neil young

oh shit decade

and #s of boots. sorry gang. read my lips, vote dead man

After The Gold Rush.

but On The Beach too. the title song makes me cry.

I voted Time Fades Away

this was already done.
Best of Neil Young studio records

This one has live albums.

Some of them, anyway. (Unplugged, Year of the Horse, Road Rock vol. 1)

Oh. The studio albums poll had the live albums too. Nevermind then.

I voted Ragged Glory because it needs more love and less rockism. That's a srsly good record, yo.

First person to vote "Old Ways" gets a dollar from me.

I voted for "Old Ways" just for the cash. You want my paypal address?

After The Gold Rush = the good songs are so good they make you forget about the bad ones

On The Beach = pretty much all good

I mean "When You Dance" is kind of endearing as a cornily sincere, b-level hippie artifact, but Cripple Creek Ferry is a real turd of a song, and Birds isn't great either.

I got to get away from this day to day running around

TRANS FTW!

Arc/Weld. The worst/best live albums ever.

Dead Man is actually really really good.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Tonight's The Night

closely followed by Goldrush and On The Beach

TTN is definitely my favourite - it's so fucked, so moving. Tender, ragged and rocking in equal measure.

Baby Mellow My Mind aches so hard - the swell of pedal steel, touch of lonesome barroom piano, and Neil's voice actually breaking up.

Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown rocks. It sounds so triumphant in its hedonism yet the undercurrent is utterly bleak.

Other favourites - Everybody Knows, Rust, Zuma, Time Fades Away, Sleeps With Angels, Live Rust. Hell, there hardly any poor ones. I've not heard the infamous Landing On Water, but Are You Passionate was bloody awful. Trans is ace though.

Ragged Glory is great fun, one of his most satisfying rock records, but I wouldn't quite put it in the top rung of Neil albums.

Harvest - handful of great songs and some dreary stuff too. Overall, it's too slick, too polite. I like Neil a little scuffed around the edges.

Rust Never Sleeps has Powderfinger, for the win.

Anyone else notice how Apatow kept dropping the cover of Landing On Water all over Knocked Up. What's the deal with that? Consensus aropund these parts on that album?

Rust Never Sleeps for "Powderfinger", but also because of the individually peculiar time and place in which I first loved this record. Also, it's an incredibly balanced album in so many ways I can't be bothered to expand on here.

Consensus aropund these parts on that album?

I noticed the curious product placement too, Tal. There's an interesting thread here devoted to Landing on Water.

no "none of the above"????

just snuck in a vote for tonight's the night. right in the nick of time.

emotion of the less contained and calculated variety

me for tonights the night, too. its so close though - there are better songs on zuma and everybody knows, and almost enough to give the nod to one of them, but TTN takes it

Yeah, Tonight's The Night would be my second or third and very close.

Rust Never Sleeps by a hair, for side one and Powderfinger alone (though nearly sunk by Welfare Mothers).

Oh c'mon, Welfare Mothers is great! My favorite Neil Young throwaway.

DIVORCEE

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

a 3-way tie this time then.

Fair result.

Wait. Zuma should've been much higher, though.

c'est vrai

Someone voted for Everybody's Rockin' again.

One vote for "Zuma"! No way!! This poll is corrupt!!!

"On the Beach" - there's an ILM album if ever there was one

Sleeps With Angels is way too high. And Freedom is way too low.

The fact that Zuma ranked below Trans completely invalidates this poll.

So, basically, I'm the only person who voted for "Zuma"? Don't believe it.

I wasn't around when CSN(and sometimes Y) were at their peak, so apologies for the following somewhat naive question:

How much of Neil Young's popularity in the 70s can be attributed to his association with CSN? The thought never really occurred to me until I was checking out CSN(Y)'s Allmusic entry today, which says "it was the only American-based band to approach the overall societal impact of the Beatles".

