Neil Young - Le Noise (2010)

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2010/08/neil-young-dubs-next-album-le-noise/

Neil Young Dubs Next Album Le Noise
By Evan Schlansky on August 20th, 2010

Have you been on Neil Young’s Facebook page today? If so, you’ve seen this message:

“Le Noise” is complete. It is a solo record. Playbacks are happening now. Release date is September 28th. It will be available in Vinyl, CD and I tunes in the first edition, followed by Blu-Ray, and an APP for I-Phone and I-Pad a month or so later. The app will be free. It gives you an interactive album cover. Forgive my use of the word “album”. I am old school. When you buy the songs/movies from I- tunes they show up in your APP. Peace ny

The new album was produced by superstar producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan), who reportedly convinced Young not to name the album Twisted Road, after his recent solo tour, which included a stop in Nashville. Many of the songs that are presumably on the album were road tested during that trek.

Young is about to launch another tour in September, to bring aid and awareness to the oil-stricken Gulf Coast.

Neil may be my favorite crazy old man

I just got the album title's pun.

Lanois/Le Noise

le noise = lanois, i take it? har.

oh xpost

anyhoo, anticipating! glad it's coming out so soon.

haha

and speaking of noise, in the pfork jim jarmusch/atp interview, he says he asked neil to do some kind of "feedback war" with thurston moore for ATP, but neil couldn't do it. too bad!

Hope there's a new Crazy Horse record called Al Beanie next year.

I dunno how many around here are of the same opinion as I am, but I'm really looking forward to hearing Neil filtered through the Lanois production machine.

might be the first neil joint to please meh

I loved Wrecking Ball and Oh Mercy, so I'm excited.

oh mercy is a classic, but i distrust lanois a lot of the time.

i think i've only heard wrecking ball once; i guess it was okay.

Wrecking Ball has such a wonderful atmosphere. If I had to pick a best example of Lanois' production style, that would probably be it.

And on that note, I'd love for Emmylou Harris to work with him again. Maybe Emmylou and Neil together with Lanois at the boards.

^I'd love to see this in my lifetime...

We really differ then, cuz Wrecking Ball is a well-intentioned snooze to my ears. As much as I love Harris' harmonies and backup vocals, she has no business singing lead.

what do you have against snoozing

it's nice to snooze

I'll defend So and Achtung Baby and that Neville Bros record to the death, but it was after the successive release of Wrecking Ball, Willie's Teatro, and Dylan's Time Out of Mind that Lanois' sinuous seven-guitars-bleating-through-a-fog mixes made me vomit.

This Young-Lanois sounds like a fantastic misfire at worst. I'm looking forward to Young working with a "real" producer.

As much as I love Harris' harmonies and backup vocals, she has no business singing lead.

This is maybe the most fucked up thing I've ever seen you write.

Well, sorry. Jennifer Warnes has no business singing lead. Hers and Harris' fantastic talent is for being supporting players; they're colorless by themselves. In Harris' case Lanois' production accentuated this.

I'd rather listen to nothing but Time Out of Mind for the rest of my life, while being tortured with knives, than ever hear Achtung Baby again, so we're even

"So Cruel" vs "To Make You Feel My Love"

i kinda like time out of mind. dylan's dylan-ness saves the day, ultimately.

TOOM isn't terrible, just underwritten, allowing Lanois to hold sway. I prefer LVT and MT.

Every time Neil's worked with a name producer and/or band (Booker T, Danny Kortchmar) it's been some kind of disaster. He's been consistent in a decent sort of way the last ten years though, so we'll see.

Oh man I'd be a happy camper if this was his Landing On Empty II.

Are You Passionate Too? would suck though

"Let's Roll" might have worked if he'd recorded it like "Pressure" or "Hippie Dream," I guess.

More Freedom
Raggeder Glory
Everybody's Still Rockin'

I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound
Someone's always yellin', "Turn him down"

Man, I fucking love both Emmylou Harris and Jennifer Warnes as lead vocalists.

Older Ways
Twoma
More American Stars & Bars
re.re.act.or

DTattered Glory.

*Tattered Glory

Well, if nothing else, the cover art is definitely an improvement over his last several albums:

http://i35.tinypic.com/fjdytu.jpg

reminds me vaguely of

http://www.jezebelmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mazzy-star_she-hangs-brightly-300x300.jpg

which is some of my favorite album cover design ever

love this cover!

http://991.com/newGallery/Richard-Thompson-Henry-The-Human-F-256904.jpg

Here's the tracklist. Only 8 songs, but I'm hoping more for quality rather than quantity:

1. “Walk With Me”

2. “Sign Of Love”

3. “Someone’s Gonna Rescue You”

4. “Love And War”

5. “Angry World”

6. “Hitchhiker”

7. “Peaceful Valley Boulevard”

8. “Rumblin”

ha! crazy that "hitchhiker" is actually on the album. he's been playing it on this current tour (along with some of these other tracks). is this the longest Neil's ever waited to put out a song? I think hitchhiker was originally written in 1977 or something.

"I'm hoping more for quality rather than quantity"

always good to hope

well even if it's bad, that means there's less bad

always good to hope

Yeah, whatever I was thinking at the time didn't exactly come across as intended.

dunno, the more i think about this, the more excited I get -- I'll probably be disappointed but oh well. I just think that Neil did his best work with David Briggs, an egotistical, opinionated producer. Not that Briggs and Lanois are comparable aesthetically, but Lanois is definitely opinionated! He would probably be OK with telling Neil something wasn't working.

he can bring the best producer on earth, but as long as his songwriting ability isn't as good as it used to be - it would be impossible to make a really good record.

true enough! the songs he's been playing live sound good, though.

the new songs sound really good on the Albany boot, at least! I'm excited about this.

man that album cover is awesome

here's what Lanois said about the record:
"We followed a simple philosophy: it's a solo record," he said of the latest work from the legendary Toronto-born rocker, which Lanois says will be out in late fall. "So it does not have a band, but it's rocking. And he's really come in with the songs, they're terrific. I dare say it might be some of his best work in some time. We've really hit the motherlode.

"I've worked with Neil over the years in small doses . . . but we had never done something together from scratch. So let me put it this way: There's an automatic communication system that exists between two Canadian dogs. It's been a lot of fun, and we're very dedicated, and I think I finally met my match."

so, yeah, interesting. it probably will not be this way, but it'd be cool if neil was going back to some kind of "will to love" style approach -- solo recordings embellished with weird overdubby stuff.

