Soooo…. Neil Young. The man, the myth the… aging, deteriorating and recently annoying icon. It is well documented. I love this guy. I think his body of work stands up favorably as the best ever in rock. That having been said there is a time to stop and he has not put out anything interesting (to me) in years but… body of work speaking wise…
1963
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The Squires
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1966
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Buffalo Springfield
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1967
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Buffalo Springfield
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1968
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Buffalo Springfield
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Neil Young
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1969
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Buffalo Springfield
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1970
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Crosby Stills Nash & Young
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Neil Young
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1971
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Crosby Stills Nash & Young
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1972
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Neil Young
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Neil Young & Graham Nash
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Neil Young
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1973
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Neil Young
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1974
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Neil Young
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1975
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Neil Young
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Neil Young
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1976
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The Stills-Young Band
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1977
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Neil Young
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Neil Young
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1978
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Neil Young
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1979
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1980
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Neil Young
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1981
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1982
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Neil Young
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1983
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Neil Young & the Shocking Pinks
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1985
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Neil Young
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1986
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Neil Young
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1987
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1988
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Neil Young & the Bluenotes
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Crosby Stills Nash & Young
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1989
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Neil Young & The Restless
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Neil Young
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1990
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1991
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1992
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Neil Young
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1993
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Neil Young
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Neil Young
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1994
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1995
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Neil Young
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1996
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Neil Young
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1997
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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1999
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Crosby Stills Nash & Young
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2000
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Neil Young
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Neil Young
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2001
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Buffalo Springfield
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2002
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Neil Young
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2003
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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Neil Young
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2005
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Neil Young
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2006
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Neil Young
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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Neil Young
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2007
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Neil Young
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Neil Young
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2008
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Crosby Stills Nash & Young
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Neil Young
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2009
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Neil Young
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Neil Young Archives Volume 1
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Neil Young
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2010
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Neil Young
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2011
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Neil Young
International Harvesters
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2012
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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2013
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Neil Young
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2014
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Neil Young
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I have the ability to cull the list, and there is a LOT of shit here, to get to some essentials which I believe are as follows:
1. Everybody Knows this Is Nowhere
2. After the Goldrush
3. Harvest
4. Tonights The Night
5. Zuma
6. American Stars And Bars
7. Rust Never Sleeps
8. Hawks And Doves
9. Freedom
10. Ragged Glory
11. Unplugged
This of course does not include his Buffalo Springfield work and any of his work with CSN. That is great work too and this list also does not include his compilations and live stuff other than “UnPlugged” which just cannot be ignored as a unique CD even though all the songs had been previously released. The live and archived stuff he has been issuing is awesome but it shows the brilliance and strength around his earlier work. I could make a reasonably cogent argument that he has not been relevant to me since 1990 and Ragged Glory. I mean there have been good songs on most every album (with some notable exceptions) but overall, very solid.
Neil has always been disappointed by digital sound, at first decrying the CD and then really going ape shit about digitally compressed music and MP3’s and what not. If you read his autobiography (and I will pause and say a brief prayer that you did not), there is a lot of discussion about the sound obsession and about him retooling one of his classic cars with this exquisite digital sound system and now he has gotten investors and friends and fans to invest in something called PONO. I have zero (0) appreciation for high end sound. My ears are shot and the idea that you ever get really good sound in a moving vehicle has always seemed ludicrous to me but to Niel… it is a big deal. If you ever get bored…
Soooo…. against the backdrop of this digital obsession for ultra high end music, where would you suppose Neil would go this time? EDM? Reinventing country. Revisiting Grunge? Taking us back to the garage with Crazy Horse? All of these would make sense with the new obsession. Instead he hooked up with the guy Rolling Stone just called “The Willy Wonka” of rock, Jack White. White has moved to Nashville and has the hippest little record store in the country (Third Man records) and is also operating a studio called (Cleverly enough) Third Man Studios. Anyway, white has a little recording booth where people can make their own records. Evidently it was a “thing” at some point in the past and you can come in and go into the booth and cut your own album. It has a scratchy home made sound and is the opposite of everything Neil has been working on but it is really “authentic” if by authentic you mean almost homemade.
To his credit, he has made a really personal CD/Album/Digital Download. “A Letter Home” is basically his effort at a message in sound and dialogue to his mother. Telling her stories and singing her songs and dialoguing with her like a prayer and talking to her about his brother and encouraging her to make up with dad… I guess it is sweet. It is interesting that there are no Neil Young songs on the CD and perhaps the brilliance in this format is in doing all covers.
To be a fan of Neil is to be in love with the vagaries of his voice. The atonal, tunefulness that he is able to crank out and the acoustic format has always been the best for showcasing that particularly beautiful train wreck. The Willie Nelson classic “On The Road Again” with Jack White singing and playing, the haunting “If You Could read My Mind Love” so much more nuanced than Gordon Lightfoot’s reading but the best of show is “Girl From The North Country”. It has been covered a million times but for whatever reason this one… resonates. Second best cover is his take on Springsteen’s mournful “My Home Town” which no matter which economic crisis that you're living through seems like it could have been written a week ago.
So, I am pretty happy with this CD. It is not a desert island disc but it is another part of that body of work I keep talking about and I really think, when Neil passes, his body of work will be regarded by many as the greatest of the rock era. I am just saying...
