May You Live in Inneresting Times: The Neil Young Voting Thread (deadline July 8)

https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/images/medium/Neil-BrokenArrowRanch.jpg

I’m going to score this one a little differently. If you vote for 10 songs, you have 150 points to split up how you want (maximum of 30 for a song, minimum of 5); if you vote for 20 songs, you get 250 points to split; 30 songs gets 300 to split. (It’s a variation on Pazz & Jop scoring.) For an unranked ballot, I’ll split the points evenly. If you vote for some number of songs that falls between--and that’s fine--I’ll figure out what to do. If you hate math, just send in a list of songs and I’ll suggest something.

Ballots of any length are encouraged. I’ve sent in lists of as few as five songs for some of these--artists I didn’t exactly care about (or had stopped caring about at some point), but where there were five to ten songs I genuinely loved. Please don’t feel you have you listen to Neil Young’s entire catalogue to vote! I think a mix of casual fans, obsessives, and people who fall somewhere in between makes for a good poll.

Any song written by Neil is eligible--CSNY, Buffalo Springfield, Squires, whatever. Covers are eligible; I’ve got somewhere between 300-400 on my hard drive, and I can think of one (the most famous--not Nicolette Larson) that might have an outside shot of placing. As long as Neil wrote (or co-wrote) it, it’s eligible. I don’t think I’ll count live version votes separately--if I get any, I’ll just add them to the studio votes.

Deadline is Sunday, July 8, just under three weeks. All ties in the final standings will be broken by Tyler W.

Email address for ballots: sayhey AT rocketmail.com

haha! exciting.

<3 that pic, clemenza

VERY INNARESTING

There are just so many Neil Young threads on here. A few general ones:

neil young
Search and destroy: Neil Young
POX: Neil Young
Best of Neil Young studio records
50 Great Neil Young Covers

As I was during the Prince poll, I'm gobsmacked by the possibilities.

yeah this is going to be pretty difficult

That photo was taken in 1971, but I just noticed it's the Everybody Knows dog. That's one photogenic dog.

For the sake of comity let's all try to make "I'm the Ocean" #1.

I might have to go with unranked ballot

yikes

I'm not even going to try to rank them. The favorites are far too fluid.

I will be very curious to see how much, if any, post-Ragged Glory material places

I'd expect a Harvest Moon cut or two on my ballot. That and Unplugged were the last two I really loved.

I was thinking I might have to put Alfred on a strict Geffen count--not to worry!

I'm kinda in the EZ Snappin camp. Post unplugged is kinda hard for me to get with.

What if I vote for 250 songs and give them all 1 point?

Is there a maximum?

Let's be generous and say "post-Sleeps with Angels"

40 would be okay--if you keep halving the additional points every ten songs, the next logical stop would be 325 points for a 40 song ballot.

I'd expect a Harvest Moon cut or two on my ballot. That and Unplugged were the last two I really loved.

ah yeah that's kind of my cutoff too. forgot those were both after.

Stupid--I never included where to send ballots. Maybe a moderator can append this to the original post (sorry): either say✧✧✧@rocketm✧✧✧.c✧✧ or ILX mail (which has worked for me in the past).

That didn't work, did it. I'll try again in sentence form: say hey at rocket mail dot com.

Speaking of covers, this one is outstanding

Thom Yorke doing 'After The Gold Rush' at Bridge School Benefit, 2002

http://youtu.be/7fAz54YWw6I

oh hey and thanks clemenza for running this, I know you're a busy guy what with teaching & all :)

remind me why I don't listen to Neil all the time

this guy

Thanks--we're just running down the clock at school now. I like that Thom Yorke version; there are a number of great "After the Gold Rush" covers. I linked to this on one of those other threads, but I wrote a lengthy piece on Neil Young covers for Stylus a few years ago that they've been nice or inattentive enough to keep online. And please, if anybody has Everybody Knows This Is Norway in any format, let me know--been looking for five years now.

Great pic. I used that for the sleeve of a CD I burnt for a friend who wanted to get into Neil Young.

Excited about this one. Best cover is Merry Clayton's Southern Man - lead into gold.

How should Dead Man be scored/counted? I've always listened to it as a continuous whole (and I'm about 98% certain it'll make my ballot).

John Entwistle doing "Cinnamon Girl": http://youtu.be/-avGFz3uzlE
Pretty faithful to the original, but still interesting.

ballots of any length oh mama

i will accept this excuse to burn through his discography for the next two weeks

and thanks for linking to your stylus piece, clemenza. crazy extensive, gonna have to chase some of that stuff down.

I don't have Dead Man--saw the film when it came out, and was puzzled that it did so well on decade-end polls--but it seems to be discrete tracks, so instinct tells me to treat it that way. Maybe you can vote for "Guitar Solo, No. 5," the 15-minute one?

Cool, may well do that.

this will be fun

everyone remember to vote for 'I'm the ocean'

i shall only vote for songs with one-note solos

driving home from work tonight I decided that a 70's era Black Sabbath + Neil cover of Down By The River would be p awesome. (I only say 70's era Sabbath bc I dunno if Ozzy would be up to it singing wise these days)

Neil has to be on it for the extra guitar. I couldn't think of another guitarist who could sub in. Plus Neil + Ozzy harmony would be p cool, no.

*end daydream transmission*

I was going to remind you all to vote for I'm The Ocean but it looks like that won't be necessary. That may be the "Sway" of this poll.

Is it too early to guess the Top 10?

This is IMPOSSIBLE.

Will def be voting for something from Trans. probably Sample & Hold.

re: Shakey above, i think Sleeps With Angels is huuuuugely better than Ragged Glory. hope to see some tracks from that place, particularly Driveby, the title track, Prime Of Life...

people who haven't heard it/heard it for a while should go back and relisten fo sho

need a separate thread to discuss Jamie_ATP's ppls' psychological state whilst voting

(no zing intended!)

well to be honest i am fairly drunk on pecan flavoured beer in a vicksburg motel right now, but i think all the above still makes sense.

pecan? with you the rest of the way, tho

it's some sort of southern thing. they love pecans. i'm not gonna fight it.

Sleeps With Angels is the cut-off point for me

Will Neil have a new album out by the time the results are in?

signs point to yes, lol

ha, i'm the ocean, a song beloved by ilm-ers. and i love it too, but i'm pretty sure i can think of 30 neil tunes i like more. maybe 50.

it's def my favorite of the last 20 years, so if there's just one token from that period it will be it. planning to listen to at least every album track before sending in a ballot, though.

I can see stuff from Le Noise, maybe even Living with War sneaking onto my ballot

I hope Ordinary People has a respectable showing.

I'm The Ocean is beloved by ILM? I had no idea, I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned; yet it has a genuine shot at my no.1 (once I've worked out how to vote that is).

I'm in awe of that Stylus piece btw - even if I won't be delving into those depths, thanks. lol at Suede showing twice in the first few entries though - not a band I associate with Neil it's fair to say.

Yeh I didn't realise 'I'm the Ocean' was so well-loved. I like it but I don't think it'll make my ballot.

This poll is going to be great though.

"I'm the Ocean" was a standout track on an album that came at Neil's 90s apogee, so it's not surprising it's rated highly on ILM.

I'll be voting for it, of course.

(xposts) Ismael and croupier--thanks.

I don't think "Cortez the Killer" will need any help, but I'll advocate for a few less celebrated songs that'll be on my ballot. Two that'll be very high: "Country Girl" and "Ocean Girl."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpc7050vEyQ

No "Ocean Girl" YouTube that I can find. I don't know if it was a Zuma leftover, but I've been in love with it since the (very mediocre) album came out. "Country Girl" gets overshadowed by "Helpless," but it's such an epic for me--all doom and gloom for most of the way, exceptionally pretty from the bridge forward.

Do not miss:

"Dance, Dance, Dance", from the first Crazy Horse record.

"Expecting to Fly", from the second Buffalo Springfield record.

omg who could forget expecting to fly?!?! it's epic (and on decade)

Just making sure!

okay, the listening has begun

first up: Arc

"Dance, Dance, Dance" is a good one. I had it on some bootleg before getting the Crazy Horse record. For anyone who didn't want to lay out money for Archives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6pxgB_n4H0

I put it on my P&J ballot that year.

no need to go further than Arc imo

On The Beach is a cracker though, I knew a couple of the songs but I'd never listened to it all before

Listened to Arc this morning -- I like the concept, but I can't vote for something I don't really need to listen to more than once a decade.

WmC: would you be able to get my mailing address into the initial post? I left it off.

say hey at rocket mail dot com

On the Beach is like the quintessence of a certain sort of almost-cracked 70s for me. (Fully cracked - Tonight's the Night)

Tell me -- what's up with Running Dry? Why can't I find a live recording of that song?

(on youtube i mean -- not in general)

Glad an Ontarian is running this one <3 Excited to see the results - I don't know nearly as much Neil as I should (might not keep me from voting, though!)

Just conjecture, but I'm wondering if that's one that would rarely be played live. It seems like such a studio song, and so attached to a distant moment. I don't know...I love it.

Any kind of ballot is great, FFM. You can't list Carly Rae Jepsen, though, not unless she's got a cover of "Tired Eyes" kicking around.

Huh? No! I know enough Neil - my Grandparents lived in Omeemee & I summered in Bobcaygeon. I don't need no Jepsen to get through a ballot!

yeah dunno if there's a live version of running dry.
wondering how many still unreleased songs will make it on to my ballot. bottom line version of "pushed it over the end" and "give me strength" for sure.

xp "summered in Bobcaygeon" sounds much more glamourous than it ever could have been. Let's not tell the nOntarians the truth. #kawarthapride

I wish I still had this - http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Neil+Young+%26+Crazy+Horse%3A+Rust+Never+Sleeps+-+DVD/4798302.p?id=59514&skuId=4798302 - bought it for an ex and stupidly did not grab it when I cleared my stuff out of his apartment and never went back.