I'm really getting excited about this record too. At first, I was just "huh, he's working with Lanois. It will sound good at least." But now I'm actually getting excited about the prospect of good, interesting songs.

first listen: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/08/neil-young-le-noise-daniel-lanois.html
What’s striking about “Le Noise” is the way it both summarizes and distills Young’s singular approach to music, predominantly just Neil and a guitar: his big, white hollow-body Gretsch electric slashing and burning for most of the tracks, a couple built around picked and strummed acoustic instruments. Both are recorded and amplified -- literally and metaphorically -- by Lanois’ signature soundscapes that loop vocals, and enhance the guitars’ bass notes through distortion boxes, synthesizers and other electronics.

"As busy as Young and his record label have been digging through the vaults for material for his massive “Archives” multiyear box set project -- Vol. 2 is due in 2012, Roberts said Tuesday -- along with individual reissues in recent years, it’s all the more rewarding to discover he’s delivered yet another craggy rock classic to keep them company."

Let the countdown begin (again)!

haha, yeah. it is funny that they're "busy digging through the vaults" ... shouldn't all the vault-digging be done by now? he started talking about the archives 25 years ago.

http://stereogum.com/507781/neil-young-angry-world-video-stereogum-premiere/top-stories/lead-story/

"Angry World" video.

Verdict not yet in on the song imo.

First impressions: I like the guitar tone - crunchier and grittier than I would expect from Lanois' nob-fiddling past. However, the lyrics and vocal performance seem a bit awkward and undercooked. Will give it another go or two later and see if first impression equals final verdict.

"first impression equals final verdict."

you are otm and i think it will

at the very least, its interesting and engaging right from the get-go. Neil, I love ya. one of a kind.

this sounds cool to me -- not sure if the lyrics are amazing or anything, but I dig the sound.

I like the sound too. The lyrics are pretty typical for Neil post-Greendale. They're kinda hippy-dippy & it would be better if they were mixed further down.

they forgot the other half of the band?

hmm...this is intriguing...i like the loopy stuff under the guitar

I think it's pretty good. If it's the fifth- or sixth-best song on the album, that would probably be a good album. If it turns out to be the best song on the album, that wouldn't be good.

otm

When he's not being spacey and loopy, Neil's pretty cagey. I think he'd keep the best stuff back.

i listened to some youtube bootlegs from the current tour, live clips of songs supposedly on le noise and a lot of them were better songs than this

Two more tracks: 'Love and War' and 'Walk With Me'

http://blogs.1037themountain.com/shawnstewart/2010/09/14/harvest-this/

if the live "hitchhiker"s he played on this year's solo tour are anything to go by, that'll be a highlight for sure.

Those two additional tracks did nothing for me at all. Love the guitar tone, but otherwise, not so much. Unless he's keeping a few classics under wraps I'm moving from "tentatively excited" to "damn, another skip it."

Hitchhiker vid on Pfork is the shit

What is the best Neil Young record of the last, say 10-15 years?

Probably Chrome Dreams II for jamz like "Spirit Road" and "No Hidden Path," "Ordinary People" was pretty good too

Are You Passionate was garbage
Silver & Gold is decent
Greendale and Living With War couldn't bring myself to listen
Mirror Ball and Broken Arrow rock pretty hard but I never pull them out anymore

yeah CD II is probably my fave from the last 10 years. there are good tunes on all of them, but you do have to wade through some dreck.

I think Are You Passionate? is the best of them (!), then Silver & Gold. (I'm thinking just 10 years). But it depends on which Neil you're looking for.

What is the best Neil Young record of the last, say 10-15 years?

fork in the road is a very good record. should be a contender, imo. it kinda rocks (not on a Crazy Horse level), sounds like they're having fun, and i think the songs/playing are pretty solid througout

So...no consensus, then.

yeah i don't think there's like, a stone cold classic in the last decade.

I think Tyler's Good to See You comp is all I need of Neil's work this decade.

On those festival shows last summer, when all the songs ended with those huge swathes of electric guitar, while the rest of the band stood around and waited for NY to finish - that's what the album sounds like. Except he's turned it all into songs. Not sure whether the quality of the songs even matters that much; I think this album is about the sound of it all - and it sounds amazing. A singer-songwriter noise album.

yeah, like ARC but with songs.

Okay, if that is the case, I'm going to absolutely LOVE this record.

i'm intrigued

haha, well, there you go. he should've just called it "Arc With Songs."

Not as extreme as Arc. It's not feedback. It's layers of massively distorted guitar, with Lanois doing his loops and things underneath. It definitely works better as a collection than as individual songs.

yeah, maybe a better comparison is the Dead Man soundtrack?

Don't know Dead Man, so I can't speak to the comparison.

well, it's a solo record mixing heavy distorted guitar w/ moody acoustic things. no vocals, tho.

(dead man is great btw -- a big influence on latter day Earth, I think)

man the final version of hitchiker is amazing....

like how he lyrically checks "like an inca"

BTW - I'm no one's idea of a Neil Young expert. There's plenty of stuff in the catalogue I like, but more I don't, and some I have no desire ever to hear based on what I've read. But I was really surprised, in a good way, by this album. I'll be really interested to see what those who really know the catalogue have to say about Le Noise.

Oh I like Dead Man...would I like Arc? Does it sound like Les Rallizes Denudes?

it sounds EXACTLY like Les Rallizes Denudes.

jk, not really. it is just big swaths of feedback/cymbal crashes. edited together from the ends of songs on the Weld tour.

I'm a NY fanatic and I'm stoked to hear this.

Best of the past ten years is Chrome Dreams II with Silver & Gold a close second. The rest are spotty. Are You Passionate is admittedly pretty terrible but I still say Neil on his worst day beats 90% of his contemporaries on their best.

sounds a bit dodgy. cymbal crashes?

xp

Honestly, any combination of Arc and the Dead Man soundtrack would be enticing to me. Which reminds me, I realized I no longer have my old dubbed cassette of said soundtrack. I need to google that and hope its easy to find.

Dead Man sdtk is awesome

what I heard of Fork in the Road was great ("where did all the money goooooo"), I should really listen to that whole thing

Fork in the Road my favorite of his recent albums, but they're all B+ records.

Which is to say: post-Sleeps With Angels, none would score higher than a B+

...or below a C-

SWA is the last album I'll defend as almost a great one.

