Silver & Polled: A poll to determine the best Neil Young studio album of the last 20 years

duh, ragged glory.

those first four records are tough to choose from. Might have to rep for Broken Arrow though! When it came out I thought it was super half-assed, but now I love it. One chord Crazy Horse jamzzzz.

crazy that there were four years betw. Broken Arrow and Silver and Gold! Is that the longest he's ever gone between studio releases? I guess there was that CSNY record somewhere in there.

This would probably generate more interesting discussion if you'd polled the 2000s albums only. As it is, I go with Freedom: the Eldorado cuts are strong, "Crime in the City" and "Wrecking Ball" are great, "Too Far Gone" is a concise weeper finally released here, and I can't deny "Rockin' in the Free World" even though I can see why some might find it dated.

ragged glory by a mile.

Would vote Ragged Glory, but I think I like the Weld versions of a lot of those songs more. Nastier.

The synthesizer on "Someday" is the only thing that's dated on Freedom.

Sleeps With Angels is still great too, for the most part. Weirdly, I heard "Change Your Mind" in a Walgreens recently.

The two Ronstadt duets on Freedom are pretty great too, especially "Hangin' on a Limb".

I really got into Sleeps w Angels for a while. It's the only record where the Sonic Youth/Godfather of Punk thing is explicit.

It's a shame that he crapped out so hard after Broken Arrow -- he was on arguably the greatest roll of his career at that point.

whoa---"Change Your Mind" is the 15 minute mid-album epic, right? Weird choice for Walgreens! I think that song kinda kills the album. "Western Hero" sounds too much like "Driveby" for things to be going well at that point, and then 15 minutes of meandering Horse. I want to say that it's just a sequencing thing, though I'm not sure where else I'd put it on the album; maybe I'd cut it.

I think it was a radio edit ... I love that song on the album, though I have it on vinyl where it takes up a whole side. So it's easy enough to skip. I just think the album kinda loses steam at the end with "Piece of Crap" which is just by the numbers cranky Neil. Love "Prime Of Life," "Safeway Cart," "Driveby" ...

through the first four songs Sleeps With Angels is great, but then it starts to wander. I really like "Piece of Crap", esp. in the album's sequence because the album needs some energy by that point.

Ragged Glory easy

Ragged Glory - for Fuckin' Up/Over and Over back-to-back alone and the Farmer John cover's a nice touch too - but if live albums and ephemera were allowed I'd have to go for Arc/Weld or the Dead Man soundtrack.

I would say Ragged Glory if not for Weld - all the definitive versions of the best stuff is on the live album. So Harvest Moon, with the codicil that it is really only because of associated memories and that it probably isn't that great without them.

ooh yeah Dead Man I would vote for that

through the first four songs Sleeps With Angels is great, but then it starts to wander

Has this been polled? I mean – "Safeway Cart"! "Piece of Crap"! "Drive By"! "Sleeps with Angels"!

This album is another perennial denizen of used CD bins.

Broken Arrow just narrowly over Ragged Glory. Special shout-out to Mirrorball for being the first Neil Young full-length I'd ever heard. Yes, I do have to thank the Pearl Jam connection for making me fall head-over-heels for ol' Neil.

haha, it really is a used cd bin fixture -- it must've gotten some kind of bump from that 5 star Rolling Stone review, and then 85% of the people who bought it hated it.

the Cobain "connection" helped too.

yeah, that too.

100% Sleeps With Angels. love it.

then in orderprobably Ragged Glory, Freedom, Harvest Moon, Silver & Gold, Prairie Wind, Broken Arrow, Mirror Ball, Are You Passionate?, Living with War, Chrome Dreams II, Fork in the Road, Greendale

Trans Am is very underrated on Sleeps

yeah, i like that one. Kind of interesting how Sleeps With Angels is his most "studio" album. A lot of those songs have either never been played live or just very rarely.

Freedom

I have to be dull and agree with quite a few others: Ragged Glory, followed by Sleeps with Angels. I don' t have some of these, mind you (Are You Passionate, Prairie Wind). I enjoyed listening to Chrome Dreams II, but it didn't really come together as an album

i really tried to like Prairie Wind, but it is boring ... Not many Neil Young albums you can say that about! Even when he's bad, he's rarely boring.