Xpost to Clemenza, good call on 'Bad Fog...', will definitely vote for that.

Glad to see love this early on for 'Expecting to Fly', that's going to be my #1.

Still trying to figure out a satisfactory points system for a 30-song ballot.

Might go with:

1st place: 29 pts
2nd place: 19 pts
The other 28 songs: 9pts each

Address added up top.

Long May You Run is a strange thing, no? While there's a couple of Neil's that I really like, generally Stills' tracks pwn Neil's.

Thanks, WmC.

generally Stills' tracks pwn Neil's
huh really? i skip stills' tracks and love the title track, midnight on the bay and ocean girl.

It might just reflect what I go for I guess. I like things a bit ... more minor and swampier, maybe? Happy Neil's ditties aren't usually my thing.

don't forget indignant political neil!

i'm going to have to fight the urge to put the entirety of On the Beach on my ballot!

Don't fight it!

Or fight it just a little by voting for everything but "Vampire Blues". :)

I have spent the last hour happily & feverishly Youtubing and reliving my childhood! If anyone needs me I can be found on cloud nine. Follow the strains of Like A Hurricane..

Got it on just now - the track before it, 'Will To Love' is more splendid though.

Almost tempted to vote for both Neil's and Emmylou's versions of "Wrecking Ball" I like that song so much.

xp "Will To Love" is so great! Neil and David Briggs get weird!

toilet paper
ozone layer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdiCJUysIT0

not the most dignified video, but he looks like a total madman and i love it

neil has really made some inneresting videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80L4kM9a4TQ

I've never heard "I am the Ocean" - is that on the Pearl Jam record?

generally Stills' tracks pwn Neil's

good god the Stills songs on the Stills/Young album are appalling! wtf

That's it, I'm voting for all of them now.

(I'm The Ocean is on that one, yes)

I had never heard I Am The Ocean either! So I just listened to it and it's good and all but... it sounds a bit like Dancing In The Dark?

ugh are you guys really trying to get me to listen to Pearl Jam

IT'S A TRAP

that record is pretty good, pearl jam and all.

hate them so much and not on youtube so inclined not to bother

lol, you'd probably like it. they're basically doing a crazy horse impression w/ a more amped up drummer.

Mirror Ball always struck me as a "rockin' Neil by numbers" record.

"You guys try to sound like Crazy Horse, and I'm gonna wank out the same two notes on my guitar while I sing a buncha nonsense." I was hugely disappointed at the time and the few times I've revisited it over the years it's continued to seem pointless.

Eddie Vedder is the table.

Lololol Z S I was just thinking last night, "How in the world am I not going to vote for all of On the Beach?"

Here's one that you may not know: Heavy Love, from the Eldorado EP which came out just before Freedom. Neil gets back to rocking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OK6QDggVmQ

Neil should've made a record with Spiritualized instead of Pearl Jam imho

Earth!!!!!

ha yeah late period Earth definitely

I'd forgotten about the Dead Man sdtk. I guess *that* is actually the last thing of his I thought was really good - altho there are tracks on his later stuff that are definitely innaresting and appealing. none of it seems of much significance tho.

"Wrecking Ball," yes--I'll have either that or "Hangin' on a Limb" from Freedom. Emmylou has a great solo version of "Wrecking Ball," too.

lotta great tracks on Freedom

Crime in the City etc

Don't Cry!

For Your Consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzJzDh9nOTg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uR9OvK5zxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJz_9UIXTjM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W6ENMRteW0

all killers.
for deep cut bootleggy kinda things i submit:
http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/24071228066/bad-news-neil-young-in-the-1980s-as-a-follow-up
http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/11101846032/sad-movies-a-secret-history-of-neil-young

listen here, Mirror Ball is more a Neil album than a Pearl Jam album and PJ hatred is kind of irrelevant as far as that album goes? I mean, my PJ love is well documented but i've never thought 'hmm I wanna listen to some Pearl Jam, oooh Mirror Ball"

suck it up and listen to I Am The Ocean, Shakey :)

what does Eddie Vedder do on the record

Anyway I don't know if this song needs help or not but it's one of my favorites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHBikURKkUM

xpost backing vocals mostly, iirc
from Wiki: Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder was not around much for the recording sessions.[4] Vedder explained that he was "in the midst of a pretty intense stalker problem," adding that "leaving the house wasn't the easiest thing to do."[4]

happy now :P

vedder only has one (short) real lead vocal bit on peace and love. frankly i think you could just treat the first half of the record as an EP and be pleased w/ it.

"Eddie rolled the joints, but Bobby Charles did that better."--Neil

I'm not in much of a mood for Neil Young these days but I'm sure I can easily come up with 30 picks.

Or 40.

listen here, Mirror Ball is more a Neil album than a Pearl Jam album and PJ hatred is kind of irrelevant as far as that album goes? I mean, my PJ love is well documented but i've never thought 'hmm I wanna listen to some Pearl Jam, oooh Mirror Ball"

suck it up and listen to I Am The Ocean, Shakey :)

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, June 22, 2012 1:23 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah it's kinda like avoiding various NY albums because you don't like the songs Crazy Horse wrote on their own albums

as an aside, for the record: Sugar Mountain kills me. Growing up kinda sucks, Neil otm

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

It's so noisy at the fair
But all your friends are there
And the candy floss you had
And your mother and your dad.

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

There's a girl just down the aisle,
Oh, to turn and see her smile.
You can hear the words she wrote
As you read the hidden note.

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

Now you're underneath the stairs
And you're givin' back some glares
To the people who you met
And it's your first cigarette.

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

Now you say you're leavin' home
'Cause you want to be alone.
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're findin' out it's real?

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.

I was reading SongMeanings today and it was posited that Joni's Circle Game was written as a complement to that song! It was also claimed Sugar Mountain was a Toronto club for under 20s; I'll have to ask Dad about that one.

Don't Cry!

^^ this. Definitely going on my ballot (as is just about all of the Eldorado EP).

I'm not in much of a mood for Neil Young these days

Me neither ... or so I thought before racking up 8 (eight) NY albums during my boring work day! Now I'm like 'hm, football tonight, or do I bust out Ragged Glory instead?'

Can confirm that "The Circle Game" is Joni's answer to "Sugar Mountain." A++++++ for her, A+++++++ for him.

Can I justify voting for "T-Bone"?

Are You Passionate about "T-Bone"?

This is gonna be impossible

My ballot ain't got no t-bone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC4C_Gcp_dM

I still have a soft spot for the album Broken Arrow. Maybe it was me seeing Year of the Horse or see they songs live but will always love Slip Away, Big Time and Scattered. I always feel like this album gets overlooked.

neil has really made some inneresting videos

pretty bummed neil spent more time collaborating with julian temple and jonathan demme than tim pope, all his landing on water stuff is nuts

Oh shit is this going to be hard. I have been too busy lately to vote in any of these, but I'm going to hit this one hard.

last time i listened to Landing On Water i really enjoyed it. even enjoyed the production.

I reviewed Landing on Water when it came out; it would have been my first year writing for a local monthly. I still regret the review a little. It was the third or fourth Neil album in a row I didn't like at all ("Wonderin'" excepted). I really thought he was finished, there was lots of other, newer stuff I was obsessing over, so instead of criticizing the album in the context of how much he'd meant to me in the past, I ripped into it in an almost gloating manner. (As I remember it--I don't want to go back and check.) I don't think I was wrong about the album--I've never gone back to it, either, Jamie, so I'm basing that on a 25-year-old memory--but the review I'd like to have back.

Some Neil-related ephemera. Here's "Down by the River" in The Strawberry Statement (dubbed into Italian, I believe):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJGgvB1k4WI

And this is something I took part in, even though all I can do is move a bar chord around: 1600 people in Toronto's Dundas Square three years ago, trying (unsuccessfully) to break a world record by playing "Helpless."

Oops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvLc394-Ok

This is my favorite non-Neil "Down By The River"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgUUds0wkU4

Wow, there's a live acoustic version of "Shots."

(or, more accurately, there's a live acoustic version of "Shots"?!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5xTc7T7mZM

I'll mention any minor issues that arise on incoming ballots:

1) votes for "Tonight's the Night"--it's not worth differentiating the version that opens the LP from the one that closes it, is it? The voter didn't...not sure anybody will.
2) "My My, Hey Hey" vs. "Hey Hey, My My" is much more straightforward--I guess just check that you're voting for the one you think you're voting for.

nah I wouldn't differentiate

In fact you might want to lump the "My, My"s with the "Hey Hey"s--to avoid both vote splitting, and to free up a space for some other deserving track if they both make the countdown.

^ sensible approach imo

superfluous 'both'--my bad.

Okay--I'll provisionally count all votes for the "My My"s and the "Hey Hey"s together. If ballots come in where people are making a point of indicating acoustic/electric only, I'll separate them out. (Same with "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Sgt. Pepper's (reprise).")

As far as Landing on Water goes, I'll defend "Hippie Dream" as a good lower-tier NY song; the grotesque drum sound (well-documented in Shakey) almost smothers it htough.

Any side polling for albums or least-favorite track?

There've been two or three album polls already, and you can pretty much guess the Top 10 beforehand (if not the exact order). Plus my own bias is towards songs. If people want to add least-favourite, I could tabulate that. I liked how the Beastie Boys poll did something a little different with video. How about favourite Neil album cover? I think he's had a few great ones.