Dead Man is 2 yrs after SWA and is definitely better

it does have somewhat tiresome johnny depp voiceovers tho.

I skip those tracks

Fork In The Road could be the best in the last 15 years. They all have excellent songs, but you're not going to mistake any of them with After The Gold Rush.

alright listening to that stereogum video song up top and it's pretty sweet. agree that the vocals shouldn't be so up front

another vote for Chrome Dreams II as best of the last 10 years. toss up between Silver and Gold and Fork in the Road after that

consensus!

Oh I like Dead Man...would I like Arc?

it is just big swaths of feedback/cymbal crashes

to me Arc is more "lol Neil released that" (but in a good way) rather than "let me pull this out and listen to it"

leaked.

this is excellent

On those festival shows last summer, when all the songs ended with those huge swathes of electric guitar, while the rest of the band stood around and waited for NY to finish - that's what the album sounds like. Except he's turned it all into songs. Not sure whether the quality of the songs even matters that much; I think this album is about the sound of it all - and it sounds amazing. A singer-songwriter noise album.

― ithappens, Friday, 17 September 2010 21:09 (Yesterday)

not ~noise~ but yes, texturally pretty great

a few parts where it sounds like lanois has been fucking about w/ unecessary overdubs

"Walk With Me" is attractive; one more play should determine how I feel about the production.

streaming in NPR!

really sounds amazing, i take back all my reservations about him working with lanois...

My wish is that there was just a little bit of drums here and there to break up the sonic monotony.

yeah maybe a little, even like more weird percussion, i'm not sure i need like a full on trap kit thing...

overall tho this is definitely a distinctive record for neil, much needed after so many sorta "ehhh" neil being neil records

I find this incredibly tedious and disappointing. It's different than what he's been up to lately, but not in an engaging or interesting way. Glad I got to stream it before dropping money on it as I have no desire to spend any more time with it at all.

you are crazy, snappin. i think this is the best he has done in the last 20 years. after ragged glory, that is. finally he gets back to the roots. it has taken him some time but it was worth the wait.

Holy shit, just listening to the NPR stream of this thing. I'm bowled over by how fantastic this sounds.

overall tho this is definitely a distinctive record for neil, much needed after so many sorta "ehhh" neil being neil records

^^^ yeah this. although I have liked parts of the "ehhh" ones

Holy shit, just listening to the NPR stream of this thing. I'm bowled over by how fantastic this sounds.

Yes. On first listening this sounds excellent.

"Hitchhiker" tips its hats every which way: concept from Landing on Water's "Drifter"; direct quotes from Trans' "Like An Inca" and Comes a Time's "Field of Opportunity."

hitchhiker actually predates all of those songs -- think it was written in the mid 70s.

Always thought Hitchhiker was first played sometime in the early '90s, but was somewhat born out of "Like an Inca." When did the song make its earliest appearance?

in Shakey, it's mentioned as being in the same batch of songs as "powderfinger," "pochahontas," etc. There's a recording of it, apparently, but I don't think it's ever appeared on bootleg. i guess he debuted it live on the harvest moon solo tour in 92, though.

Really enjoying this album, but I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this: single (regular gram) vinyl, no insert, no enclosed CD copy, not even a download code - for $35.00?? WTF, Neil?

lol that is lame

according to amazon it's 180 gram. but still, yuck.

Best thing he's done since "Harvest". Daniel Lanois is still a genius!

wow, since "Harvest"?

lol

so i guess i should get this

of course Geir loves the Neil album with NO RHYTHM SECTION

ALL MELODY ALL THE TIME

It's his best since Dead Man but I still don't like it; he's just released so much utter shit in the past 15-odd years that this one floats to the top of the bowl.

http://www.rockcheetah.com/blog/images/statler-waldorf.jpg

of course Geir loves the Neil album with NO RHYTHM SECTION

Actually I prefer music with a rhythm section (as long as it's in the background), but I feel like Daniel Lanois has revitalized Neil Young, like he has previously done with Bob Dylan, Neville Brothers and Emmylou Harris, to name but a few.

But, yes, it's better than "Tonight's The Night", better than "On The Beach", better than "Trans", better than "Rust Never Sleeps", better than "Freedom", better than "Ragged Glory", better than "Sleeps With Angels" and also better than "Harvest Moon", which is the one I previously considered to be his best post-"Harvest" effort.

I know better than to take the Geir-bait, but there is a whole lot of o_O in that.

what about Paul Van Dyk x-post

That said, Neil Young generally stopped being great after "Harvest" anyway.

i mean if you're naming but a few

did daniel lanois revitalize dashboard confessional in your opinion geir?

Actually no idea who they are.

But he revitalized U2. Second time around. In 2000.

i don't either tbh

noting that your neil rankings have changed

Well, my favourite Neil Young album is still "After The Goldrush", but that was pre-"Harvest".

think we can just agree that geir doesn't really like neil young and move on

related question to the high price of le noise: why are live @ massey hall and live @ the fillmore so much fukkin $$ at my record store? is it because they're out of print? they should be $18 not $40.

dammit

think we can just agree that geir doesn't really like neil young and move on

I like the Neil Young who used to be in Buffalo Springfield and CSNY. Not so much the Neil Young after that, even though everything he has made has been passable.

so you used to like neil young but you don't anymore

until now! neil is back!

for geir and Neil Young there just...

Comes A Time! [After 'Harvest'] [Comes A Time is an album by Neil Young]

so you used to like neil young but you don't anymore

He has always had his moments, like when he turns down the fuzz of his guitar and concentrates on a more acoustic and orchestral sound. Still missing the wonderful and smooth vocal harmonies present in most of his 1966-1972 output though.

so you like his self titled debut? that one is pretty lush/orchestrated.

I asked a casual friend if he likes Neil Young, and he says "Yeah!" but furthering questioning revealed he pretty much had no idea at least half to most of Young's output is loud and electric.

yeah, i mean, what neil young songs get played on the radio? heart of gold, old man ... cinnamon girl is probably the rocking-est. oh, i guess rockin in the free world gets played.

geir have you heard "Comes a Time" by Neil? i think that might be up your alley....it's very melodic and stuff and nicollete larson and whatnot

oops xpost

Side 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>> Side 1

This album: a strong A-

can we banish all non-fanatics from this thread please? who cares what geir likes

feel like there should be an xm station for the big 00s neil young, emmylou, u2, van dyk hits called "Lanoisseur"

haha.
i've only listened to the npr stream of this once, so i don't feel like i have an opinion just yet. my copy should be arriving in the mailbox shortly though!

so you like his self titled debut? that one is pretty lush/orchestrated.