They all have at least a few good songs on them. Of these records, I tend to gravitate towards the longer, heavier stuff, which ranks with the best loud music he ever did, like I'm The Ocean, Going Home & Ordinary People.

Ironically he was much better at folky mature music in his 20s.

"I'm the Ocean" is better than every song he's written subsequently.

Harvest Moon is pretty boring.

yeah Harvest Moon is like 50% of a good record

"I'm the Ocean" is better than every song he's written subsequently.

Yes. On this list, the only song that I like as much is Ordinary People, which doesn't really count cause it was recorded in 1988, but released in 2007.

"I'm the Ocean" is better than every song he's written subsequently.

truth bomb

Freedom, because it's the best collection of songs. Ragged Glory was a breath of fresh air when it came out amidst synthesizers and hair metal, but now I find some of the solos drag on a bit too long.

Agree about "I'm the Ocean," I always wondered why "Downtown" was released as the single. I think a lot more people would have been turned on to Neil had "I'm the Ocean" received some radio airplay.

i'm with all the "Ragged Glory by a country mile" folks. it sounds like an album by the best bar band ever. and it might be my personal favorite road trip album.

89-94 is pretty good 2nd wind for Neil Young, especially with the live albums as the Unplugged and especially Weld are both pretty good. I think Mirror Ball and Broken Arrow seem pretty shambled and the tunes just are not as strong. I got Silver and Gold, listened to it twice and put it on the shelf. I've heard some of the rest, but I haven't really followed it much.

Sleeps with Angels does kind of capture that doom vibe from the On the Beach/Tonight's the Night. There is some nice oddball Neil Young on that one. It is probably a bit long.

Freedom does have some really good songs, some of which like Crime in the City kind of benefit from the balls to the wall treatment on Weld (but the studio versions are pretty good too).

Ragged Glory is the one where it comes together though, definitely up with the other Crazy Horse great albums.

The title track from Fork in the Road is among my favorite tracks of the year: cranky, demented even.

Any one passionate about Are You Passionate??

I haven't heard all of these (I want to), but I voted Harvest Moon. I love that record & I have a very particular history with it.

A CD-80 of the best stuff from these albums would be 'mazing.

Or would it need to be a double CD?

"Passionate" worst Neil evar, btw. Though I must confess I haven't heard some of his other stuff that might be worse. I hated "Passionate" so much I haven't heard a note he's released since, except the Live Aid "When God Made Me" (a story too long and boring to recount).

most of it's pretty bad, but I really like 'differently' on AYP

Someone needs to get staggerlee that CD-80 to prove he actually is missing out on some decent stuff. I have trouble recommending any single album since he gave up, but there are a lot of good tracks on the albums since!

Fork In The Road is actually really good. It's not going to make you forget After the Gold Rush, but it has to be the best concept album about an electric-powered car ever made.

I hated "Passionate" so much I haven't heard a note he's released

Does that include Ordinary People from Chrome Dreams II? Because that is one of the great Neil Young songs. 18+ minutes, and it's still not long enough.

eh

I like all the songs on Harvest Moon a lot but I can't think of a time in the last five years, say, where I wanted to hear the album.

My vote's for Ragged Glory, but 89-95 was one hell of a run.

The version of ordinary people on CDII is hella shitty though. the live versions from the bluenotes tours are the real killers.

The 80s and 90s covers are pretty bad too. Freedom still makes me laugh.

what, you don't like his hat?

haha: the hat, the fonts, the pants, the hair...I remember thinking at the time even that it was a disaster, and at the time wearing tie dye wasn't quite as silly as it seems today.

That's a nightmare about the Greendale concert. Ugh.

I remember the first time I saw him, it was an acoustic show a few months before Freedom was released. He played Rockin' In the Free World twice.