I don't want to start dumping on Landing on Water all over again, but I gave "Hippie Dream" another listen off YouTube, and I'm just not hearing whatever it is you guys are. I find it very plodding. And I like Neil a lot when he gets really nostalgic for hippiedom--he's almost like Nixon in China, where he's the one guy from that era who can get away with deifying what he knows is a corny simplification of a very flawed moment (which doesn't make his nostalgia any less genuine). Hearing him in 1986 sounding almost self-satisfied that he has seen through that time, and is counselling us to see through it too, is a real drag. Would much rather listen to "Wooden Ships."

I like the album cover idea

It's unanimous then--an invitation to jot down your three favourite Neil album covers at the end of your ballot (ditto Tom, who's already voted). I'd confine this to Neil albums only. This looks like a pretty exhaustive gallery of every kind of vinyl from around the world:

http://991.com/eilcom/gallery/gallery.asp?artistname=Neil-Young

encouraged by clemenza's first post, I voted for some old favorites withour relistening. only 10 songs, with the crazy, orchestrated, patriarchic scream at number one.

lol american stars n bars will be my #1

hmm I don't hear Young getting nostalgic at all on "Hippie Dream"! It capsized in excess -- if you know what I mean. The angry guitars and loud drums throw dirt on the grave.

I'm not sure I could handle this poll for the first ten years of his career, let alone spanning five-odd decades (or five odd decades).

I don't hear Young getting nostalgic at all on "Hippie Dream"!

That's what I mean. I like it when Neil's nostalgic for hippiedom (e.g., "Mirror Ball" and dozens of other songs). On "Hippie Dream," he's a scold.

"Downtown" from Mirror Ball, I mean.

Don't give it a second thought, Josh--just jot down the first 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 songs that come to mind.

This might be helpful:
http://dangerbird.tripod.com/Albumlist/neilsonglist.htm

Very--thanks.

Question: what is ILX's general opinion about "Ohio"? It has a lot of meaning for me personally, but also my dad claims that he saw NY volunteering at the McGovern HQ in '72 (my dad was working on the campaign), a thought that basically makes me want to faint if it's true.

SO MANY SONGS. I may have to choose 30 instead of 20.

"Ohio" is an incredible-sounding song, will be voting for it pretty much apolitically

I think "Ohio" is amazing. I always play it for my students on May 4. There was thread a couple of years ago about political songs, and the common complaint was raised that CSNY were just rich-hippie dilettantes out of their element. Don't agree at all--I think it's as spontaneous and as unmediated an expression of outrage as almost any song I can think of. That's great that your dad worked on that campaign...lots of Warren Beatty stories?

Yknow, I have no idea -- I'll ask him!

I totally grilled him for NY stories but all he could tell me was that a hippie walked in and asked to volunteer and no one there at the time knew who he was ;_;

(Dad looks nervously in direction of mom) "Beatty stories? Um, sure...not right now."

Trans - now here's a record that's been unjustly maligned. It's kinda lovely.

Just realized Trans isn't on Spotify! Booo.

It's on mine, but Zuma isn't :(

Some of Trans is on Grooveshark if you've never heard it. I'm sure it's still the most polarizing Neil album. I'm on the humorless-drudge side of that divide.

I don't want to spoiler my ballot too much ahead of time but ON THE WAY HOME, y'all.

Yeah "Ohio"'s about as angry as it gets, I love it

"Ohio" is Political Neil on his game; it says more in three minutes than Living With War did in 40. Definitely going on my ballot.

Landing On Water mostly appeals for novelty value, but I could imagine "Pressure" getting on a Top 40 ballot of mine if I wasn't planning to actively revisit more fertile periods of his career. One thing I love about Neil is that just about every album has a quality that makes it different from anything before or since - very few of his albums I can't imagine a random freak going to bat for.

I have a major soft spot for Comes a Time, for instance.

I like Comes A Time a lot. I just had on Old Ways, which I do not like. Maybe I'm missing something, but on this or Everybody's Rockin' Neil seems completely content to work within the genre constraints, so that I'm wondering why he bothered.

...To piss Geffen off?

on both records?

iirc, he was spending the bulk of his time and energy developing communication systems for his disabled son. Making records -- focused, commercial, or otherwise -- was not really a priority for him at the time.

i've wondered if his archive series has actively been intended to redo albums he's not totally happy with - replacing harvest moon with Dreamin Man '92 and Old Ways with A Promise, the debut with Sugar Mountain, etc.

on both records?

Yeah. Old Ways was initially rejected and someone at the label told him he should "try some rock'n'roll" (or something along those lines), so he cut Everybody's Rockin' as a "So There!" joke in response, but the label sorta flipped at his grab for the then-lucrative Stray Cats market.

I don't want to spoiler my ballot too much ahead of time but ON THE WAY HOME, y'all.

― Biff Wellington (WmC), Saturday, June 23, 2012 1:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Such a great song. This is as good a place as any to mention that Richie Furay is such an underappreciated talent....

That's funny xp. I knew Everybody's Rockin' was a response to something, but I presumed it was Trans.

ooh ooh a good excuse to talk about this bizarre 1983 live performance of "do you wanna dance"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDTZLsscFz8

and that weird look on his face

I first realized Neil was a compulsive hoarder/recycler when I heard "Wonderin'" on a boot of a 1970 Cleveland show with Crazy Horse. The only other time I'd heard it was seeing the video for the Shocking Pinks version in 1983. I found it baffling that he thought the latter was the better arrangement.

oh Comes A Time is beautiful

Neil opens the Bridge Benefit with it every year with the Dennis Alley Wisdom Dancers, could not love it more

I mean, cmon

http://bridgeschool.org/galleries/full/1241215454.jpg

Because I like pictures

http://davidmcgough.com/photos/Neil%20Young,%20wife%201983%20LA.jpg

OK, I'm going to give this a shot. Will I be the only one repping for "Safeway Cart?

The Meters did a good mellow buoyant early 70s-type R&B version of "Birds on Cabbage Alley in the early 70s. Good album. Not the orig Trans, but the Trans Band live can be heard here (with lots of other live Neil, lots of other artists too; everything I've listened to sounds good)
http://www.ousterhout.net/music-menu.html

Check it well before July 12, RIAArmageddon-wise

I wish the 'Around The World' middle section was in a better song - it's got that In Through The Out Door/The Visitors feel to it that I'm a sucker for.

Thanks for the bootleg link, Dow; I grabbed the 1970 Cincinnati show. I assumed at the time that Everybody's Rockin' had something to do with the Stray Cats. That's a puzzling journey from Rust Never Sleeps four years earlier. I wish I could dig up this Neil quote from a '79 story/interview in Time or Newsweek--something to do with him and Crazy Horse running into the McCartney and the Wings at an airport. It catches Neil at his most boyishly fan-like. I read this in high school, probably the first Neil bio (I scanned my shelves and don't seem to have it anymore):

http://gd2ltd.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/51fxlcknrpl_ss500_.jpg

Yes! I was wondering just yesterday how it must feel to be a star from the second wave of rock, forever little brother to McCartney or Jagger who just won't ever get off the throne. Neil's been an elder statesman for thirty years, he must feel like Prince Charles.

the Comes a Time poll was one of my faves.

Harvest Moon is a lot better than I remember - I always thought it was hokey as hell, I could never understand it being hailed as his big return to form.

'Natural Beauty' is *so* gorgeous.

A ballot with 12 songs came in, so I had to figure out how to vote if you're between increments of 10:

0-10 songs: 15 per song total (i.e., 7 songs = 105 points to split)
11-20 songs: 150 points + 10 points per song above 10 (i.e., 17 songs = 150 + 70 = 220 to split)
21-30 songs: 250 points + 5 points per song above 20 (i.e., 27 songs = 250 + 35 = 285 to split)

If you're between 30 and 40, you get 5 extra points every two songs; try to vote for an even number to avoid half-points: 32 = 305, 34 = 310, 36 = 315, 38 = 320, 40 = 325.

It's how Neil would have wanted it--he's very math-oriented.

'You and Me' from Harvest Moon is great too. ive got 30 songs but putting them in order is driving me so crazy i might just opt out of this one.

yeah, Natural Beauty will most likely be on my ballot. although, the wording of the first line in the chorus always provokes the facepalm

A natural beauty should be preserved
like a monument...
to nature

aw man neil, c'mon

and then as they hit the chorus one more time at the end and reach that final line, they just let it die off at "like a monument..." because no one's willing to add "...to nature" to that monster one more time

'You and Me' from Harvest Moon is great too. ive got 30 songs but putting them in order is driving me so crazy i might just opt out of this one.

Just give them all the same number of points...no opting out!!! :)

I'm going to concoct a part-ranked ballot I think. Top dozen or so will be ranked, the rest will get some arbitrary total. I'll have about sixty songs in total though - aiui it's a forty-track limit, so there's some serious culling needs doing.

i haven't even started

still thinking!

gonna have a field day with this. only thing is i was on a massive Neil kick a few months ago, so it may take a bit of a kickstart to enter that zone again.

I'm totally not ranking, because there is no way.

I always thought "Natural Beauty" had these clear echoes of "Cortez the Killer," musically if not thematically.

I think I'm putting "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" on my ballot. I think that song is so spooky, and very of a piece with past themes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-H0rJDQjY

Really getting into Le Noise right now..."Love and War" might make my ballot.

le noise will probably be in my top 3 album covers ballot

i need to listen to the album itself a bit more, though.

just saw this photo. where's the album these dudes recorded?
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m63uyhYCzX1qd418mo1_1280.png

Bay Area MVPs.