It's fine, but the backing vocals are actually finer on the next two (plus, obviously, on the ones he did with Buffalo Springfield and CSNY - and "Deja Vu" probably had an even smoother production than his solo debut as well)

geir have you heard "Comes a Time" by Neil? i think that might be up your alley....it's very melodic and stuff and nicollete larson and whatnot

It's OK but a bit too "rootsy" in a typically American countryside way. "Harvest" just managed to balance and not becoming too obviously C&W.

yes tell us more about how you hate country music AND black music

*tells geir about charlie pride*

And then again, what is my opinion on music with only three (the three usual ones) chords? What is my opinion on music with no key changes and mainly just major chords?

I don't think you will have to search for a long time to find my opinions on that stuff, but I can tell you that most country (in fact most North American music, regardless of genre) is way too harmonically simple for my taste.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, April 20, 2003 9:21 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

Just like to point out here that Geir thinks country music has no key changes and mainly just major chords (and only three of them at that!)

Chord chart for Patsy Cline's "Crazy"

Bb------------G--------------------Cm7
Crazy ... I'm crazy for feelin' so lonely

----F-------------------Edim-------Bb7---Bdim---C7/9---F
I'm crazy ... crazy for feelin' so blue

Bb-----------G----------------------Cm7
I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted,

---------F------------------------------------Bb---Cm7---Gdim---Bb
And then someday, you'd leave me for somebody new

Eb7---------------------------Bb
Worry ... why do I let myself worry?

C7------------------------------------F (riff on 6th fret)
Wonderin' ... what in the world did I do?

----Bb------------G---------------------------Cm7
Oh, crazy ... for thinkin' that my love could hold you

----Ebmaj7----Dm7---------Cm7-------G7
I'm crazy for tryin', and crazy for cryin'

--------Cm7-------F------Bb---(F#7)(modulation to B)
And I'm crazy for lovin' you

B-------------G#--------------------------C#m7
Crazy ... for thinkin' that my love could hold you

----Emaj7-----Ebm7--------C#m7------G#7
I'm crazy for tryin', and crazy for cryin'

---------C#m7-----F#-----B??(run up chromatically: B7/9-C7/9-C#7/9-D7/9-Eb7/9-E7/9)?....B
And I'm crazy for lovin' you

"Crazy" is a great song. I don't reject country altogether.

Reprise press release:

a 38-minute black and white film of eight live-in-studio performances of the eight songs that appear on legendary rocker Neil Young’s brand-new album Le Noise — will be made available for viewing exclusively on YouTube beginning September 30th. These will appear in the Spotlight section of You-Tube’s homepage as well as on Young’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/neilyoung). In addition to the performances, there will also be a personal introduction by Young himself, along with behind-the-scenes clips from album producer, Daniel Lanois, and more. The performances, shot by filmmaker Adam CK Vollick, feature Young on acoustic and electric guitars at Lanois’ home studio in Silverlake, CA, where Young and Lanois recorded Le Noise.

I haven't been interested in Neil Young recordings after 1979. Arc/Weld was an okay effort, but boring as hell. But this article does make it kind of enticing. Folk-metal eh? http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2010/09/neil-young-on-playing-his-le-noise-guitar-it-sounded-like-god.html

Lanois had a surprise waiting for Young when he walked into his studio for the first time. The producer handed the singer a tricked-out acoustic guitar that made it sound like a small orchestra: a beefed-up bass response on the lower two strings, a pickup that re-creates the sound of the human voice and allows it to loop and echo through the song, and a tremolo amplifier.

“You get four dimensions of sound out of one acoustic guitar, and I thought it might inspire him to play a certain way,” Lanois says. “We got the clarity of the guitar with a rich, beautiful bottom, a great subsonic sound with no mumbo-jumbo...

The hollow-body electric guitar was channeled through two amplifiers, one clean-sounding and the other for tremolo effect. Lanois saw even greater potential: “We covered both ends of the sound spectrum with the guitar. It’s got this cutting, razor-drill sound and this beautiful bass tone with sweet melody on the other end.”

Young, not prone to hyperbole in interviews, was blown away by the guitar sounds Lanois was able to capture: “It sounded like God.”

picked this up on CD today....wow...really massive sounding as compared to the stream i heard in NPR....so much better...

i'm kind of in love with this i think

man..."hitchhiker"....damn this song is awesome

Never thought I'd ever give a shit about a new Neil Young album but this really is fantastic... Peaceful Valley Boulevard is so great.

man i'm really loving this more and more

the first guitar hit of the album is just vvvvaaaaaaaaaaassst sounding

It's definitely better than the initial artist-producer match promised, but song for song Fork on the Road is superior. For me "Hitchhiker" never takes off like "I'm the Ocean" or ever "Fork in the Road" does.

*Fork in the Road

i'm the ocean off of mirror ball?

yup -- one of those late-period summations

It's churlish of me to complain of how it's comprised of secondhand parts -- chords, lyrics -- when Dylan gets away with it, and Young sings it with real precision. I also like how it ends abruptly but firmly: confirming his love for Pegi. But...I don't know. It sounds tentative.

hmmm man i remember hating fork in the road pretty much the couple times i heard it...or at least thinking it was pretty crappy songs

i guess this doesn't necessarily "take off"...obv no rhythm section but it sprawls and rolls...like storm clouds....

whatever it's doing it's not really like any other neil record and i really like the whole vibe of this and even the weaker songs are growing on me

but yes i would agree outside of hitchhiker which is old and peaceful valley it's more of a sound record than a songwriting record

sprawls and rolls...like storm clouds....

great description

but yes i would agree outside of hitchhiker which is old and peaceful valley it's more of a sound record than a songwriting record

Not sure about that, Walk With Me and Love And War are pretty great songs in their own right.

But yeah it's all about the SOUND of the record for me. The one thing it really reminds me of is Let Me In by REM, one lonely voice in this enormous cloud of distorted guitar noise and virtually nothing else. But the production and the way the noise is sculpted is much better than on Let Me In.

wish I coulld join in the choir - but so far this feels pretty meh - maybe I should hear it on proper speakers.

liking this - it's in a lineage with the last two Earth albums, sort of

the vast slow Americana of a lone guitarist

^^^^^ Greil Marcus topic sentence

Another nice 2010 musical surprise, so far, but I'm only up to "Sign Of Love." Still, "Walk With Me" alone might be my favorite Neil Young cut for a while (not that I keep track of everything he puts out, but I do check in with him to some extent).

