Search and destroy: Neil Young

or wait, i got my timeline wrong.

to me, harvest moon was his first great one since american stars n bars

my view of the late 80s stuff has gotten brighter and brighter, but i still love the shit out of harvest moon in a way that i don't for any of his other albums after star n bars. i do like quite a few of his other albums, just not adore.

clemenza, that's a reasonable consensus opinion. I stop at Sleeps with Angels and "I'm the Ocean." I did go to the Greendale show, that was okay.

I like "Unknown Legend" (from Harvest Moon and "I'm the Ocean" as much as anything Neil did in the 70s. MuchMusic used to keep the video for "Harvest Moon" in pretty heavy rotation when it was new, and that was actually my intro to him--a function, I'm sure of my being born in the late 70s and him being irrelevant throughout most of the 80s.

I think "Sleeps" might be his last one as good as his best stuff, and the doomy vibe even gives it a final record sort of feel, but the best of the rest are definitely almost as good as if not better than the next tier of his stuff. And for that matter most of his last decade's worth of material is much better than his worst stuff. The worst you can say about it is that it's boring.

"walk like a giant" off psychedelic pill is massive and turned into borderline industrial music on that tour

as much as anything Neil did in the 70s

In fairness, I'm setting the bar high: "really good" = mid-'70s/Everybody Knows/Gold Rush good. Expecting someone to reach that level 30 or 40 years later--not to mention how much I've changed over that time frame; I'm just not as receptive to new work as I once was--isn't remotely fair. One of my favourite Dylan quotes ever (talking about his mid-'60s work, paraphrased): "I don't know where that came from. I can do other things now, but I can't do that."

He said something very similar to that in the 60 Minutes interview. Somebody read him some of the lyrics to I think Desolation Row or It's Alright Ma and he said he had no idea where something like that came from but it's not something you just sit down to write.

I think that's where I got it from (and I think he did say "but I can't do that," unless I'm mixing him up with Meatloaf)--incredibly honest.

“You can’t do something forever,” he says. “I did it once, and I can do other things now. But I can’t do that.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-bob-dylan-on-songwriting-2004/

- Meat Loaf

the problem for me with nu neil is the lyrics are just so corny. he used to kind of dance around corny and hit profundity instead. but now his sentimentality has completely clouded over the true vision stuff. you could really hear it start to creep in with rust never sleeps, which is still great of course, and hits profoundity buttons hard for me in spite of it. it becomes a problem for me starting with "rockin in the free world". i still need to hear sleeps with angels. i'm with km though in that i completely love harvest moon.

Hmm. He's one of those guys that occasionally stumbles upon some absolutely brilliant lyrics, but I learned long ago that I am better off not paying close attention to exactly what he's saying.

I see a pretty big difference between the latter day approaches of Dylan and Neil.

Bob has put out 5 albums of new material in the last 25 years. He seems to wait until he has a batch of "good" material before releasing anything and if he doesn't, he does covers or welds iron gates or whatever.

Neil has put out 15 albums of new material.

I'm not trying to get at who is better or anything, but it's not surprising that Neil is someone whose quality control is pretty suspect.

Neil's lyrical decline is really bad, and the fact he's tended to make albums like Monstanto Years where they are right in your face as opposed to jam out Crazy Horse workouts where I don't tend to care.

I used to attribute it to him quitting weed but I just looked and I guess he stared up back in 2019.

xp Oops, I missed Together Through Life. So Bob has six. Even then, I think latter day Bob material suffers from sameness, Love & Theft and Rough and Rowdy Ways excepted.

Hmm. He's one of those guys that occasionally stumbles upon some absolutely brilliant lyrics, but I learned long ago that I am better off not paying close attention to exactly what he's saying.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, December 13, 2021 8:06 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is super wrong imo.

it's like at some point he switched from actually telling truth in a disarmingly simple way to being like "i am known for telling truth in a disarmingly simple way, and i will do that" while completely losing the truth.

the problem for me with nu neil is the lyrics are just so corny.

I run into this all the time. The music always comes first with me, but if the music's ordinary, that's when I start to notice lyrics. And latter-day Neil is often so plainspoken, so literal, the words vanish immediately. Something like "Old Guitar": "It's been up and down the country roads/It's brought a tear and a smile/It's seen its share of dreams and hopes/And never went out of style." The first time I played that a few months ago, I was trying to fill in the rhymes as it went along; more than one I got right, not a good sign.

it's like at some point he switched from actually telling truth in a disarmingly simple way to being like "i am known for telling truth in a disarmingly simple way, and i will do that" while completely losing the truth.

― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map)

otm

Lou Reed flirted with this approach.

Reed too! Why The Blue Mask lost me.

Compare moon/June Neil to--I know, unfair--the guy who wrote "Cinnamon Girl."

Ten silver saxes, a bass with a bow
The drummer relaxes and waits between shows
For his cinnamon girl

Utter perfection--and then to pull in the last bit about money from home out of nowhere. (Love the Yahoo/Musixmatch rendering of that last verse: "Pa send me money now/I'm going to make it somehow/I need another chance/You see your baby loves details/Yeah yeah yeah.")

No lie: details.