I would totally listen to an album by that crew. Even one made now instead of then.

totally!
anyhoo, looking at the big list of neil songs, i'm really not sure whether I'll vote for anything not 60s-70s! i love tons of stuff past that era, but...

yeah I'm kinda there too

with the exception of Harvest Moon.

I kinda wish we could vote for specific versions of songs, like the Weld version of "Farmer John", or the second version of "Tonight's The Night" from the Manchester show in '73, or The Bernstein Tapes version of "Mellow My Mind".

yeah me too, but that'd get a little nuts, wouldn't it?

I was gonna say that if you guys can forsake Harvest Moon, I don't know whether you should start looking for a heart transplant or...?

glad to see you've come to your senses

harvest moon is definitely the top contender for post-70s. maybe that and crime in the city. oh and maybe safeway cart. and country home! (tho i think of that last one as a 70s track).

I know it would be nuts to do it that way, but I can't help but think, " I love this particular version but the studio take is shit."

I don't want to vote for songs where I love a performance over a composition, if that makes sense.

xposts

Okay, I'm in for this. I can see my list hitting triple digits on first pass already. Yikes.

Coincidentally, just got tix to see NY and the Horse in October -- pumped.

Busy day...a ranked/unranked ballot is fine, Ismael; give points to wherever, and I'll split the rest among the remaining songs (if they don't divide evenly, I'll let you know).

I love "Country Home." I walk around humming that all the time.

Crap, almost forgot "Philadelphia." That song is beautiful.

oh yessss, i could vote for philadelphia for sure.
this is one of my fave country homes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ZEsmpETCY

seems like that song should just be a standard in any of neil's electric sets, but it seems like he rarely plays it.

I kinda wish we could vote for specific versions of songs

I think it'd be insane for polling, but nothing's stopping anybody from tacking on their fave version of a song when they post their ballot after the poll

My first pass was 49 tracks, only 8 that aren't from between 1969-79. Should be able to cut that back to 40.

Incidentally, I have no problem voting for later stuff because I know even fans of Neil's whole career will (and likely should) be leaning to '60s and '70s.

Oh, and speaking of which, I listen to "Freedom," "Ragged Glory," "Harvest Moon" and "Sleeps With Angels" as much as I listen to any prime Neil. That's easily his best run of classics since the '70s.

I think it'd be insane for polling, but nothing's stopping anybody from tacking on their fave version of a song when they post their ballot after the poll

― da croupier, Monday, June 25, 2012 1:38 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

sometimes people note that stuff when mailing in their ballots and the organizer mentions in the results "x votes for this remix, x votes for that version" etc.

I've been marking the albums as I go along - boring to say so, but After The Gold Rush, Harvest and On The Beach are definitely the top three (unless Time Fades Away is amazing, I haven't got there yet). He's had a lot of decent albums since, but those three are the pick.

Not to say I'll be voting for lots of tracks off those albums, necessarily. A lot of Harvest is relatively weak imo, but it hangs together so well.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

pistols at dawn, Klata

:)

Oh, and speaking of which, I listen to "Freedom," "Ragged Glory," "Harvest Moon" and "Sleeps With Angels" as much as I listen to any prime Neil
yeah, add in the live albums from this time period and the el dorado ep, and you've got an amazing run.

started going through the albums today. not gonna start putting the ballot together until i reach the end, but if we were doing worst neil tracks I think "Last Trip To Tulsa" and "There's A World" might still be in the top 10 when I wrap this thing up.

last trip is definitely a drag -- i came around in a big way on that self titled debut when the remasters came out, but i still turn it off when we get to Tulsa.

yeah, it's totally enjoyable until then - at least for being such a weird, anomalous curio

as much as i like his early years, the only album of '62-'72 that I'd recommend to a casual fan is Gold Rush - the rest are summed up by Decade fine

I have lots of love for Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, especially in light of the remasters. Totally launches that record into the stratosphere.

yeah that's one of my favorites too

I genuinely love Harvest as an album for the most part. Not quite as 'every song is awesome' perfect as Gold Rush but with a couple of exceptions still really listenable. I find the plaintive autobiographical stuff like Man Needs a Maid really affecting even now. And the title track still gets me.

also it was my first Neil album so I have a bit of nostalgia working too

just listened to it now and the artier stuff on side 2 gets reaaaalll rough, only songs not on decade I'd like to keep around are "Out On The Weekend" and maybe "are you ready for the country"

granted half the album is practically on decade

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade. Played it to absolute death and sort of never need to hear it again. I'm cool hearing songs from it but as a record it's a bit too much.

After The Gold Rush was played to death when I was 19 and working at a record store. One of the only records (along with Mingus Ah Um) that everyone who worked there could agree on so we probably played it every other day. However, unlike Harvest, I still enjoy hearing it.

i thiiink my first neil album was a cassette of American Stars'n'Bars in middle school though I was already checking out Decade and Ragged Glory from the library and soon bought Rust Never Sleeps and Freedom around the same time

One of my favorites from Year of the Horse -- and a case for including post 70s stuff if you tend to favor dirgey jams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MmFql2BizA

Harvest and Gold Rush were my first two as well - had them copied back-to-back on the same tape, strong memories of listening to both albums a lot in the second year of university, particularly a) the time I fell asleep listening to Harvest one afternoon and got startled awake by the applause at the end of 'Needle and the Damage Done' and b) the time I had 'After the Gold Rush' stuck in my head while out bowling with my housemates and it came on over the PA in the alley bar.

Harvest Moon was the third one I got and for ages I thought it was pretty corny but I came around to it eventually.

i can't really remember what my first neil album was -- i think they all came pretty fast and furious once my brother and i got into him. maybe it was weld...

Pretty sure After The Gold Rush would've been mine, and that it would've been the St Étienne cover that led me there. Boy, was I disappointed.

ha, that would be a weird way to be introduced to neil young, yes.

I got a ballot today that specified a certain live version, so I'll do what was suggested upthread: count all votes together, but make note of any versions in a follow-up post.

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade.

Almost identical, but the time frame might be different--5th grade, trip to Florida, 8-track.

i missed the 8 track era, but couldn't resist buying this one when i found it in a thrift store
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/6034e96c6697da9d983271fcbdc1dfb3/1874011.jpg

My parents were not hip at all, but I remember when I found a copy of "Everybody Knows ..." my dad had recorded from someone on 8-track reel to reel.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere was my very first record! Well, first one I bought at least.

lol, 'God Save The Queen' will not be troubling my ballot. I think it's the snare-on-every-beat, it just drains out all the funk

Harvest was my first Neil record too. I even bought in in Canada (loved those black cassettes) on a camping trip in 5th grade.

Almost identical, but the time frame might be different--5th grade, trip to Florida, 8-track.

Mine was 83-84? After the 8-track's height, if memory serves. Though my best friend from those days had a boombox that played 8-tracks and cassettes, and it had short wave radio too. Loved that thing.

Relistening to Comes a Time now, the first half of this album is so strong.

As a teenage Pearl Jam nerd I came in search of Neil because of 'Rockin In the Free World'. The only Neil album my local record store had was Harvest on cassette so I snagged it. Got home so excited to hear this rock genius that everyone was praising up and down and put on the tape.... and out comes the whiny strains of 'Old Man'.
"Huh? where's the crunchy guitar? where's the rawk?" I dunno what I expected but it wasn't that. I mean, pre-internet, no older siblings or cool parents I honestly didn't know Neil's span of material or styles or anything. I was a kid. So I was like, wtf is this Cat Stevens sounding dude. Lame. So it took me a little while to come around but I kept circling back and eventually I fell in love once my teen ears could appreciate something a little slower, lol.

I heard tons of singles on classic rock radio throughout my youth and they always kept me company, then I bought Harvest after getting overdue fines on it from the library, and snatched up every NY record/CD I found after that, reaching a pinnacle/nadir with Tonight's the Night, which I listened to on repeat for like 6 months while I was trying to get my footing back after a series of...missteps. I feel like Neil Young has been my friend for an absurdly long time.

That said, I hope you guys can represent for "Albuquerque" -- so much to love in that song.

It's probably a little stereotypical to get wasted to Tonight's the Night, but yes, "Albuquerque" is the perfect soundtrack to getting fall down drunk, and is definitely on my ballot.

Harvest is the only major Neil I don't own: I'm saving it for a rainy dya.

who said i was getting wasted?! i was just in the pits.

picturing alfred hearing "alabama" for the first time on a rainy day is pretty lol

i have to thank my older brother for turning me on to NY. he was away in the States working and he left some tapes behind. luckily, 'after the gold rush' was one of them. found a secondhand copy of 'decade' on vinyl soon after.

reaching a pinnacle/nadir with Tonight's the Night, which I listened to on repeat for like 6 months while I was trying to get my footing back after a series of...missteps.

xpost haha, i guess it's sad that the only way i can imagine doing this is by drinking heavily.

the parts about moving away where no one knew me and driving at night were the parts that always resonated with me. that and being really really tired.

Bought "Freedom" the day it came out. Who knows how I knew about Neil Young back then, but if I'm being honest I'm sure the five-star Rolling Stone review helped push me in that direction. Back when, iirc, a five star review meant something. In fact, I wonder what the last few five-star reviews were before "Freedom?"

xp i sing "albuquerque" to myself every time a diner menu has country ham on the menu.

songs that I'll rank highly that haven't gotten discussed yet: "Losing End", "There Goes My Babe", "Prime of Life", & "Don't Cry".

& "Razor Love"!

razor love, yeah. that's probably the most recent song i can see voting for.

"Cocaine Eyes" def in my top ten. Looove the Eldorado ep

I love "Don't Cry" and "Eldorado" both for featuring perhaps the loudest guitar explosions of Neil's career.