This is sounding pretty good.

i'm still loving it

a day later?

I'll be at this tonight:

http://www.insidetoronto.com/what'son/what'son/article/880980

I mean I'll be at La Nuit Blanche--not sure about Lanois, it'll depend on how crowded Nathan Phillips Square is.

I think they played the album in its entirety at La Nuit Blanche last night. Visually, it was great; giant screens of Neil all around Nathan Phillips Square, a thousand or so people (I think), starting right at midnight. We stayed for six songs (before cutting out for A Hard Day's Night projected at three frames per second--12 hours!--accompanied by a string quartet slowing down the songs to a steady drone). Three (including "Angry World") sounded so-so; two (including "Love and War") I didn't like. The one song that sounded really good was the one where Neil recounts all the drugs he's taken, with parts about Incas and his head exploding. I don't think he does heavy especially well anymore. "The Loner" and "Cinnamon Girl" had a lot more than just the heavy. Now it tends to all sound like the main riff of "Hey Hey, My My" to me. I haven't read all the posts above; I may be repeating stuff already said.

The one song that sounded really good was the one where Neil recounts all the drugs he's taken, with parts about Incas and his head exploding.

heard most of le noise in a shop the other day. this was the only song that really stood out, and i liked it quite a bit. rest faded into a vague blur.

"Hitchhiker."

Yeah, thats the song thats been kicking around in one form or another for decades now.

i had been resisting listening to this but today i gave in
I LOVE IT

esp "sign of love" for some reason <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

it's like cinnamon girl 2010

yeah i like it too

neil songs are weird, like i don't know why some songs will really stick with me even if - objectively - they are mawkish or corny or whatever

neil is hard to understand for me, the margin between a classic and dud is so small

have we already covered why the vinyl is $35? i want to buy it, but...$35?

rest faded into a vague blur. this is exactly what i like about this side of neil tbh. like there are these feeble-but-proud melodies squeaking their way out from behind a fog of noise.

yeah vinyl prices for neil shit has been bonkers lately...esp the massey hall and lots of the archives stuff i would have bought otherwise....really really bullshit

is le noise a double lp on vinyl? $35 is nutso either way.

neil is hard to understand for me, the margin between a classic and dud is so small

I know what you mean, but I wouldn't agree with this. If I line up Gold Rush, Zuma, Everybody Knows, etc. on one side, and some of those mid-'80s albums on the other (I only know less than half his output the past 20 years), the difference is huge--and, for me, I knew right away how far off the mark the mid-'80s albums were.

le noise is on grooveshark btw. maybe i will have to settle for streaming until i can find a used copy of the vinyl :-/

To my ears, Young, unlike Dylan, didn't dry up in the eighties so much as not give a fuck.

Landing on Water and Life are just misfires, not misconceptions like Everybody's Rockin' and Old Ways.

Maybe. In terms of what it's like to listen to Landing on Water or Everybody's Rockin', I'm not sure either distinction is worth making.

(For me, Life has one for the pantheon: "Prisoners of Rock 'n' Roll.")

neil is hard to understand for me, the margin between a classic and dud is so small

I know what you mean, but I wouldn't agree with this. If I line up Gold Rush, Zuma, Everybody Knows, etc. on one side, and some of those mid-'80s albums on the other (I only know less than half his output the past 20 years), the difference is huge--and, for me, I knew right away how far off the mark the mid-'80s albums were.

― clemenza, Monday, October 4, 2010 11:47 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i was exagerrating or not really saying it right...

it's just some of his classic lyrics or songs have lines that if i really look at them, seem dumb or hamfisted or whatever, but yet they give me goosebumps....

it's something about his songwriting i can't quite put my finger on it

like le noise is working for me, and i can't quite say why songs like sign of love are affecting me so much, because i could understand thinking they seem really slight and underwritten and corny.

tyler:

this shit is SOOO short i can't imagine it's a double

it's not a double, on LP

compare with that 'Sugar Mountain' archives thing, which was *60* bucks for the 2LP

yeah that was wild. is neil just gouging? or is the archives thing so over-budget that he has to charge major $$ for this stuff ...

either way it's prohibitively high pricing

tone audio (audiophile magazine) sez the vinyl is amazing:

Reprise’s 180g LP possesses depth and width that defy limits. The louder the record is played, the more extraordinary Young and Lanois’ work becomes. The lifelike nature of the acoustic properties, myriad frequencies, and surreal tonalities is eclipsed only by the imaging. It often seems that Young—just as he’s pictured on the album’s cover—is that short of a distance away from the speakers.

$35 amazing, tho?

yeah i mean that sounds great, but unless it's very old and rare, it's too much for me to pay for one record

in sum: i guess NY & co. don't want me to buy it :(

hoping for the eventual cutout bin/discounted copies from online retailers or my local store

I think the vinyl prices have something to do with him only using one pressing plant in Germany. "Pallas FG/Germany, the world's premiere record pressing plant" according to his website.

it does sound pretty incredible on wax, gotta say.

http://www.pallas-group.de/vinyl-01.php

Once almost driven from the market, the classical record celebrates its comeback, also with younger listeners. DJs, freaks and collectors all appreciate its quality.

i guess now at least we know why it's so $$. i'll put it on my list of things to look for used. don't know why they had to call me a freak though :(

But yeah it's all about the SOUND of the record for me. The one thing it really reminds me of is Let Me In by REM, one lonely voice in this enormous cloud of distorted guitar noise and virtually nothing else. But the production and the way the noise is sculpted is much better than on Let Me In.

OTM ^^

I've not been a Neil Young fan up to this point; admittedly I heard After the Gold Rush when I was 17 or 18, and I was still just getting into post-punk and shoegaze at that time, so Neil didn't click. But this new record sounds fantastic, and I'd love to know what to check out next if Le Noise is essentially my first Neil album...

Decade is still a really good overview of the early classic Neil. Pretty easy to find used, too.

Noted, thanks!

I'm not necessarily asking for his best album(s), just those that would be most *interesting* to someone who really, really digs Le Noise.

mentioned elsewhere, but the Dead Man sdtk is perhaps comparable.

Ragged Glory, definitely, death knell

Thanks, keep 'em coming.

