neil young

New album sounds okay but kind of uninspired. Curious how it compares to Broken Arrow, another relatively uninspired one that I never pull out.

Ha. I've just returned from the record shop, where I couldn't resist buying Colorado, despite sensing that I might mildly regret it...

It's not bad, just nothing special. I listened to Psychedelic Pill a couple of times this week, and that one still sounds great.

Yeah, I really like Psychedelic Pill.

"Not bad, nothing special" is precisely where my expectations for this one are. Let's see

but haven't those been the expectations for everything he has released for many many years? the last album that kind of knocked me out was ragged glory . live he still kills though. with the old songs of course.

Yes, expectations haven't been high for many years. But albums like PP sometimes exceed them.

this is no Psychedelic Pill

other than the fact I find the *sound* of Crazy Horse so pleasurable it's pretty half assed on first blush

Agreed.

A review I read here in a German newspaper put it on an equal footing with "Sleeps With Angels and Tonight's the Night"....

In case Alex is interested...
'„Colorado“ ist eine überaus eingängige, widerborstig schöne Platte, die es durchaus mit Klassikern wie „Tonight’s The Night“ oder „Sleeps With Angels“ aufnehmen Mann.'

https://m.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/album-colorado-von-neil-young-jammen-auf-hohem-niveau/25156584.html

Man I love "Broken Arrow" but this new one bites.

thanks, duke. i doubt it. sleeps with angels didn't impress me much. as i said the last album i liked a lot was from 1990. since then lots of ok records and some stinkers.

just started listening to colorado. it indeed seems ok but pretty boring. she showed me love is about 7 minutes too long. olden days is a snooze fest. the best about it is that it is only 4 minutes long. help me lose my mind is quite nice as it is a little rockier. the next slow song green is blue is a beauty. shut it down is good when it trails off the refrain into improv country which it doesn't do enough. milky way is a sluggish ballad i'd rather not listen to again. eternity is just totally superfluous. i do is better and reminds me of harvest moon, an album which was ok but rather pale in comparison with harvest.

another neil young album one safely do without.

one safely can do without.

yeah I made it through, but this is pretty bad
big disappointment, esp because it's probably the last Crazy Horse record

almost picked it up yesterday but didn't want to drop that much on the LP til i heard, maybe it's good i didn't. anyway i just really want this dude to get around to reissuing some of those '90s LPs too.

like there's hardly any solos! there's more piano ballads than jams!

crazy horse is literally only good at one thing

Is that Neil playing piano or Nils?

Who knows, maybe there will be another Crazy Horse album. When Americana came out, did anybody know Psychedelic Pill was on its way?

This one is just so uninspired and undercooked. I love later albums like Sleeps with Angels, Americana and Pill, because Neil sounds like he was driven back to the band for a purpose. This one, they sound incidental, there to bring a certain degree of sloppiness to songs that don't quite stand up.

IIRC, Americana was sort of pitched as openers for an original album cut at the same sessions.

Also there was that massive improv jam they put out online before either.

Psychedelic Pill stylistically falling between those poles as it happened.

Neil needs to do the weirdo Le Noize/weird tape type stuff with Crazy Horse. As with the Dead Man soundtrack, I think at times "you know what this needs...a rhythm section". I would figure this would work and be the ear candy the kids have been wanting to get.

I'm so bummed out about this album

Feel like this would have been better received as a one of those "surprise! you didn't know it was coming" Neil albums. Having it hyped up for this long, esp with Crazy Horse, allowed expectations to get a little too high I think. Like if this followed six months after another Psychedelic Pill type release, I think this would be approached a little differently. Which isn't to say I think people are underrating this, it's definitely not great.

That's why I brought up "Broken Arrow." Raging comeback with "Freedom," reunion and tour with Crazy Horse behind "Ragged Glory," "Harvest Moon" and "Mirror Ball" as successful and well received side-ventures, "Sleeps with Angels" a really cool Crazy Horse record. Neil's back and better than ever! And then ... "Broken Arrow," kind of an underwhelming afterthought album.

Makes sense, although I've always loved Broken Arrow, but mostly for it coming really early in my Neil fandom. I grew up with my dad playing him around the house all the time, but never really considered him "mine". But (of course for being 19 at the time), I was really excited when I did an album with Pearl Jam, so Broken Arrow was my third Neil album after Mirror Ball and Decade.

Mirror Ball was intended to be a surprise, left-field album, its quick turnaround was hamstrung by Epic's meddling.

yall are doing Broken Arrow dirty comparing it to this

the first song on Broken Arrow is Big Time!

Ah but "Broken Arrow" has some sublime stuff, almost touching on shoegaze ("Slip Away"). It's a weird NYCH album but in a very good way.

"Broken Arrow" is better than this one, as far as I can remember. The fact that I can't really remember pretty much captures how I feel about "Broken Arrow," give or take a song (again, as far as I remember).

i ended up liking Colorado a bit more than I expected to after digging in a little more -- might be a grower! "She Showed Me Love," "Shut It Down" and "Rainbow of Colors" are straight up bad, but I enjoy almost everything else. Not a classic by any stretch, but I've been enjoying it. I recommend seeing the doc of the making of the record, kinda puts it all into context + there's plenty of Neil terrorizing his engineer.

and yeah Broken Arrow is great (I do remember being slightly underwhelmed at the time).

Haven't had a chance to spin Colorado yet, but I always loved Broken Arrow, apart from the pointless and half-assed Jimmy Reed cover at the end. I definitely prefer it to Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, and Psychedelic Pill, and it was his last great record until Le Noise (or, depending on my mood, Greendale).

And in looking at his discography, what the hell is Peace Trail? And he made two studio records with Promise Of The Real?! How long have I been asleep?

I really liked Promise of the Real as a backing band - despite the terrible name they just hit a good sound/groove imo - but Neil was delivering some of the worst lyrics ever, makes those albums basically unlistenable.

Peace Trail is maybe my fave from the past few years — good, spare sound with Keltner on drums, some solid songs.

Will definitely check out Peace Trail. And I've never minded the on-the-noseness of the Greendale lyrics, so I may check out the two Promise records, too.

EARTH definitely has some good moments (but it's mainly just that Neil's guitar remains an insanely glorious thing). Monsanto Years and The Visitor are maybe the worst-ever Neil Young albums. Not really PoTR's fault, just bad songwriting overall.

yeah I enjoyed seeing Neil play with PoTR on tour but those songs were not good. The old songs sounded great.

oh c'mon Monsanto Years is not THAT bad, it's not exactly good though. "Wolf Moon" sounds like a Harvest Moon outtake and I like it a lot.

Haven't heard the new one yet. I myself thought The Visitor was an improvement over Peace Trail (and certainly over Monsanto - I don't think it's terrible but definitely the weakest of the recent-ish bunch).
EARTH's good - the new song (Seed Justice) blew me away when I heard it live, it's still pretty great on record.
Storytone's beautiful!

the version of Living With War he released with the choir overdubs removed is a sleeper

I'm#TeamPeaceTrail

I totally forgot about The Visitor

i don't trust any of you

trust me Karl, Are You Passionate? is a keeper

i'm talking 2897 posts of trust, completely broken

i left my heart out there, in the thread. i'm done

you can trust me, karl.
i liked the reveal in the recent wired article that neil lurked on model train message boards in the 1990s under the moniker "Clyde Coil"

hahaha omg

http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/p/44008/559323.aspx

???

Didn't Neil work with Lionel on some high-tech model train controller designs? I can understand why he'd be cranky on message boards...insofar as I can understand the motivation behind anything else Neil has done.

i think he was pretty much the president of lionel for a little while there. or at least a part-owner.