil silently released a version of Living With War with the choir taken out (a release of particularly poor selling album a year after it came out is classic Neil) but it's well worth hearing

That's a fair point Tarfumes. Eldorado is fantastic. There's nothing as vicious as Cocaine Eyes on Mirrorball. IFRC from Shakey, this was when Neil was experimenting with Marshall stacks instead of his usual chain of Fender deluxes plus massive speaker. Neil with Marshall was too brutal for many of his entourage to take, heh heh.
The songwriting across Mirrorball isn't consistent - Downtown is nothing special, although its goofy hippy fantasy of classic rockers playing in a bar is quite cute in Neil's hands - but Song X, I'm The Ocean and Throw Your Hatred Down are great, and I'll also rep for Act of Love and Deep Green Country. It's a really fun album to play guitar along to as well.

Again, "Eldorado" was 6 or so years pre-"Mirror Ball," so don't see why anyone would compare them. Now, comparing "Eldorado" with "Living with War" makes more sense, because it's the same band of Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas, Neil's A+ b-team. Though per the thread revive, "Eldorado" is also well pre-"Sleeps With Angels," too.

Telling me that Living With War features the Eldorado rhythm section actually makes me want to hear it (I never have).

so every time i sit down to "long may you run" i think "hell yea! mid-70s neil!" but shit it's really bad, huh? i never make it through in one sitting

blame Stills. his songs on that are an abomination

does always seem like a weird case of neil trying to fit into someone else's scene. i dig the yacht rock slow-jamminess of Midnight On The Bay.

when in doubt, blame Stills. I blame Stills for global warming for instance, bellowing like that on "Black Queen".

I really like "Black Coral", probably my favorite Stills song, but the rest of his songs on here are pretty rough. "Midnight on the Bay" is great; in general, I love the vibe of Neil's songs on this record. It was not at all a surprise to learn that he was living on a boat in Florida at the time.

it's weird i've never actually listened to long may you run

Midnight on the bay! how did I live without that one?

i guess the title track isn't too bad either

sounds like it could easily fit on comes a time

Title track rules!

midnight on the bay is good too!

title track is fantastic, i just generally prefer it in live versions.
here's a kinda weird unreleased track from the stills-young tour - "evening coconut," named after neil's boat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmU2xoQo7k
not entirely sure, but he may have reworked this into "Thrasher".

the only problem with this record is that they didn't put all the stills songs on side 2 so you would never have to listen to them.

haha still is a douche but i think he's kind of underrated in a way! he's a great guitar player...i like the first manassas record quite a bit, and super session w/bloomfield and kooper...plus some of the CSN stuff and Buffalo Springfield...as far as cocaine cowboy asshole dudes i have more respect for him than like henley and frey

oh for sure

evening coconut sounds great, thanks tylerw. totally has the feel of "thrasher" (which is definitely my top 5 neil tunes for sure)

yeah it is nice - though haha, stills does his best to ruin it with his weird latin patois improv vocals at the end. Stills!

i like stills fine (i'm a fan of of the roughly contemporary dark star from csn) but these songs are all pretty weak. black coral is ok.

xp Compare that to Young's desperate attempt to salvage the abomination that is "Make Love To You" with his kinda-awesome "Love you! Love you!" backing vocals on the chorus. For the most part they seem to stay out of each other's way on the rest of the record, I think.

would've been interesting if they had taken the opposite approach -- having stills come in and record with crazy horse. would probably be a weird-but-classic record. but it was probably never on the table, given the contempt CSN showed for the horse.

It's amusing to hear Neil get Old Black cranking on the Stills stuff.

Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones plays bass on and co-authored "The Love Gangster" and is reported to have said that he would have left the Stones to join Manassas.[1]

the "Midnight, midnight!" backup vocals on "Midnight on the Bay" froze my blood.