The Arc thing mentioned upthread sounds great, though I sense it's a one-off thing of his?

neil songs are weird, like i don't know why some songs will really stick with me even if - objectively - they are mawkish or corny or whatever

Bob Dylan was once asked about him and had this to say: "Neil is very sincere, if nothing else. He's sincere, and he's got a God-given talent, with that voice of his, and the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that. There's nobody in his category."

i wouldn't accept a song about the joys of holding hands from anyone but neil young. i mean, he knows how to elevate something sweet and simple to something sublime.

(in 2010 -- holding hands was a little more interesting to a pop audience in, say, 1963)

...the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that.

Any idea when that interview was? Because I think Dylan's exactly right. And that's what I think has eroded over the years in Neil's heavier songs, like those I've heard from Noise: that gift for melody. "The Loner" and "Cinnamon Girl" had it; "Angry World" doesn't.

(Like any generalization, I realize you can find counter-examples at both ends of his career.)

..the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that.

While I have not been that much of a fan of his post-"Harvest" material, this is the reason why he is always passable.

Any idea when that interview was?

The interview appeared in the 40th Anniversary Issue of Rolling Stone, so would have been about three years ago. Don't know if the interview is still available anywhere but I found the quote here: http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2008/11/bob-dylan-visits-neil-youngs-winnipeg.html

amazon selling LP for $26.87 fyi

Bob Dylan was once asked about him and had this to say: "Neil is very sincere, if nothing else. He's sincere, and he's got a God-given talent, with that voice of his, and the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that. There's nobody in his category."

Dylan's referring to Neil Tennant.

Neil Tennant, at his most thrashy.

Chris Lowe always gets the shaft.

twss

lol

Dylan's referring to Neil Tennant.
haha

LOL Dunno about the thrashy part, but the melodic strain could be applied to Neil Tennant too, at least apart from part of his 1988-89 material. :)

this is all I've wanted to listen to for like a week now.

really loving the unabashed simplistic/romantic lyrics and the massive sound.

somehow i can't picture bob dylan saying "thrashing"...

i bought the cd, i think my third one this year. it reminds me so much of 1990 and ragged glory. it's like neil has risen from the dead. everything he released in those twenty years was a massive disappointment, lukewarm, without sparkle, two or three albums were ok but they were boring overall (silver and gold, greendale). this is the real thing and i am very happy that he is still able to create something so full of energy. he is almost 65, isn't he. in germany it's the age you retire. his music has never been further from retirement than right now. the second half is a little soft but still quite ok.

i bought the cd, i think my third one this year.

What were the other two?

actually therewere three. marcel pérès: compostela, we saw him and his choir on the st james's way this year in moissac. in the church the chants sounded great, very not from this earth but the cd was disappointing. esperanza spalding's (jazz bassist and singer) junjo was ok but the hype about her should have made me more skeptical. i really liked laura lópez castro & don philippe's optativo. she is spanish, grew up in germany, lives in berlin now and is influenced by argentinian music. very cool and relaxing stuff.

at about 1:40 "walk with me" goes into this dreamy, gorgeous bridge...it's like the clouds part for a moment

finally got this! it's been a hectic month, what can I say. haven't given it a whole lot of time, but i think it's fair to say that it's by far the most *interesting* neil young album in a lonnnnng time. sounds great on headphones.

Tyler W: inneresting! There's no such word as interesting.

Just listened to this for the first time last night. Reminded me of Freedom actually, though I think that's because the production sounded like 1989.

I like it.

(I mean, it's missing a Rockin in the Free World obv, but it does remind me of songs like Crime in the City, or Hanging on a String (or, yes, Wrecking Ball))

(Hangin on a Limb, I mean. Don't Cry, too.)

Those are most of the best songs off that album, and the songwriting doesn't quite hold up (exception: Hitchhiker) but it's v good for what it is: the most dream-pop Neil album I've heard since Broken Arrow...

I've cooled a bit on this album...not that it's not good. i LOVE how it sounds but yeah hitchhiker (which is pretty old i think) is so good it almost tricks you into thinking this is a nu classic.

i like quite a bit of it though....soundwise it's a great shoegaze record, and i am no big fan of lanois.

yeah i really like this, but i feel like it's an album where each song (except hitchhiker haha) has something about it that keeps it from being a classic. like peaceful valley blvd. i really like until neil gets to the part of about "who will be the one to lead god's creation" or something. which i just find cringeworthy.

right now this sounds amazing again, for a while i started to hate it

but yeah now it sounds kinda epic and huge

neil is so weird, he can make these total lyrical clunkers kinda...resonate with me in some odd way, i don't know how he does it.

yeah, i sort of am going back and forth on this record. i really like the approach and the overall sound, but there's a lot of real clunkiness...maybe par for the course. i really love "peaceful valley blvd" until he gets to end and I'm just like noooooooooo.

yeah it's not completely rational...

my god though, hitchhiker is so great. great song and the way it's recorded here is perfect and makes it really special in a way that wouldn't have been the same if it were on any other neil record.

tbh i think love and war is even worse than peaceful valley blvd in terms of lyrics

neil is so weird, he can make these total lyrical clunkers kinda...resonate with me in some odd way, i don't know how he does it.

this is rigorously otm. Neil wrote so many goofy lines for After the Gold Rush and yet I connect with that album in such a deep way

Like there have been times when the title track to after the goldrush has made me want to cry, but read those lyrics on paper and they scan like hippie dippie crap

Yeah, or "Don't Let it Bring You Down"; I always kind of wonder what he's going on about in a lot of that song, but I'll be damned if it's not one of my favorite lyrics...

but then there's the chorus to "Tell Me Why" which achieves an awesomeness above and beyond most anything I've ever encountered...

I lucked into a ticket for tomorrow's show. I'm pretty psyched. The last time I saw him, when it was half solo and half band, was so-so, but I've heard nothing but good things about this latest run.

BTW, am I wrong, or is "Le Noise" Neil's only literally solo solo record?