MuchMusic used to keep the video for "Harvest Moon" in pretty heavy rotation when it was new

I think I had a warped perception in the 80s of how far Neil was out of fashion, because MuchMusic regularly played most of his videos: "Wonderin'", "Cry Cry Cry", "Are There Any More Real Cowboys", "Touch the Night", "People on the Street" all got shown without any kind of disclaimer about how much he was considered to have lost the plot.

xposting I was thinking specifically of "After the Gold Rush," which is literally and figuratively dopey.

lol wrong again

"Touch the Night" got moderate to heavy MTV rotation, according to the Billboard chart tracking these things.

Hey, most Neil lyrics do the job, there's just not much I'd scribble on my Trapper Keeper.

I felt the same kind of loss of lyrical acuity in the final Joni Mitchell record, Shine, although she can't blame it on being too prolific. A combination of artlessness and an almost obsessiveness about pounding the point home.

...the same point through multiple songs.

I was thinking specifically of "After the Gold Rush," which is literally and figuratively dopey.

― Josh in Chicago

I was marveling at these lyrics the other day. not dopey at all

yeah they're really incredible imo, i think the overarching idea is quite simple (hippie dream stuff) but the imagery that conveys it is very resonant and convincing. "i was lying in a burned-out basement with the full moon in my eyes i was hoping for replacement when the sun burst through the sky" is just breathtakingly beautiful. i'm just spitballing now but i wonder if he stopped watching movies at the turn of the millennium or something? like, his ability to write seems connected to images, especially images that work in kind of a film logic. i don't get the that at all in the few newish songs i've tried.

"There was a band playing in my head/and I felt like getting high" just punches me in the gut. But then, "I was thinking about what a friend once said/I was hoping it was a lie" finishes me off and i'm dead.

puts me right back in my twenties

His 1989-1994 comeback coincided with the CDs blowing out running times - Freedom and Sleeps With Angels could be very good with a trim down to 40 minutes.

I like Prairie Wind from 2006 even if it’s a bit overly sentimental.

I'm more put off by his upper register on ATGR than the songwriting, consistently top-notch (I prefer the Live Rust version of "Goldrush").

"There was a band playing in my head/and I felt like getting high" just punches me in the gut

lol, i'm sorry, but this actually punches me in the gut

xxp, i couldn't tell if you were being serious or sarcastic!

"I was thinking about what a friend once said/I was hoping it was a lie"--no explanation, nothing leading to or from that line--is brilliant. Beyond brilliant. I don't know how else to say it.

it's not a bad line, but "i felt like getting high" is in the genre of Things That Make the Crowd Go Woo

serious as an mfer, if you were referring to me

usually i get high, and then the band plays in my head. that would be my only complaint

lol, gotcha

I've gotta paraphrase Christgau here: you haven't lived until you've been at a packed Neil Young show for "And I felt like getting high." Corny as can be, I suppose, but a thrilling teenage memory.

if you're hearing a band play in your head and you're already high, wouldn't that make you want to get higher

i was actually thinking about how that song resonates with a previous me (depressed, 20s, too serious) in the same way that Talyor Swift's songs about being young and in love do. Sort of embarrassed at first but then fully in that moment. it helps me see that younger self in a more empathetic way

His 1989-1994 comeback coincided with the CDs blowing out running times - Freedom and Sleeps With Angels could be very good with a trim down to 40 minutes.

I like Prairie Wind from 2006 even if it’s a bit overly sentimental.

I grew to love Prairie Wind after seeing the Heart of Gold film directed by Jonathan Demme. (Looking through the discography, the Greendale: Live at Vicar St. DVD, Prairie Wind, Le Noise and Americana would be the only four newly recorded albums that I enjoy post-Sleeps with Angels - everything I else I have on a homemade compilation.)

I forgot that Freedom was so long - I actually don't listen to it as-is, I went back to the original Times Square LP and swapped out the horrid "Someday" track with "No More" (also from Freedom), replaced "Crime in the City" with the live version from Bluenote Café and added the electric "Rockin' in the Free World" as the final track.

Silver & Gold is great

The title track and "Razor Love" are awesome. I also have a soft spot for "Good to See You."

The Eldorado ep is even better! "Cocaine Eyes" is a top five Young tune, hard to find anywhere (you can download the EP anywhere, though).

even better than Freedom

I haven't bothered with a lot of his recent stuff, tbh, but there are a lot of highlights hiding on albums that are themselves not particularly highlights.

Listening to "Psychedelic Pill" right now and it rules. I love the absolutely perverse indulgence of opening with "Driftin' Back." I love that the first song is nearly 30 minutes long, yet there are *still* two 16-minute songs waiting to get cha later.

The lyrics to Albuquerque are some of my faves
It’s so specific to NY’s experience but also still very relatable to my own life


I've been flyin' down the road
And I've been starvin' to be alone
And independent from the scene that I've known
Albuquerque
So I'll stop when I can
Find some fried eggs and country ham
I'll find somewhere
Where they don't care who I am

The Eldorado ep is even better! "Cocaine Eyes" is a top five Young tune, hard to find anywhere (you can download the EP anywhere, though).

Exactly, that's why I went back to Times Square. Eldorado is basically a 5-song sampler of that album.