"Cocaine Eyes" and "Heavy Love" are both great from that EP.

those Eldorado tracks led me into years of alt.country fandom, through Uncle Tupelo, looking for someone else who could sound like Neil did on those tracks. aside from UT here & there, I never found it, & bought a lot of bad records.

I had "Razor Love" on a year-end Top 10, but it won't quite make this list; "There Goes My Babe" will.

I enjoy all these autobiographical posts about where and when you first heard Neil. Here's my own story, which was part of a larger inventory I did of my album collection almost 10 years ago. Neil came towards the end, which was perfect, because everything beforehand had basically been working towards him. He was like the Captain Kurtz of this project.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/records-w3-x-y-z.html

I'd like to find a reasonably priced copy of Life on vinyl, then I'd have all records up to and including Ragged Glory. (Well, I'd still have to buy the Budweiser album. If I found Life, I'd cross my fingers, close my eyes, and buy the Budweiser album.) Of course, I had ample opportunity to buy it at the time, but coming right after Landing on Water, I was really off Neil for a couple of years.

I bought ATGR in '99 and recoiled -- I'd never heard a voice that high singing lyrics which on first listen were so twee. It took RNS, which I bought months later as a second-chance provision, to make me understand the fuss. Buying Zuma next helped.

Bought "Freedom" the day it came out. Who knows how I knew about Neil Young back then, but if I'm being honest I'm sure the five-star Rolling Stone review helped push me in that direction. Back when, iirc, a five star review meant something. In fact, I wonder what the last few five-star reviews were before "Freedom?"

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 25, 2012 5:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To put things in perspective, the Who's It's Hard got five stars in 1982. There were many instances of RS giving 5-star reviews in exchange for exclusive access to the bands (and lo and behold, a Who cover story a couple months later). iirc around 1986-87, they abandoned star reviews for a couple of years.

I actually bought After the Gold Rush after seeing that review for Freedom; I thought, better start with the canonical shit, and work up to the later stuff. I appreciated ATGR more than I loved it, and didn't seriously follow up on it until a year later. But Ragged Glory killed me, and I can still hum every single solo from memory. Tonight's the Night soon followed, then Freedom, Everybody Knows, Zuma, and a blinding show in early 1991 that still stands as one of the most intense I've seen, by anyone.

I must be getting old--I am getting old. Alfred's acronyms went right past me (honestly--went to Wikipedia for help). ATGR is Gold Rush to me, RNS is Rust.

I get confused with acronyms too easily with neil, there's SO many albums. Words are more helpful

deep, deep neil fandom began for me with the one-two punch of getting on the beach and the bottom line 74 bootleg all in the space of about two weeks.

got Decade for Christmas one year, probably 1990? my parents were super cool to do that, but it was on one of my friend's tips, so not that cool. that was my in...

clemenza - really liked that Neil piece.

Thanks a lot. Z S mentioned getting drunk to "Albuquerque"; the last couple of years of high school were very much about my friend Steve and I getting high to Tonight's the Night and (David Briggs!) The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.

Aside from the radio, I think my first exposure to Neil in the home was my older sister picking up This Note's For You used on vinyl at a flea market around 91-2(?). I seem to recall she only played once.

I picked up my first Neil cd at the end of '97. I traded Tonic's Lemon Parade and The Police's Every Breath You Take: The Classics (both then recently acquired during my brief 15 year-old idiot's dalliance with not one but two CD clubs) for a used copy of Rust Never Sleeps at CD Warehouse. I didn't quite get the acoustic half of the lp for a few years. After The Who's Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy (bought at that same store) (and also not counting that Police comp), it was one of the first "Classic Rock" albums I owned on CD.

A few months later I was back at the same shop, and I heard Tonight's The Night for the first time as the clerk spun it over the stereo. But I didn't get that on CD till much later, although I did score a nice vinyl copy with the inserts for $1.99 at Half-Price Books in '99 (along with Live Rust for $2.99--I'd be doing good to get both for less than $20 from the same store today).

Neil really locked in for me when I got Decade at the end of '99. Gradually afterwards I picked up the classics, and my interest would be re-sparked by the archive live albums, finally getting cemented inn 2009 by the quadruple-whammy of finally reading Shakey, the release of Archives I, getting downloads of boots from Tyler's blog, and at last getting ahold of Time Fades Away on vinyl ($8, no poster, hissy on the solo numbers). I had a real Neil year then, the music being there for the good and (mostly) bad. As luck would have it, I capped all this by getting to see him live on the "Twisted Road" tour.

Tell Me Why ... this one has been called out yet?

Decade could be the best compilation record ever made. And the really insane thing is, you could make another great double album of songs that didn't make the cut.

Imagine how good you are when songs like Tell Me Why, Don't Let It Bring You Down, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Barstool, Ambulance & Revolution Blues don't make it onto your greatest hits.

^^Not only that, but (as pointed out in Shakey) there was way better unreleased stuff in the vaults.

Kornrulez I think every siingle one of those songs is gonna make my ballot

There's bootleg versions of Homegrown going around, isn't there? P sure I once had the Tonight's the night director's cut at one point.

my neil 'sleeper' = love in mind

was gonna nom 'Albuquerque' as another sleeper too, so glad to see some tru heads repping for it on this thread, ben keith just roools on that track

Voted - 30 songs, all equal points. Getting it down to just 30 was a struggle.

Well Le Noise was totally unexpected. Not sure how great the songs are (though there's one that's definitely making my ballot, and two others that might) but the arrangements are extraordinary. I heard a kick drum once, but is it otherwise guitar-only? Brave move.

Don't even think there's a kick drum on it, tbh.

My shortlist is hovering around 33.

"Love in Mind" is just outside my Top 10--favourite song from Time Fades Away, or at least one of two. It captures that moment perfectly for me. "What am I doin' here?"

I appear to have reached the end of spotify, with nine studio albums plus Time Fades Away still to go. These are my second division albums, all great in their way: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Comes A Time, Trans, Landing On Water, Life, Mirror Ball and Le Noise.

Yknow I'll be the corny sap who says it: Neil Young writes exceptionally romantic love songs.

Pardon My Heart
Lotta Love
Love is a Rose (Linda R version is alright, but his is best)
Harvest Moon
Like a Hurricane

do I have to keep going?

I know there was Stupid Girl (I've never liked that song, and it's not because I'm stupid) and A Man Needs A Maid (and probably others I'm not aware of) but you would have to be pretty myopic to think that either of these songs contained the unvarnished warm heart of Neil Young. He seems so crochety, and probably is, but he has a warm heart.

Listened to Freedom again this morning...I think "Hangin' on a Limb" might make my ballot.

And am I wrong for vastly preferring Freedom to Harvest?

xpost to my earlier Joni Circle Game/Neil Young Sugar Mountain talk - mentioned this to my husband and he remembers hearing a bootleg where Joni talks about it, believes this Sugar Mountain club was in Winnipeg.

Ah - why didn't I go straight to Wikipedia? In a concert at The Paris Theatre in London on October 29, 1970[1], Joni Mitchell, who was already friends with Neil Young by the time he wrote this song, opened her song "Circle Game" with this speech:
Mitchell: "In 1965 I was up in Canada, and there was a friend of mine up there who had just left a rock'n'roll band (...) he had just newly turned 19, and that meant he was no longer allowed into his favorite hangout, which was kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you're over 18 you couldn't get in there anymore; so he was really feeling terrible because his girlfriends and everybody that he wanted to hang out with, his band could still go there, you know, but it's one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn't play in this club anymore. But he was over the hill. So he wrote this song that was called "Oh to live on sugar mountain" which was a lament for his lost youth.He wrote it on his 19th birthday (...) And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 19 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It's called The Circle Game."[2]

Anyway.. LL otm about the giant, adorable heart of Neil. I often think of him as another my fathers (my dad is a crazy looking but sweet Canadian folksingin' hippie too, just not famous). Like A Hurricane is an all-time love song imo.

My Two Dads, the musical

And am I wrong for vastly preferring Freedom to Harvest?

No. I always thought Freedom is one of his very best.

yeah freedom is fab. an interesting mix of styles -- sort of seems like a lot of neil's best albums are that way? drawing from a variety of eras and bands. he's so prolific that he can go a couple years, look back at the collection of songs he's written and basically make a "greatest hits" of tunes. Kinda how Rust Never Sleeps / American Stars n Bars / Zuma / Comes A Time / After The Gold Rush are.

One of the best examples of that would have been the original Chrome Dreams. He never released it, but pieces of it surfaced on Rust Never Sleeps, American Stars n Bars, Comes a Time and even Freedom.

Which leads me to Chrome Dreams II. Not one Neil's best albums, but it does contain one song that simply must be heard by everyone on this thread: Ordinary People. 18 glorious minutes of Neil Young at his very best.

Four Dads, Ismael: I have two stepfathers as well as my birth father. :P

a barbershop musical then

Sweeney Todd

Hey LL; Pardon My heart is my favorite song off Zuma. Will make my ballot for sure.

what's the thinking on See The Sky About To Rain? I love the solo piano version on the Massey Hall disc but not as fond of the version on On The Beach.

love both of 'em - the wurlitzer (?) on the studio version sounds perfect to me.

here's a later song i might vote for...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9oVk1_-_Ck

I like the *sound* of Harvest, but I'm not sure I even own a copy. "Freedom" is as good as his best stuff, afaic.

Speaking of sound, can anyone pinpoint the moment when Neil reversed himself on digital sound? A bunch of his 80s stuff was recorded digitally, he used to talk up his Redwood studios in interviews as "finally going all-digital," and the cover of Eldorado proudly proclaims "A DIGITAL RECORDING." Did it take him x number of records to realize he hated the sound, or was there some specific incident/revelation that sent him back to analog?