Personally, I like Neil Young exponentially more than CSN(Y), so my gut feeling is that the majority of Neil Young's fans were there on account of his own talent. But was there a certain contingency of fans who cheered loudest for "Ohio" and "Helpless", contemplating to themselves at the Live Rust concerts that it would be better if CSN were up on stage too? Or was it more like "Why the hell does Neil Young ever play with them? They butchered 'Helpless'..."? Just wondering what the prevalent view was back in the day.

When CSN and sometimes Y reunited for a predictably horrible album in 1988, Neil begged off the obligatory tour, saying, "I dunno man, those guys need some serious practice."

And that Allmusic statement strikes me as comically absurd.

Yeah, I admit it raised my eyebrow as well, but then I go the ILM search function, and the second thing I read on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young C/D S/D thread is "i'm more interested in the fact that CSN(Y) (or whatever) were actually REALLY POPULAR and BIG -- as in springsteen in '85/outkast or britney spears BIG. that's such a radical sea-change in mass public musical taste that deserves some comment, no?"

On The Beach is very good, but would have voted Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, in fact i shall play it now

hi alex, how is the weather in denver? in frankfurt it has been raining most of the day. i would have voted <i>after the goldrush</i>, i think. but <i>on the beach</i> is a decent winner, too.

i will never learn the ilm html tags...

weird

it was the only American-based band to approach the overall societal impact of the Beatles

In their time their American album sales were HUGE. Their cultural cachet was such that their public greeted "Ohio" as a major statement. I'm wary of statements like AllMusic's, but the Shakey bio also makes the same suggestion.

CSNY were huge because the Byrds, the Hollies, and the Buffalo Springfield had all been huge before.

the new album is a good one, it's probably his best since psychedelic pill. i wouldn't really call it a return to form or anything though because it's just another decent late career neil young album, just a little bit better than the last few decent ones and a lot better than the most recent one which was dreadful.

it's most reminiscent of harvest moon but "soon i might be going" might be the most on the beach-esque thing he's done since on the beach

Thrasher is my favorite song of all time by anyone. I rarely listen to it and have avoided learning to play it on guitar or piano bc I think it’s kinda untouchable in a cosmic way.

This morning i was driving through beautiful middle of nowhere wester NY countryside having a pretty tough conversation with a close family member who was riding shotgun. Our relationship is in tatters, we’re both to blame, and we’re going our separate ways after many years of trying our best to repair things. She had a playlist going and out of nowhere came that introductory harmonica squeal (glissando?) and I pretty much lost it. Tears welled up. Everything made sense. Everything sucked but in a way kinda ruled. I had to tune out of the conversation for a minute and could only explain it to her later in the day. She was chill. Ah the power of Neil!!

cue up the archives 2 stills/young version of "separate ways" asap

i think neil needs to make an album that's entirely these long rambling mostly-acoustic tunes like "second song" and "soon i might be going", i really love both of those

he did that on barn - "they might be lost" is absolute canon NY in my book

It turns into a 12 min dub reggae jam. Too hot to be released unfortunately.

plenty badman

― Generalissimo Mitch McConnell is still dead (stevie), Wednesday, September 9, 2026 2:08 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

This brought to mind this comment from 8yrs ago:

picked up a copy of Live Rust recently, not sure that Cortez the Killer is improved with the addition of a cod-Jamaican accent, sorry Shakey

― Neil S, Monday, July 23, 2018 4:31 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

God, yes.

Unforgiveable.

And yet

i like barn plenty but it's not epics like 2/3rds of second song

Alcohol alcohol
Alcohol alcohol

^ awesome moment

I know I'm that one weird gear which won't stop clicking, but to me Second Song is yet another addition to my favorite-ever run of Neil Young albums. I love this old man.

TheNuNuNu’s love for late-period Neil is honestly inspiring.

i'd rank second song in my top 15 neil albums, it's wonderful that he's still putting out albums as strong as this, just incredibly inconsistently

but i guess the 2020s have been the most consistent he's been since the 90s, 3 out of 4 new albums have been pretty good! (talkin' to the trees is the dud)

tobo73 - thanks for sharing that story. i feel the same way about 'thrasher'. may we all have moments of reverie and silence led by magic songs when they call.

