neil young

He’s seen the needle
And the damage not done

So far I give Barn a B+/Hon. Mention: I do like some of it real much, most of it to some extent. But Way Down In The Rust Bucket is what really gets me going: A minus, cos I could live w/o a few tracks as songs "Bite The Bullet"no; he should leave being crass to the Stones) and a few more are more predictable than compelling---but there are at least 95 minutes of keepers--faves incl. "Danger Bird" (its live debut, says his Warners site), "Cinnamon Girl," "Roll Another Number For The Road," and my number one is "My Country Home," 15 minutes ov rural psych--continuing thee countryoid theme, here is "Homegrown," with 1970-1990 scarecrow fashion (reminding me of Thurston Moore on Nirvana's "Children of the Corn" looks) Rock On!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8-AbMGbZ2c

fuck Rogan, go Neil

He’s a good egg.

a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0) at 7:03 24 Jan 22

I love Neil and I love him even more for pushing back against Spotify like this. Fuck Rogan and fuck Spotify for giving him that much money for disinformation.

That said, I have to acknowledge that it’s easy for a guy who has his own dedicated streaming site to pull off of Spotify without feeling much of a sting. Other artists aren’t as fortunate in being able to take that kind of stand against Spotify.

honestly with Neil I wouldn't necessarily assume Archives makes much money, last subscriber number I could find was 20,000 with an aim of 40,000. at $20 a year minus costs, staff, maintenance that's not much

and yes with most artists you could say "well if it didn't make money he wouldn't do it" but that's assuredly not the case

xpost Rust Bucket is already a classic Neil live album, tremendous

Love Rust Bucket, it's my go-to these days.

I've found Neil's pushback against contemporary bullshit really reassuring, tbh, because if ever there was dude I wouldn't have been shocked was anti-vax/pro covid conspiracy it would be him, and I'm so glad it's not.

Cardiacs pulled all their music off Spotify the other day for presumably the same reason (they merely alluded to 'current events'). If this becomes a domino effect it might achieve the desired, let's see

lol maybe if Taylor Swift does it (onethread)

Yeah bless Neil for doing the right thing but i'm sure “you can have Joe Rogan or Young, not both" is a pretty easy choice for Spotify

Back when everybody was posting their year-end Spotify wrapups I posted & immediately deleted a frustrated rant about how I cant believe how many otherwise-thoughtful people are continuing to pay Spotify & fund Rogans bullshit. Especially ppl on my social media feeds who, if a local business owner posted some of the same stuff Rogan says, there would be a big twitter firestorm about boycotting whatever bar or shoe store or w/e. But with Rogan/Spotify people are like "what can we be expected to do? its the only possible way to listen to music *shrug*"

Yeah bless Neil for doing the right thing but i'm sure “you can have Joe Rogan or Young, not both" is a pretty easy choice for Spotify

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, January 25, 2022 9:50 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, sad to say my first thought here was about the many idiots on Twitter who will inevitably respond to this by posting the Tombstone "well...bye" meme

honestly with Neil I wouldn't necessarily assume Archives makes much money, last subscriber number I could find was 20,000 with an aim of 40,000. at $20 a year minus costs, staff, maintenance that's not much

and yes with most artists you could say "well if it didn't make money he wouldn't do it" but that's assuredly not the case

Oh for sure, I wouldn't argue that he's raking in the dough with his Archives. More just pointing out that, as a legacy artist with a pretty dedicated fanbase that supports him in other ways and does pretty solid numbers in physical sales thanks to an older-skewing base, he's not likely to suffer much of a hit by this decision. I was just thinking that I'd love to see more artists follow suit, but even with the mere pittance that Spotify pays I can understand why an up and coming artist may not be as well cushioned (whether in terms of "exposure" or financially) to be as able to take a stand like this.