Freedom is one of those instance of "return to form" actually being true. such a great record. even when you're sifting through the cliches of Rockin in the Free World, it's hard to deny the genius at work, lots of clever nuances/ambiguities built into it

not sure about the digital/analog timing -- he was heavy into HDCD for a while in the 90s, right?

Yeah, just remembered Broken Arrow has the HDCD logo on the back; but it also had a vinyl-only bonus track.

He was already bitching about digital in the interviews included in Shakey, which were mostly done in '91--'95, and IIRC, most of his new releases and all the reissues/archival stuff since then are HDCDs.

I sent a ballot! 30 songs cuz a 20-song ballot had to exclude my wtf picks.
(did you get my ballot, clemenza?)

I've responded to the eight that have come in so far, so if you didn't hear from me, no.

Unless otherwise instructed, I'll count all "Mr. Soul" votes as being for the original. That's one instance where I'd count the Buffalo Springfield and the Trans version separately. I've received a couple of ballots so far where the voter also had a track or two from Trans. The first was an easy call, because everything was listed chronologically. The second wasn't, so I went ahead and assumed.

Okay, ballot has been gotten! thanks

i'm kind of tempted to go acoustic only for my ballot. except for 'powderfinger'

Just did a quick tally of my own list (still unranked and points not awarded), and I'm just slightly over half that are acoustic and/or a ballad, with the rest electric.

what's the thinking on See The Sky About To Rain? I love the solo piano version on the Massey Hall disc but not as fond of the version on On The Beach.

― that's not my post, Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:16 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh this might be my favorite track on 'on the beach,' maybe tied with 'walk on.' so placid and beautiful. the 'ahhh ahh ahhhh' is neil at my favorite vocally. i played this album to death and kind of burned out on the sadness/frustration of the second half tbh.

xp to be real i think i'm gonna be one of those people who vote for something from 'dead man' and that's probably as late as i'll go.

If you want to rank 30, but can't be bothered doing any math, a voter and I just worked out a useful way to score them: 15 each for the first ten + 10 each for the second ten + 5 each for the third ten = 300 points.

ooh perfect!

Is anyone confused by choosing from 'My, My, Hey, Hey' and 'Hey, Hey, My, My'? They're kind of the same song!

hi funk79

discussed upthread iirc

I'm fully aware that my vote for "Rockin' in the Free World" will go to the studio electric version, but I'm really voting for this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp7awm_neil-young-01-rockin-in-the-free-world-1989_music?search_algo=1

If Neil Young has a the-Who-Rolling-Stones-Rock-and-Roll-Circus-"A Quick One" moment, it's this.

The story behind that in Shakey - I don't even need to watch the clip to know what it is - is great. BTW, for those who don't know, a) Neil Young doesn't use distortion pedals, he just turns the amp all the way the fuck up and b) he has this custom pedal board called "The Whizzer" that manually turns the knobs up on his amp for him. Which explains why the sound on the SNL clip is so far in the red.

The story in Shakey, I seem to recall, involved people visiting him in the studio around this time, when he was recording "Freedom," and basically being blown away by the sheer volume.

...and at lot of them being offended. Niko Bolas talked about how disgusted Graham Nash was, and how perhaps Neil recorded that way just to get that reation out of him.

Bolas and Neil are credited in tandem as "The Volume Dealers." One of my favorite artist-as-producer nickname credits.

I saw Neil play something with Pearl Jam on TV after Mirror Ball came out, but I think it was an award show, and I don't think it was "Rockin' in the Free World." I remember loving it.

I'll only do this periodically, but a couple of notes after the first 10 ballots. 1) The song that's leading, named on 9 out of 10, would, to me, be a big surprise if it hung on. It's not obscure or anything, but I never expected it would do this well. The song I assumed would win is hanging very close. 2) 112 different songs have been listed--111, really, plus a cover. 3) One album has had every song listed. It wouldn't surprise anyone. (There are probably three albums where you could say that.)

Oh--lots of feedback, and one vote for "T-Bone."

My list keeps getting longer ... :/

ha, i haven't even started my list. eek!

Yeah, it's going to hurt to trim this thing down to 30...

Anyway, no one has mentioned "Lookout Joe" yet. I feel like this is the one song from Tonight's the Night that is never really discussed, but to me it always felt like such an important part of the record. Does it just not hold up outside of the context of the album to most people?

those times were good times

Nils' solo on that kills me every time.

Wouldn't be surprised if Lookout Joe winds up on my ballot. Those power chords are like hammers to the head.

I first heard "Look Out Joe" because my bootleg CD copy of Time Fades Away had, as bonus tracks, the first seven songs from the Bakersfield 3/11/73 boot, which is killer. It has a nice short ballad called "Sweet Joni" that I've never heard anywhere else. Anyone voting for "Sweet Joni"?

I like "Lookout Joe" a lot in the context of the album, but yes, Tonight's the Night--maybe more than any album I own--works as a whole for me. I will be voting for three songs that I love as stand-alones, and there are a handful of others that work fine that way too. But "Lookout Joe" is one that, for me, needs the context.

Never heard "Sweet Joni"--an answer song to "The Circle Game"'s answer to "Sugar Mountain"?

love sweet joni, i think that is the only time he played it. probably wrote it that night. "Lookout Joe" is great, but it is a track (like borrowed tune) that was recorded on the time fades away band tour, rather than during the tonight's the night sessions. it fits, though!

not to keep linking to this, but hey, if you want to hear sweet joni, it's on this: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/11101846032/sad-movies-a-secret-history-of-neil-young

Whoah, thanks for that link.

Thanks, Tyler--can't access it at work, will listen later.

get it while you can! who knows what will happen to bootlegs in the upcoming dark ages.

Tell the RIAA to hold off till 6:00-6:30 tonight.

After The Gold Rush, Harvest and On The Beach are definitely the top three (unless Time Fades Away is amazing, I haven't got there yet)

Well whaddaya know? It is amazing, I'd definitely have it in that top tier. Yet the internet tells me Neil hates it. I need to try and find my copy of Unknown Pleasures when I get home, iirc there's a piece on it in there.

Listening to Time Fades Away in the car on my way to work, I came to the conclusion that it's a good minor album, that I'd overrated it. Lots of solid second-tier songs and a couple that might make the lower reaches of a list ("Don't Be Denied," "Love in Mind").

I want to say it's less that Neil hates it and more that it was mixed live to tape, so that there's no way to re-release it? Here:

Time Fades Away was recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track using the Quad-8 CompuMix, the unreliable first digital mixing soundboard—against the wishes of producer David Briggs, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release.

"There were no 2 track masters ever made of this record. The master discs were cut directly from the 16 track masters through the Compumix system. A mix was recorded to a second 16 track machine--we had 2 that would run perfectly together--to feed the variable pitch system of the lathe--but was discarded when we were through. I was the mastering engineer who cut the masters."
—Phil Brown

Because no two-track stereo master tape was ever made as would commonly be done, the album cannot be remastered in a traditional manner. If any new release was to be attempted, a new mix would need to be made from the original multitrack tapes.

yeah he's said he has better recordings from that tour that he can mix to his liking. guess the plan is to include it on the next archives set? whatevs, that remaster that leaked out a while ago sounds great to me. but what do i know.

album i haven't listened to in forever that's better than i remembered: American Stars 'n' Bars. My cassette as a teenager had "Homegrown" at the end of BOTH sides, though, which makes side 1 seem more insipid than it is.

side 1 is kinda slight on that record, but pretty entertaining. hey babe is such a cool, breezy tune.

yeah i think as an adolescent i just had no time for lightweight country genre exercises when "Like A Hurricane" awaited

going through all the albums this week has underscored what hodgepodges most of them are - even if most tracks are associated with a specific band and vibe, that stray outtake at track 7 can be disconcerting. wish neil could be trusted to really make the archives boxes complete and purely chronological, but he wouldn't be neil if he didn't drop the stray track and fiddle with it a little

"Don't Be Denied" is easily top 5 for me.

me as well. it's the only Neil song i can think of that i've sat and played on repeat for like 49 minutes

Yeah I've done that

There's Neil songs you can cue up three times and you're there. Actually, I'm gonna have to be careful to make appropriate adjustments for length - any Neil song sounds amazing when you're into minute nine.

Have you guys heard the live Danger Bird suite that tyler compiled? I could listen to it all day! (I think I did just that at least once)

Demme on his new Neil film--didn't realize this makes four (three full-length, one shawty)
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/q-a-jonathan-demme-on-the-making-of-neil-young-journeys-20120627?cnn=yes

think gratefulbreed.blogspot.com still has Time Fades Away and Chrome Dreams, both in FLAC. Also can't resist linking this one, one more time--Neil w Zep, playing lead alll the way through "When The Levee Breaks":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUSj164pwEM&feature=player_embedded#at=11

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/q-a-jonathan-demme-on-the-making-of-neil-young-journeys-20120627/1000x600/main.jpg

christ, dave thomas and rick moranis look old

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2012/06/26/26-neil-young-jonathan-demme-silo.o.png/a_250x375.png

I count Time Fades Away as major, and I've always preferred it to On the Beach. But "Last Dance" strikes me as a little overwrought now, and that takes up eight or nine minutes. The title song, "Journey," "Love in Mind," "L.A.," and "Don't Be Denied," though, I think those are all great.

i don't think the songwriting is quite as strong on TFA as it is on Tonight's The Night and On The Beach, but the overall vibe of TFA is fantastic.