I had a weird moment with thrasher recently. Tbf I was stoned but my aunt just passed and she was my mom’s closest person and was awesome so it hit hard. She also liked Neil. I played thrasher sitting by myself outside before bed and felt her presence in a deep way. Not to say she was there but just the sound of it was giving me almost visceral memories of her. It was nice rip aunt maxie

RIP

Thrasher is my favorite song of all time by anyone. I rarely listen to it and have avoided learning to play it on guitar or piano bc I think it’s kinda untouchable in a cosmic way.

This morning i was driving through beautiful middle of nowhere wester NY countryside having a pretty tough conversation with a close family member who was riding shotgun. Our relationship is in tatters, we’re both to blame, and we’re going our separate ways after many years of trying our best to repair things. She had a playlist going and out of nowhere came that introductory harmonica squeal (glissando?) and I pretty much lost it. Tears welled up. Everything made sense. Everything sucked but in a way kinda ruled. I had to tune out of the conversation for a minute and could only explain it to her later in the day. She was chill. Ah the power of Neil!!

― tobo73,

love this

talking to the trees is such a vile album, lazy and ugly, his worst by a mile

Damn.

Sounds like I should really pick up this new one though.

I haven't kept up much with recent Neil myself--something I intended to remedy--but I'm on my third listen to the new one and I expect to keep it in rotation for a while.

The animated cover on iTunes is a bit freaky, though. His eyes seem to follow me!

new one is definitely the best in a while, aside from the doofy "Earth Girl" ... and yeah, very welcome after Talking to the Trees.

Yeah, "Earth Girl" is the dud of the album, easily, but the beautiful title song quickly washes away the bad taste.

Neil's playing his first real shows of 2026 this week (after canceling a planned summer tour of Europe) — will be interesting to see what's on the setlists.

lolz: https://www.reddit.com/r/neilyoung/s/4p6xlnHiAK

Hilarious. He flies commercial?!?!?!?

HE FLIES PONO AIRLINES

just listened to second song for the first time and "soon i might be going" had me in serious tears. my eyes are still wet. damn.

soon i might be going
and i wanted just to say
if i'm not here to see it
doesn't mean it's gone away

HE FLIES PONO AIRLINES

and he doesn’t look very happy about it!

pistachios are a pretty good coping mechanism tbh

otm

fired this up on my day off the other day and the air in the room seemed to stand still. transcends the category of "good for a late-period neil album" into "actual good neil albums" for me

This is the best record he’s done in ages. I agree that it’s not just good for late Neil - it’s a genuinely great album with no qualifiers. The tear-jerker moments far outweigh the silly moments. The sound itself is gorgeous.

uhhh on my 2nd listen and this is surely one of his best ever?

"Earth Girl" rules in all its dorky showtunez tackiness, fuck the haters <3

whole thing is astounding as a single body of work imho

sleeve otm, this is excellent

I'm actually starting to get worried that this is a Blackstar move, especially given the lyrical content and the fact that two songs were written by him ~60 years ago

stay healthy Neil, keep eating those pistachios

both barn and world record were pretty decent records so second song being this good isn't totally out of the blue or anything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2XcBL6kWn8

belated dolly

stay healthy Neil, keep eating those pistachios

He's looking pretty healthy! from last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8xt0kEr6I

^ kevin coyne is back?

I'm never going to be emotionally prepared for Neil dying

https://theonion.com/study-majority-of-middle-aged-men-lack-support-network-theyll-need-to-handle-neil-youngs-death/

I survived losing Ozzy. You'll be OK.

He and the Chrome Hearts are scheduled for Farm Aid (will be on CNN this Sat.)(Here's hoping some guesting with other performers there, esp. Willie and Margo.)

This really is a classic album, full stop. So many beautiful moments, especially the goosebumps when the buzz of the electric guitar finally starts up in "Soon I Might Be Going". Even better for it NOT leading to some ripping Horse solo or something, just some subtle color to the song.

Yeah, sounds like his testament, with spirit intact, slivers of bygone days, and voice dying out. Super unexpected for those songs to sound this big.