Josh, i'm goin' too ... actually, already had Sat ticket, but went nuts about an hour ago and bought one for Fri too ... meet up?

also we were at (one of) the same shows -- your talking about the Chrome Dreams II tour, also a 2 night run at the Chicago Theatre

Yeah, that Chrome Dreams II tour. Dunno if I can meet up before (I'll be juggling kid schedules and hustling to get there in time for Bert), but look for me around there somewhere. (BTW, I saw you in passing at the Charter One Rush show but lost you in the crowd!)

wait, bert who -- bert jansch is playing?!?!

yeah, he's been opening for Neil since summer of last year (as Neil's hand-picked guest, apparently NY is a big fan)

oh man! i was looking forward to his rescheduled tour with ali roberts, but hey neil young!!

if anyone has an extra ticket to unload, i would probably buy it (webmail works, leave your addy)

jealous of people seeing the jansch / young double bill! gah. when i think of who i've seen open for neil ... to say they pale in comparison is a massive understatement.

well, i did see patti smith open for him, but the fact that the gin blossoms were before her kinda evens that out.

i feel that. i planned on being late on purpose for the 'broken arrow' show i saw so i wouldn't have to wince through the bad and hated dave matthews band

blecch.
i've also seen stone temple pilots and blind melon open for neil. the things i'm willing to do for the guy!

first time, best time for me. i was a little kid and social distortion and sonic youth opened the show. my ears have never been the same since

I think I've only seen Blind Melon, Dinosaur Jr, & the Ben Folds Five open for Neil. I don't really remember any of those sets very well (and on the Broken Arrow tour I don't remember the show very well either; not my fav era).

i remember the gin blossoms dude saying: "such a great honor to open for neil young ... i hope i get to meet him. just saw him go into the bathroom before the show." wonder if king neil ever deigned to give the blossoms a few career pointers.

my pal george was in dinosaur when they were opening for neil and dylan and everybody. dylan apparently didn't exist until he was onstage and then he disappeared in a cloud of smoke as soon as his show was done. can't remember what he said about neil. nothing bad though.

this is funny
'We were on a list of like twenty acts that they were interested in,' Thurston says. 'Neil Young wanted some bands that were, well... interesting.' Oddly divergent names such as Einsturdende Neubauten and Public Enemy reportedly made the short list. Sonic Youth was originally asked to join the tour for the West Coast leg, only to find that they were expected to play third on the bill, opening for watery sixties throwback act World Party. The band had decided to reject the offer when Young's people came back with a better offer: World Party had dropped out; Sonic Youth could play directly before Neil Young for the whole 3-month tour.

the only time i saw Neil, Sponge opened lol

they must've been going over poorly on the tour because they threw in a cover of "wish you were here" by pink floyd which is the only song ppl cheered for

omg is that the band that did that horrible "world of human wreckage" song? my neighbor in college had their cd and played it over and over and over when he was not blasting sarah mclachlan and having loud sex.

i still can't believe bert jansch! what a bunch of lucky ducks get to see that show.

The first time I saw Neil was on the Ragged Glory Social D/Sonic Youth/Crazy Horse bill. It was awesome. It was also interesting to see how the crowds overlapped, Venn diagram-like.

Since then I've lucked out of seeing him with annoying openers, like opping a pretty strong Farm Aid '98 bill, say. I somehow missed Phish that day, who did "Down by the River" with Neil, but I think I did catch Wilco, Brian Wilson, Steve Earle and Del McCoury, Mellencamp and Willie Nelson with Lanois plus the Cuban drummers. Want to say the most memorable thing about Neil that night - and he was good! - was that he had a full beard!

Oh, wait, now I know why I missed Phish. They went last, so I got the fuck out of there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YK_XPZ_Xhg

Look at the beard! Listen to how shitty a backing band Phish is!

omg is that the band that did that horrible "world of human wreckage" song? my neighbor in college had their cd and played it over and over and over when he was not blasting sarah mclachlan and having loud sex.

i still can't believe bert jansch! what a bunch of lucky ducks get to see that show.

― deez m'uts (La Lechera), Friday, May 6, 2011 10:39 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the one and the same! also that "sixteen candles down the draaaaaiin...thE DRAAAAAAAAIIIIN" song

xp haaa, that sounds ok. hard to really mess up that song. beard is impressive. he's kind of unrecognizable. does the bassist in phish play like an 80-string bass?

oh yeah, I saw him at that Farm Aid too! I thought the Phish jam with Neil was pretty cool at the time, though I've not heard it since. Mellencamp was the real wreck that day, with rappers doing a stint on "Jack and Diane".

josh, i saw that show at the rosemont horizon. maybe we were there together as lil' tykes?

No, I saw mine in Philly at the time. At a much smaller place than the Rosemont Horizon, I want to say. Civic Center?

Mellencamp's been rudderless since he fired his classic line-up.

It looks like in that video that Trey from Phish doesn't know the song - THAT song! - and is sort of hanging on for dear life. They blow. Sometimes I think the reputation of Crazy Horse as Neil's just right "wrong" band is overblown until I hear a band like Phish that has no feeling, no soul. I mean, listen to this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O1v_7T6p8U&feature=player_embedded#at=41

wow that phish clip is terrible, that bassist doesn't know what the he's doing!

too many strings. i don't think you actually need strings on your bass to play down by the river.

Too many strings will be the end of us all.

That Neil clip, btw, is just how I remember the crowd that night.

My guitar teacher, btw, loves to point out how hard it is to play "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere"-erta Neil songs "right" because Crazy Horse's bassist keeps hitting bad notes.

i kinda wonder if he's been jamming for so long that being able to hit the really obvious "bum bum.....bleedle dee....bum bum" stuff on down by the river seems like speaking latin to him now

yeah the weld video has kind of amazing audience shots...

& yeah phish bassist is prob like "oh shit how can i work in some jaco licks in here?"

forgot how awesome the crowd shots on weld are xp

wish i could find my bootleg dvd of that movie...

is it not on dvd? my friend had the vhs which we must've watched 50 times in high school

off topic but csince this is the neil young thread of the day
http://soul-sides.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/heart-of-gold1.mp3
excerpt of what sounds like a pretty sweet soul heart of gold cover. never heard it before!

o i guess it is actually a new thing -- daptone, go figure.

Wow, I really dig that!

yeah it sounds cool

I didn't even realize it was Charles Bradley - I've been digging his album a lot.

Funnily enough, he's only discussed at all on the De Subjectivisten board here - but that "No Time for Dreaming" LP is really great; one of the best throwback soul albums in a while.

cool, i haven't really delved too deep into the daptone catalog, here's the link for the heart of gold thang
http://daptonerecords.11spot.com/index.php?fuseaction=item_cat.ecom_superitem_detail&item_cat_id=6032

i just saw bradley and bought that 45! great stuff

yeah just bought the whole thing -- really good.
along the same lines, if you haven't grabbed it, here's my comp of eclectic neil covers: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/4007851187/hello-mr-soul-more-neil-young-for-your-monday
my faves are the soul ones -- merry clayton, meters, etc

one of my fave mixes ever. prolly the one that i have inadvertently gotten the most cred for, too---i throw something from it on like every mix i make

yeah, i really enjoy it, too. need to do a ol. 2 at some point.