Songwriting's p strong, and I love the raw toughness--"Last Dance" seems almost Sabbath-y--but there is a bit more filler, and On the Beach's sequencing is just masterful

This has got to be one of the all-time great "what could have been" bands! This 1966 track from the Mynah Birds was written by Neil Young and his college roommate (!) Rick James, who also sang lead (Neil is on 12-string and backup vocals). Also in the band were Neil's future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Bruce Palmer and two guys who were later in Steppenwolf. This was almost a Motown single in 1966, but was pulled at the last minute after James was arrested for going AWOL from the US Navy. "It's My Time" b/w "Go On and Cry" remained in the vaults until it was included on a Motown CD box set in 2006; earlier this year, it finally found it's way onto 7" vinyl for Record Store Day earlier this year.

Check out this fantastic shoulda-been hit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQTE8hKvaaI

Time Fades Away is great. "14 Junkies, too weak to work"--what a curtain-raiser! And how else could that album finish with anything but the pile-up of "Last Dance"? (Funny to think it was his sole extended guitar work/wigout between Everybody Knows... & Zuma.*)

I will say that my judgement is biased--this album figured into a handful of major personal events, so I'm not as critical towards it.

*4-Way Street doesn't count.

I like what Time Fades Away kind of has the best and the worst songs of his Ditch trilogy imo, if "Denied" and the title track were on Decade I'd knock it off the must-buy list easy.

I like what Time Fades Away kind of...

Jim Farber reviews Journeys, w trailer at the end, as something called a trailer should be
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/movie-review-neil-young-journeys-article-1.1104025

"It's My Time" was on my list--excellent mid-'60s bubblesoul-garage. Reminds me a little of the Young Rascals, and a little of that early CCR track, "Call It Pretending."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk95whbAqbA

Also a bit like the Cure's "Boys Don't Cry"

i don't think the songwriting is quite as strong on TFA as it is on Tonight's The Night and On The Beach, but the overall vibe of TFA is fantastic.

def agree. It's his New Morning.

so the deal with this poll is I can vote for as many songs as I want?

It would work best if you can cut it at 40. The only thing with going beyond is that I don't know how to score it fairly...suggestion?

And the more you vote for, the more points you get?

Yeah...I set it up so that every group of ten extra songs beyond ten got half as many points added as the previous ten. 10 songs = 150, 20 songs = 250, 30 songs = 300, 40 songs = 325. 50 songs would equal 337.5, then it'd get crazy.

yeah I mean I could seriously do a 50+ song ballot but I guess you're saying you'd rather I not do that? w/e I'm happy to cut off at whatever point you please, but leave it open-ended & I'm liable to vote for 100 songs.

ok so I just saw this thread

one week blargh

maybe I'll just submit the tracks from my "headed for the ditch" comp

i still gotta blitz through 79-12...I can do it!

I've found this site helpful as I've been going through his songs:

Neil Young Album Discography

Euler: cutting at 40 would work best for me. I know what you mean--Neil's the only artist where I could list 50 or 60 songs and still be listing things I love and haven't gotten tired of over the years. No one else comes close for me, not the Beatles or Dylan or anyone else. But I think there'd be an imbalance with a lot of 30- and 40-song ballots combined with one twice that size.

I can only imagine how much harder the Zeppelin poll would have been had the band made another decade or two of worthy records.

Hmm, I've never seen this BBC doc: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18762427aatR8fdb?h1=Neil+Young+-+Don't+Be+Denied

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bYOcKCCr2M&feature=watch_response

I think I'm going to cut it here and do my ballot without hearing Silver & Gold, Eldorado, Chrome Dreams II and a handful of others; tracking them down on youtube is ruining Neil for me.

Just listened to Everybody's Rockin' and listening to Old Ways now, the last of his pre-Greendale full-lengths I hadn't heard. Everybody's Rockin' was kind of fun if obviously slight, but four tracks in, Old Ways seems like the biggest crock of shit he ever put his name on.

also plan to check out that "A Promise" album, though

yeah not much to like about old ways. a promise is pretty enjoyable though.

silver&gold has some classic tracks esp 'razor love'

a promise is pretty enjoyable though.

the live stuff on the second half of Old Ways is such a step up from the first that i believe it

first half is like, Self-Portrait bad

the first half is Waylon Jennings territory (i.e. sentimental and gross)

I think I'm going to cut it here and do my ballot without hearing Silver & Gold, Eldorado, Chrome Dreams II and a handful of others; tracking them down on youtube is ruining Neil for me.

You should at least hear Ordinary People from Chrome Dreams II. A friend of mine once dismissed it as being overwrought and too long but that groove just hooks me.

the first half is Waylon Jennings territory (i.e. sentimental and gross)

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, June 29, 2012 6:05 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

check yo self

Yes to Ordinary People. That is going to be high on my ballot.

If I have to include a recent track I'd go with "Fork in the Road."

lol, forgot I never heard This Note's For You. Not awful, but I'm not sure why Neil was making this music if he wasn't making it for Spud.

Just submitted! I hate to load it up with 1970s stuff, but even though I like a lot of his stuff from the past 2 decades, his god-like genius is just unstoppable in the 1970s. it's tough to ignore.

xxposts to Alfred: you're sentimental and gross etc

Thanks to everyone for keeping this afloat; school's finished now, so I'll be able to chime in more often. Some notes after 15 ballots:

--now three or four songs vying for #1
--135 different songs + 2 covers
--highest post-Rust song at #30
--two albums with votes for every song

lol in my head in the original post you gave us the option of voting for 100 songs, 200 songs, or 300 songs and i was like 'thank god, 300 it is!'. this is gonna take some time. thank you for p&j scoring as i can move on past figuring out how to rank my top 2 and deal w/ how to rank the other 298.

That's funny--I intended the exact opposite in my original post, but you're right. "Ballots of any length are encouraged": I was thinking about people who might only have five or ten songs they wanted to list, trying to get them to be okay with sending in abbreviated ballots, but the other interpretation works too. As I said a few posts ago, a limit of 40 works best for me.

Here's a review I wrote of Archives when it came out--the local weekly it was in has since folded (mutated, actually), so the link is to a longer version I posted on my site: http://phildellio.tripod.com/archives.html. (My imagination when it comes to titles has progressed impressively.) It was the first writing I'd been paid for in quite a while, so it was a surprise to find out...I wouldn't be getting paid. Getting to keep the box (regular DVD version) was my payment.

Truthfully, I wish I'd sold it right after the review was written, when I'm guessing I could have gotten something close to the full retail price for it. The editor obviously assumed I would--he laughed and said something like "Good luck on eBay" as he handed it to me, but I've hardly sold or traded anything since I started collecting records as a teenager. I'm a hoarder. But once I watched Journey Through the Past, downloaded all the mp3s (about two-thirds of which I already had on vinyl anyway), and stored the few new ones I wanted to keep on my hard drive, the box became useless to me. I haven't opened it since.

At least it's not oddly shaped and inconvenient to store. Oh, wait ...

I probably should use it when we cover surface area of rectangular prisms next year.

realizing ragged glory might make my top 3 neil albums, don't think my ballot's going to be seventies dominated at all

Are we doing an albums poll too?

Thanks for the Silver & Gold recommendation btw - I've checked out a couple of tracks and they're really good (the title track especially). I guess I've got a bit more homework yet.

No albums poll, no. I threw out album covers, but so far only one person tacked that on to his ballot, so that probably won't happen either. Which is fine. What I will do at the end is total up points assigned to each album, which is always of interest to me. Seeing as Neil's albums are almost always so thematically/stylistically cohesive, there's a good argument as to how meaningful that is vs. a straight album poll. To me, still very meaningful.

He's really not a very graphic artist, I can only think of a couple of sleeves I really like. And one of them is Trans.

Gotta disagree there. In terms in capturing the mood of certain albums (which is largely the way album covers always affected me), there are at least half-a-dozen brilliant ones for me.

I don't suppose anything on Rust is in danger of being overlooked, but I would like to campaign for "Sedan Delivery."

Let me amend my previous post, having just scrolled through all of Neil's covers. The five I think are fantastic are among my favourite ever--but yeah, he's had a bunch that are ordinary or worse.

hard for me to judge his album covers (at least from the 70s) as good or bad -- at this point they seem just like "what LP covers from the 70s look like".

I don't suppose anything on Rust is in danger of being overlooked, but I would like to campaign for "Sedan Delivery."

and "Welfare Mothers"!

definitive welfare mothers for me is the Weld version. so messed up!

I just heard "Safeway Cart" and "Driveby" again -- they're going in.

Because of this thread I've watched the live clip of "Thrasher" 3 times this afternoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t00MXZKbW0M&feature=related

Sort of amazing there how young (no pun intended) he still was in 1978, given how harrowed the songs sound.

yeah, but also he didn't sound much older than he did in Buffalo Springfield, or especially on his early solo albums. Lots of collateral damage in them times.

We are talking about the guy who wrote "Old Man" when he was, like, 24 or something.

I don't suppose anything on Rust is in danger of being overlooked, but I would like to campaign for "Sedan Delivery."

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The only Rust songs not making my ballot are "Ride My Llama," "Sail Away," and "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)." "Pocahontas" will probably place highest; possibly my all-time favorite acoustic Neil song.

I don't think I realized that I liked On the Beach more than Gold Rush until this poll...

Happy Canada Day, Neil!

Age has been a preoccupation of Neil's since day one. After the Gold Rush's cover, worrying about leaving 20 too soon on "Sugar Mountain," brooding over mysterious changes he's undergone on "Mr. Soul" and "On the Way Home," etc. Then he'll break all that up by detours into the wide-eyed childlike side of himself.