None of this is to say that Neil isn't an absolute hero for this move, because fuck Spotify and Rogan forever.

agreed on the larger point, he's in a good place.

he can always sell more of the land too like he had to a few years ago.

yeah, although he was already talking about that in thee great Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream (2012), so wonder how much land is left? Maybe part of the motivation for all the prev. unreleased; I suspect they outsell this-century originals, or at least match.

I just wish he'd quite stalling, postponing or otherwise pushing back projects. I mean, shouldn't we already have had 6 of those Bootleg series releases out now, by the original timetable?

in fairness, if they want to do vinyl which i'm assuming they have to now from a financial standpoint, the pressing plants are incredibly backed up

....aside from the usual mercurial neil decision making which i'm sure is also a factor

O Mr. Amazon, go into pressing plants, not space! Really, why isn't some mogul doing this? It can't be more of a financial pain than a lot of other likely lucrative things.

Neil gonna Neil xxl

*xxp

Pardon my ignorance but wth is going on on the cover of the Tonight's the Night album?

cocaine?

also chuckled at this headline this morning. keep fighting the good fight, neil.

lol, looks like Spotify made its choice.

Could end up costing Neil literally hundreds of dollars in streaming royalties

..over the next thirty years.

before taxes.

Robert Christgau put Barn at the very top of his Dean's List (though he says he would score the entire top ten an even ten points apiece):

"I ranked Barn first because self-righteous ‘60s idealism, while always overstated by young wannabes and overrated by old farts, might be of real practical use with fascism on the rise. So in a year when ‘60s totems Eric Clapton, damn right overrated and no one’s idea of a clear thinker either, and Van Morrison, more God-touched but an even bigger crank, began spewing anti-vax/lockdown/government rot, Young’s return to the political and ecological themes of ‘00s releases Greendale, Living With War, and Fork in the Road was an up that touched me deep."

i didn't think barn was that special, but he makes a good point for his rating it so highly. like, "hey they haven't all gone crazy. see???"

aged music act building a barn in the mountains to record an album screams "has this artist gone crazy?"

Studio in the Clouds is in a converted barn but it's a working music studio owned by someone else, Neil just booked time there

https://musicgardens.org/

looks like Dierks Bentley records there a lot

xp

my mistake, it's a restored barn from the 1850s. it's located at that studio then, i take it?

aged music act building a barn in the mountains to record an album screams "has this artist gone crazy?"

But that's normal for Neil.

100% not under dispute

it's just a studio that anyone can book time at, Neil doesn't have anything to do with it as far as I can tell

the building was originally a barn

i quite like the idea of an aging folky recording in a barn.

Just five guys standing around some bales of hay

exactly! like a literal farmer's barn.

"but neil, the acoustics are terrible in there."

"we'll make it work!"

If Neil says it can work, never doubt Neil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU0TWE0Le7Q

Xgau's making it No. 1 for topical backstory and references in mostly mumblecore lyrics, not the mostly okay music: pretty typical of his grading for the past few years. Does give Rust Bucket an A minus, but the rambling, kinda meh-ish review doesn't indicate why (except he found out about clitoral vibrators because "Bite The Bullet")

I gave the album more than a few listens in early December, and, well, sorry. But we've all been guilty of anointing an album whose extraordinary qualities only register to you (Kelela and Robert Wyatt for me in the last 15 years).

yeah, but this isn't his vision of Neil's vision, it's his topical overrating , while not indicating anything about how he hears the music, which still seems like some nice ones for the playlist, and that's about it.

Which Robert Wyatt album only registered to you?? Hard to imagine, since there are quite a few of us RW diehards on ILM!

2007's Comicopera.

Oh I don't care for the #1 at all and he hasn't swayed me in years, though he's correct about the Sullivan album.

my friend made a one LP edit of Colorado/Barn

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrdw450H4NIRhygy6oz17O1-90T6EnV3q

I really like this tracklist

definitely gonna check that out. thanks for sharing!

Yeah! Maybe Neil should have done the same.
Alfred---you are not alone (re Comicopera, anyway).

Pandora is already doing ads boasting that they still have Neil.