You know, back to that video and those crowd shots, I almost want to say back when "Ragged Glory" came out Neil Young - even post-"Freedom" - hadn't quite clicked again as a hip icon, and that he still attracted a real rogue's gallery of fans. Like, when I saw Johnny Cash after "Unchained" came out, in the tiny House of Blues here, I want to say the crowd was all old guys with beards; his comeback still hadn't quite connected on a mass level. Same with Bob Dylan, I want to say. And same with Neil for a while. Like, growing up, I didn't know anybody - like, ANYbody - that listened to Neil, Cash or Dylan. At all. But someone should please correct me if they remember better than I do. I'm talking late '80s, early '90s.

well, i was still a high school kid in the mid 80s. i had stoner friends who were big into pink floyd, dylan, the dead, neil young, etc. along with more modern stuff, but in spokane, WA, at least, the 70s persisted big time. seemed that was still the case when i went off to college in olympia. lots of punks, but lots of throwback hippie rockers, too. king crimson, sabbath, mahavishnu, hendrix. and cash was always a token "cool country guy," if you went in for that kind of thing.

in the northwest, at least, there wasn't such a clear division between then and now, between hippie throwback and postpunk modern.

Late 80s, early 90s, all my friends listened to Neil & Bob, but not Cash. I'm talking post-Freedom but only b/c before Freedom I wasn't really buying music yet, was only barely a teen at that point. We were definitely not particularly hip, being middle school/early high school students, but Neil & Bob & in general the big 60s acts had much cache amongst people who cared about music in my high school. This was in the deep South (GA in particular), fwiw, where REM, Drivin' N Cryin', the Connells, etc., ruled.

Interesting. I think maybe I didn't have enough hippie friends. Most of my friends (late '80s, early '90s HS, outside Philly) were either punk fans, "college rock"/nascent alt-rock fans (spanning the Cure to Sonic Youth) or metalheads.

I saw pre-rubinized cash at a state college gymnasium in the early 90s (near philly to boot!). after the show he came out and hung out by the merch table lol. I was a big fan but it was pretty much the state fair crowd at that point.

I remember dinosaur getting compared to young a lot when they came out in the mid 80s. I think neil had some appreciation from indie folks at the time but for stuff like zuma and tonight's the night, not whatever he was doing currently.

I bought a cash trucker hat at that show, wore it to a lot of gigs in the early 90s, and I would invariably get "cool hat" comments. some ppl prolly thought I was being ironic indie guy tho.

yeah, in the late 80s i was getting a lot of mileage out of live rust, not so much freedom or the like

i was pretty young at that point (got into neil right around ragged glory), but i imagine he always had a certain amount of cred -- like with dinosaur or meat puppets or feelies, etc. just that his 80s records probably made him seem a little washed up. still, as far as boomer icons go, he probably has always had one of the more diverse (relatively speaking) audiences...

feels like young has always been 'hip' except for a few years in the mid-80's (around freedom and this note's for you). he certainly got that sonic youth/grunge reappraisal very quickly come the 90's. shee's that's been 20 years now. wtf.

ragged glory's about as close timewise to his debut as we are to ragged glory now.

Saw Neil on the Freedom tour, acoustic solo, with my dad and uncle. Indigo Girls opened.

I was at the Neil show with Sonic Youth and Social D at the Rosemont Horizon. Sonic Youth had just been to Chicago a few months before with Public Enemy at the Aragon, and a riot had broken out afterward. Thurston said "Last time we were here some kids got beat up ... this song is for them" and they opened with "Tom Violence"

I think I mentioned this on some other Neil thread once, but that show was also notable as the first and only time I've ever seen an artist do an encore with the lights on. They did their set, left the stage, came back and did a couple encores, and left again. Then the lights came on. That's supposed to be the signal that "that's it folks, show's over." But people just would not leave, every one was standing and chanting for Neil, and eventually they came back out and played "Welfare Mothers" with the lights on. Too fucking cool.

I dunno tho, maybe it was a planned ahead that they would do that? Josh, do you remember anything similar at the Philly show?

saw Neil and the Horse on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, so I guess you could say Beck was the opener, along with a bunch of bands I don't remember at all. also with Wilco as the opener a couple years back.

I don't think he had an opener on the 'Chrome Dreams II' tour? can't remember

It was Pegi.

think neil had some appreciation from indie folks at the time but for stuff like zuma and tonight's the night, not whatever he was doing currently.

the "godfather of grunge" tag coincided with Ragged Glory iirc and he got a lot of mileage out of younger listeners with that (me and tyler included, evidently)

And then of course he toured/recorded with Pearl Jam. But before grunge (and, upon their more mainstream post-grunge breakthroughs) bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur specifically, helped connect him to the alt-kids, was Neil Young really held up like a hip totem? C. "Ragged Glory," maybe. But before that? Circa "Freedom?" I should dig up the (five star?) RS review, which I don't think made any effort to connect him to any younger contemporaries in the way that reviews of "Ragged Glory" most certainly did.

I stand sort of corrected:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/freedom-19891102

Looks like Fricke's review was in tandem with "The Bridge" tribute, which I forget came this early. Though amusingly Fricke cites Young as a major influence on rock in the '80s, totally unaware of what was right around the corner.

As with Rust and Everybody Knows — and with other contentious classics like On the Beach, Tonight's the Night and Re*ac*tor — Neil Young's tour of Freedom's wasteland leaves you feeling both exhausted and invigorated, dismayed at what we've wrought yet determined to set it right.

ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS.

eventually they came back out and played "Welfare Mothers" with the lights on. Too fucking cool.

i've lately begun to appreciate just how motherfucking insane the weld version of this is: just unhinged distorted black noise and a kind-of-unpleasant, what-is-neil-actually-saying-here? nastiness and weirdness that's totally exhilarating. blows my mind.

well hmm http://ultimateclassicrock.com/neil-young-sign-of-love-dave-grohl-song-review/
le noise track with dave grohl on drums...

sounds pretty cool!

think the review is wrong about there not being different guitar parts. vocal sounds the same, but there are definitely some overdubs guitar-wise.