There's only one song from Rust that hasn't gotten a vote yet--probably obvious which one.

sail away is one of the most gorgeous things he ever wrote

There's so much from throughout his entire career I'm compelled to acknowledge that I don't think I could do anything as indulgent as vote for entire albums. Gotta spread the love.

Was listening to some Neil yesterday and one song suddenly clicked from "will probably be on the ballot" to "wow, this is top-5 at least".

"Motorcycle Mama"?

Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze

Both currently locked in a raging 871-way battle for 150th place...I'm afraid to go back and check, but I think I kind of liked "Surfer Joe" at the time.

Ha, that's on my list too ... except spotify cut off the title so I had to guess the last word ('syzlak')

any love for "Like an Inca"? Always my favorite Trans number: Santana boogying in Peru.

I'm having the weirdest experience of hearing a song on album I once owned that I have NO recognition of at all - "Loose Change" on Broken Arrow. While I can see why I tossed, you'd THINK i'd remember there BEING a 9 minute track between "Big Time" and "Slip Away" at the very least, or recall it upon hearing it.

xpost "Like An Inca" is no "Cortez the Killer" but better than "Inca Queen"

oh wait now I vaguely remember the "one chord played for a couple minutes" "climax" of "Loose Change"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJLAyrTN5Fc

any love for "Like an Inca"? Always my favorite Trans number: Santana boogying in Peru.

Would probably make my Neil top 50, but didn't quite make the cut for the top 30 I actually sent. If he'd used a vocoder on it, maybe.

xpost "Like An Inca" is no "Cortez the Killer" but better than "Inca Queen"

But where do you stand on "Like an Inca" vs. "Hitchhiker"?

"Like an Inca" has an outside shot at making my ballot. That and "Transformer Man" are my favorites from Trans.

does this qualify as a challop?

Everybody's Rockin/Old Ways/Landing On Water >> Broken Arrow/Silver & Gold/Are You Passionate?

at the very least, Silver & Gold and Are You Passionate? has to be my least favorite two album run in his career.

Any opinions on Hawks And Doves? Don't think I've heard it for about 20 years.

Heroic performances from Nils here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M15RA1ft3Bc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XphZydaPj4&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om2Lt94Ltw4&feature=related

I dunno, part of me wishes that NY had abandoned guitars and moved into purely electronic music after Trans. He could have been one of the pioneers of techno, but as it was he followed it up with Everybody's Rockin'. Oh well.

I don't have Broken Arrow, and the 9/11 song scared me away from Are You Passionate? "Razor Love" was the one song that saved Silver & Gold for me--I just don't remember the rest of it. The '80s albums you mention I dislike for different reasons. Landing on Water I consider inept; it will always be the nadir for me, because if Neil ever makes a worse album, I'll find out about that in advance and simply will never hear it. Everybody's Rockin' seemed really corny at the time--"Wonderin'", as always, excepted. Old Ways didn't register. I probably gave it two listens at the time, and have never taken it off the shelf since.

I don't think I'm leaking state secrets when I say that none of those records will impact the results at all. The albums that you would have expected to dominate this poll are, so far, dominating this poll.

I liked Hawks and Doves when it came out, "Little Wing" and "The Old Homestead" especially. It was still part of that decade-plus run of hardly a misstep--just minor ones here and there.

H&D is sort of American Stars'n'Bars II, with the trippy outtake side and the NEIL YOUNG BONAFIDE COUNTRY SINGER side flipped

admittedly the haphazard '80s stuff i'm seeing in a "what was that about?" youngun's rearview mirror where i was actually paying attention when Neil got boring. i'm sure watching neil stumbling around syn-drums was less fun when everyone was doing it.

I dunno, part of me wishes that NY had abandoned guitars and moved into purely electronic music after Trans.

Landing On Water and Life still have a hell of a lot of synth, though! Considering the Joe Lala shit on Trans, I feel like those later two are just as "synth" as Trans, even if they don't have the vocal effects.

two from those albums i'm considering for my ballot (also "prisoners of rock'n'roll")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0DfNtocIa4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPVHE0ip0fk

"Prisoners of Rock 'n' Roll" is such a fantastic song (and such a terrible title). It took a lot of confidence and/or obliviousness to close the book on all those Geffen albums with the line "That's why we don't want to be good"--great line. It's on my ballot.

nils lofgren looks like he's straight up auditioning for the e street band in those trans clips. did he act like that much of a jackass in the Grin days?

woah! @ tha mideast vacation vid there. TREMENDOUS performance, completely outrageous unhinged Neil solo. compelling argument for a ballot

yeah the contrast between neil wilding out and billy talbot trying to make sense of his keytar is just amazing

i was rambo in the disco, i was shooting to the beat
when they burned me in effigy, my vacation was complete

yeah Pressure is great, like a weird Wipers/XTC mashup.

"Mideast Vacation" is semi-classic on the chord changes alone (STTTTYLE CHAAANGE).

the synth solo was dated in '87 though

whether something is dated or not is soooooooooooooooooo low on my priorities with any sort of music

It's not a priority for me either but using "Simon Says" synth sparkles in '87 five years after demonstrating he could handle the technology warrants the term.

turns out I was initially referring to "Around The World" -- my bad. Synth sparkles still dated.

nils lofgren looks like he's straight up auditioning for the e street band in those trans clips. did he act like that much of a jackass in the Grin days?

The story in ... was it in "Shakey?" Anyway, the story is that in the '70s Nils had to wear heavy weights around his ankles, because he moved around so much more than everyone else on stage.

somebody quoted in Shakey claims that "When Your Lonelly Heart Breaks" could've been the "I Believe in You" of the eighties. Anybody wanna agree?

i agree but i don't care about the ____ of the _____ premise -- i just love that song, esp the second "lonely!"

(when your lonely (lonely!) heart breaks)

Neil Young flunkies stopped listening to new music in the early seventies.

then again maybe the premise doesn't mean what i thought it did
anyway, i like that song

While in general I trust David Briggs was right about whatever he was yelling about, I like "Lonely" in both it's Life and YOTH renditions

I assume all right-thinking people like "Winterlong," but how much? (Like, do I need to vote it top 5 to make sure it gets in?)

nils lofgren looks like he's straight up auditioning for the e street band in those trans clips. did he act like that much of a jackass in the Grin days?

Nils was a competitive gymnast in high school; Bruce gave him a chance to show that off a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su959eEFnnA

ok now I'm bummed Neil did not rig up a Trans-poline for the tour

i like winterlong but not top 5 by a longshot (sorry)

Not for me either, but I might vote it high strategically. It's a great, self-contained song.

I got a couple of ballots in today and discovered that unranked lists of 20 or 40 would both involve decimals according to the point system I set up above. A couple of suggestions:

For a ballot of 40, (15 x 10) + (25 x 7) = 325...identify your 15 favorite from your list of 40.
For a ballot of 20, (10 x 15) + (10 x 10) = 250...identify your 10 favorite from your list of 20.

Mr. Math, Mr. Big Shot--hope you're happy.

I could also slightly penalize an unranked ballot to produce an even split:

40 songs gets you 320 points (8 per)
20 songs gets you 240 points (12 per)

Don't think of it as a penalty, though--it's a tax.

ballot sent.

xpost Also explains why Nils had both hips replaced a couple of years ago.

Voted, I had to draw a line under this. Apologies to Neil Young, Sleeps With Angels and the others I didn't get round to.

I liked @rocketmail too, that's a nice touch.

Tempted to listen to Americana a ton since I think it could get a song if not two on my ballot, but it'd undoubtedly make my ballot more of a fool's errand than it already is (currently decade make-up is

60s: 7
70s: 14
80s: 9
90s: 6
00s: 4

but I'm still tinkering with it).

Hadn't thought about that. I've had a Rocketmail account (bought out by Yahoo at some point) for 15 years.

Some notes after 20 ballots (with one pending because of a scoring issue):

--167 different songs, 172 versions--curious as to how that compares to the Rolling Stones poll
--#1 has opened up a bit of a lead over the next four
--I think there's still only one album where every song's received a vote; three others are within a song or two
--among songs with multiple votes, #4 and #32 are tied with an average of 15.5 points per vote
--highest post-Rust song has dropped to #37
--non-solo songs: Buffalo Springfield (6), covers (4), CSNY (3), Stills-Young Band (3), Crazy Horse (1), Mynah Birds (1)

highest post-Rust song has dropped to #37

ugh really didn't want to make a political ballot but damn tempting to do it in reversal chronological order now

reverse, i mean

I don't mean for these occasional updates to influence anyone's ballot--I try to avoid being specific. For what it's worth, it would probably be futile trying to move post-Rust songs up--I was planning on counting down 50--so I'd just vote as you normally would.

yeah i know i'm better off throwing my weight to the chestnuts i love most, but still, this is why they don't release election day polling data until the ballots are closed!

What was Rust, '79? I had thought there would be a good half-dozen later songs likely to do well :(

Where are the lurking Shocking Pinks fans?

Fearing that I've opened the door to a groundswell of Landing on Water votes, you've convinced me--no more exit polling.

I'm trying to control to violent side!!!!

ugh, landing on typo

I drew up a 33-song 'rough draft' ballot; I am not nearly familiar enough with the 80s or 90s stuff but I know there were at least 5 post-Rust songs in it

Easily the hardest poll I've done where stuff that made #25 or #30 I like only a little less than stuff that made top 5. I had a couple deep cuts I didn't think were gonna get more than a couple votes, so I wanted to give them a boost. They ended up #17 and #29 respectively

Some back-and-forth on the Pet Shop Boys thread reminded me how much I like tired people singing tired songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wmCOjNLpx8

the second side of OTB!