neil young

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.

I thought he remains a part owner of Lionel? Because one of his sons was really into trains?

yeah he owned a significant interest of Lionel for awhile

it's actually touching he got into it because his son who is very disabled liked to play with them

I guess he used to be a minority owner (20%) but now is just a consultant.

I've tried "Colorado" a few times now, always with an open mind, I mean I love "Doghouse" and Greendale fer cryin' out loud I am gonna give Neil a zillion chances and each time I've been stymied by the line "I'm a few bricks short of a load" and had to tap out.

You know that gesture the frustrated card dealer makes in Casino when Pesci's character is making a huge scene? That's me when I get to that line

lol

first listen to Peace Trail today on account of the praise here yesterday, and wow @ the autotune (particularly on "My Pledge"). not a bad album!

Neil Young hasn't released too many outright bad records, but the mediocrity of many of his records does stick out against his masterpieces, of which he of course has many.

Lol at the dozens of "it's not great but it's sort of ok" reviews of recent NY output just up-thread.

For a revered artist he's put out a considerable amount of crap. Which I suppose is just repeating what Josh just said

I'm not yet sure what I think of Colorado. Probably that it's alright, but not great, funnily enough

haha, i'm definitely guilty of the "it's not great but it's sort of ok" review ... https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2019/10/29/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-colorado/
it is interesting to wonder if neil had been on a Dylan schedule for the past 20 years — only four albums of original material?

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/neil-young-crazy-horse-colorado

Quite like the description : "He solos like something’s buried under the fretboard that he’s trying to dig out."

Nice review Tyler. You're definitely right about She Showed Me Love..

damn She Showed Me Love is "only" 13+ minutes long but i'm not sure it isn't an hour.

yeah, that one is kinda the biggest disappointment because a 13-minute crazy horse song should, by definition, be great. but it really isn't!

it's just a real formless blob of a dirge, and usually NY+CH create these really deceptively simple epics in a similar style which have a real journey and the call and response type vocals and harmonies play off each other well and in a non-repetitive way, even though the epics usually have repetitive-seeming elements.

would forgive the godawful lyrics if the jam at the end got into some interesting zones ...

Some jams are potentially epic and ultimately flabby, that’s an unfortunate fact imo

Yeah, but you're supposed to leave those off of your albums. (Especially if you're Neil Young.)

trying to work my way up to Colorado, haven't listened much to Neil's work since like Are You Passionate? (which is a good album dangit) but I've been giving them all a spin these last few days since I can just stream them instead of having to buy, and man the lyrics are tough going. Living With War sounds cool (currently on the with-chorus version even) but the song subjects are just dumb. it wasn't always thus!

I actually appreciate Living With War because of its political content and it's the sound that doesn't quite grab me. I find the stripped-down versions on 'Living With War - In The Beginning' much better than those on the normal record, Neil's vocals show more emotion & power on those raw recordings.

yeah I'll listen to that version shortly, now moved on to Greendale
trying to steel up for the Monsanto experience

I thought I remembered a thread where people tried to make a greatest hits of his post 2000s oeuvre, or was it just a dream?

here are some choices through 2006:

Razor Love
Differently
Goin' Home
Bandit
It's A Dream
Families

i made a mix of 2000-2009 back in the day that i thought was pretty solid, might need to update ...

link?

first listen to The Visitor now, and this isn't starting well...

i'm afraid the link is long gone! not even sure what hard drive the files are on at this point ... i could probably re-create using spotify (though I think I included an unreleased live version of "Day In The Life" haha)