At the beginning, he asked the crowd if they were all having a good time. He got the standard big concert roar, and he replies, "Well that's great. It's just too bad my songs are all so sad."

i've plugged this elsewhere, but if you haven't dl'ed it ... here's my comp of rarities from Neil in the 90s: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/167843967/the-return-of-bad-news-the-godfather-of-crunk

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

sleeps with angels

Sleeps With Angels. There are some beautiful songs on there of course, but what's really interesting about it as an album is that he pushes himself, and in particular, Crazy Horse into new territory. Ragged Glory shows Neil and the Horse plugging in to glorious effect, but as satisfying as it is, it doesn't really offer many surprises. But on SWA you've got the spooky desolation of Safeway Cart, with the howling harmonica and weirdly post-punk bass pulse; the black cloud of guitars and plain weird songwriting of the title track; Neil's terrible, but oddly affecting, flute playing in Prime of Life... I love Trans Am too, and Change Your Mind justifies its length. The ballads are beautiful too, especially My Heart with the avant-saloon tack piano. I think it's one of his very best albums, not just his best of the past 20 years. He was on such a creative roll at this point, as Dead Man and the awesome, and hugely underrated, Year Of The Horse live album attest. He basically invents Earth Mk II on those last two - Western doom. The version of Danger Bird lurches like Asva.

Yeah, Neil should guest on Earth's next album, 4 realz. Makes more sense than Bill Frisell! But yeah, I agree -- SWA is one of the few albums in this poll where Neil isn't just making 'Neil Young music.' There are some interesting left turns stylistically. And the bridge in "Prime of Life" ("when I first saw your face...") is gorgeous.

Are there any versions of "Love And Only Love" out there that out-rock the version on Weld? The guitar solo on that recording has to be one of the loudest amp-meltdowns ever put to tape.

16. slip away

i love harvest moon way more than i should

would like to add that I might have voted for Unplugged, which i think is fantastic, if it were on the poll!

ended up voting ragged glory like everyone else though.

wait where did you get that screen name

haha it's not a diss, you just share a name with a british football referee who had to disarm a streaker at a soccer match...it's in the highlight clip towards the bottom with the topless woman in the freeze screen, quote is from the commentators of the match:

ITT: Streakers

no i didn't think it was a diss at all, that's hilarious

nice job on SWA, Stew.

Very kind of sir. I'm keen to hear Greendale - I know it has its fans. Nobody would claim it's a lost masterpiece, but it's certainly intriguing. Neil on the next Earth album: yes! It should totally happen. I recall an interview with Stephen O'Malley where he readily admitted his love of the Dead Man soundtrack, so Neil would sound good on a Sunn 0))) record too!

neil on sunno))) would be great.

i was thinking the other day that crazy horse is one of the only non-metal/hard rock bands that could be called "heavy"

17. Just Singing a Song (my fave NY song in forever)
18. Johnny Magic

xp to Alfred

yeah (my pick also, btw)!

Maybe Jarmusch can hook Neil up with the appropriate doom droners. Isn't there a buncha that stuff on the Limits of Control sdtk?

i was hoping after booker t. played on are you passionate? that greenslade was gonna guest on greendale. very disappointed

Another vote for Sleeps With Angels here (very nicely put, Stew) - though Ragged Glory and Silver & Gold are both great too. I've never heard Are You Passionate or the latest three albums - am I missing much?

not really, no

S&G is a "great" album?

I think so, yeah. I know he's done plenty of records like it but it's one of the better ones.

Just cued up Greendale on Spotify and on the opening track (Someday) Neil sounds more like Howe Gelb than Howe Gelb! I.e. he sounds like Neil crossed with Lou Reed. Really hushed, conversational delivery. This is great! Lovely downtuned acoustic guitar. Glad I took the plunge. The rest isn't as strong, but there are some pretty good midpaced Crazy Horse chuggers which give Neil plenty of space to tell his odd stories of village life. I'd love to see the film - if it's anywhere as gloriously batshit as Human Highway then it's bound to be a treat.
Are You Passionate is a real stinker though, which is a real disappointment considering the calibre of collaborators. Let's Roll. Let's not.

the film is....i can't even say.

even I haven't had the guts to watch it

Sorry, that first track on Greendale is called Bandit. Be The Rain is curious - a save-the-environment tune with cooing female backing singers, and Neil ranting through a megaphone. He repeats the technique on Sun Green. I guess this is what prompted one reviewer to compare the album to The Fall! Bringin' Down Dinner sees Neil bust out the harmonium/pump organ. A strange record - one that probably makes more sense as a stage show - and no masterpiece, but unfairly maligned for sure.

So torn between Ragged Glory and Sleeps with Angels, one the dark beer of the soul, the other a distorted funeral march. Also I am one of those rare people who really digs Greendale, awkward farm hippie story and all.

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

seems about right though prairie wind, chrome dreams II, and fork in the road deserve better than tying with AYP

lolz I was at the WORLD PREMIERE of Greendale

it is a goofy movie, dunno if I would call it good.

all the actors mouthing the lyrics as if they're speaking them gets really old

the greendale show though, that cabaret arena tour selling those "bushco" tshirts and "in big oil we trust" or whatever bumper stickers, was pretty refreshing, plus served notice during some hellish, bullshit months that not everybody fell for the wmd line. also set the stage for "let's impeach the president." in light of where he went lyrically i still wonder how sincere "let's roll" was

oh I think it was plenty sincere. Neil knows a good folktale when he hears one

neil seems like a dude that sorta changes his viewpoints by the minute, but i don't doubt he means it all

I love Ragged Glory as a concept, but for some reason that record leaves me kinda cold.

you know somehow silver and gold escaped my notice, i wasn't really in a neil folky mood when that came out...this is a really nice record, much better songs than harvest moon

yeah but the two best songs were written in the 80s

ah neil always does that though, like "too far gone" on freedom from 89 was from chrome dreams, etc.. which ones?

i remember it blowing my mind when i got archives and realized he'd written the basic melody/change to "barstool blues" off zuma (one of my top 10 neil songs) in a different for when he was like 17

title track and razor love

yeah i was gonna say i swear i've heard razor love on a bootleg or something, after you said that i looked ahead on the tracklist

buffalo springfield again totally overcomes a pretty shoddy premise and title against all odds to be a great little song

i like silver & gold quite a bit -- "red sun" is another great one. would lovvvve to hear the original "razor love", which i guess was recorded for the Trans follow up that never was.

huh i didn't know there was a trans followup? like more with vocorder?

honestly the "computer" half of trans is right up there for me, i just think he wussed out on the concept (or probably more accurately was just being neil and lost his train of thought) by putting in normal songs

Don't know what I voted for on this poll, but I think I bought Freedom the week that it came out and fuck - that first time I heard Don't Cry and Eldorado, talk about the hair standing up on your head. Couldn't really believe what I was hearing, especially that bit in the latter where it basically sounds like someone letting off a cannon in your room.

xp oops, i was actually thinking of this, which I guess is pre-Trans. and doesn't feature "razor love"
Island In The Sun

Neil Young, 1982

Little Thing Called Love
Hold On To Your Love
Like An Inca
If You Got Love
Raining In Paradise
Soul Of A Woman
Big Pearl
Bad News (likely)

Note: the below titles are pure speculation:
Silver and Gold???
Johnny???
Produced by:
???

Musicians:
???

Notes:
This supposedly is the track listing to the unreleased album Island In The Sun. This information has not been officially released by Neil, so there is absolutely NO guarantee that this information is correct.

A December, 1995 interview in Mojo Magazine had the following exchange over Island In The Sun:

Mojo: The release of Trans began your ill-starred liaison with Geffen Records. Actually, hadn't you already offered them an album entitled Island In The Sun which they refused?
Neil: Yeah, I offered that to Geffen just before Trans. It was a tropical thing all about sailing, ancient civilisations, islands and water. Actually two or three songs ended up on Trans.

The songs Neil is referring to are "Like An Inca", "Hold On To Your Love", and "Little Thing Called Love".

but "shakey" has a bit about neil working on "razor love" sometime in the early 80s, working on the drum machine pattern for months or something.

& yeah, those insane guitar effects on don't cry and eldorado still knock me out, 20 years after first hearing them.

wow "red sun" is an amazing amazing song