Neil Young - Sleeps With Angels

great album imo. I remember when it was released everyone was tying it in with cobain's suicide and I guess it's probably partially Neil's inspiration here but whatever the case it's beautiful music. Even his sludgy epics here are compelling. His last great record?

Not even close to his last great record (I'm convinced Le Noise will earn this distinction over time) but I love SWA. Such a great, stoned vibe throughout.

Yeah this is a good one. <3 Driveby

Just listened to this album the other day and its so dark lyrically.
I also love how Western Hero and Train of Love are the same song, with different lyrics.
In my top ten Neil albums for sure.

really expected to see more ian, la lechera, da croup, possibly Alfred on this thread. Anyway yes! Great eerie album, maybe it's not his last great album but it's the last neil album I really love.

Hi!

I didn't see the thread. Erm, yes, terrific album, marred by "Change Your Mind," one of his few ridiculous epics that doesn't deserve to run 80 hours. His best of the nineties after Ragged Glory, and like R.E.M.'s Monster a fixture at used CD bins.

His last classic album for sure.

Great album, awesome use in "Beau Travail."

Change Your Mind is gorgeous. Love those slower Crazy Horse jams.

Safeway Cart (as used, beautifully, in Beau Travail) is incredible, so eerie and unlike anything else he's done.

with Alfred on "Change Your Mind". was not the Crazy Horse album I expected in 1994.

the bridge in "Prime of Life" is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music Neil ever made. "when I first saw your face it took my breath away" followed by that squeal of guitar, almost like pedal steel.

and the flute!

yeah the transition back to the flute part after the bridge leaves the bridge unresolved; shadows rising up the wall I guess.

i don't know this album very well! i think i listened to it 2x after getting it from the library. i don't remember a single thing about it aside from the awful cover and the song title "piece of crap"
i do love slow crazy horse jams, eerie flutes, and neil young so i guess this is my wakeup call.

I love how promotion hyped the title track as this big epic ode to Kurt Cobain and instead we got this unsettling squall less than three minutes long. Perfect.

Probably haven't listened to it since the year it was released. I remember liking it at the time (especially "Change Your Mind"), but had reservations about some of the production choices and the tack-piano dealies.

yes, I remember sitting by the radio the night of the big premiere of "Sleeps with Angels", and being mystified that this was it. nice tune! but yeah, not an epic.

I read somewhere that the song 'Sleeps With Angels' bears a musical and lyrical similarity to a little-known Nirvana song called 'Oh, The Guilt.'

this was a big neil album for me -- it was the first new LP to come out after I had become a major, obsessive fan. and it seemed appropriately heavy at the time - a serious statement. i remember being so disappointed that he didn't tour for it. he still barely plays anything off of it live. i think he brought the title track back at some point briefly.

the cover really is awful, that hootie font and those soundgarden graphics. shd I buy this on vinyl for $60? I keep waiting for a reissue. not holding my breath though, really.

Lotta good stuff on this but I def prefer Greendale and maybe Americana just as far as great Crazy Horse albums since

Has a real unique vibe, moody and atypically instrumented for CH, so I don't wanna make too much out of a Taking Sides consideration. Part of why I'm hoping we'll someday see the release of Smoke is that it sounds like it has a similar left-field Crazy Horse tone.

i sort of wish greendale had a little more of the sleeps with angels approach instrumentally, just a little more sonic stuff filling it out.

part of Greendale's appeal for me is that it's so atypically spare - guitar/bass/drums rather than guitar/guitar/bass/drums - but it's long enough that i get the desire for more spice

"Prime Of Life" is so underrated

yeahhh, the backing vocals on "prime of life" are some of my fave crazy horse backing vocals.
fans of SWA should seek out the bridge concert from 94, lots of interesting takes on these songs.

Young's keening voice on "Prime of Life" is A+ spooky.

Despite being a big Neil fan I avoided this record for a long time cuz I hate the cover, ha, but yeah it's really great. It's cool to hear C Horse try and not play like themselves exactly. Great stuff.

Spotify reminded me I don't need to hear "Western Hero" again.

but I could hear "Safeway Cart" forever

i really do love that this is the cobain tribute record and crazy horse were around that time being crowned as the OG grunge kings and the album is half flute and tack piano and moody keyboards.

with at least two songs about "the ghetto"

Somewhat weirdly (because I assumed Harvest Moon charted higher), it was his first top 10 record since Rust Never Sleeps.

it was pretty hyped up - 5 stars in Rolling Stone!
and it was a used cd bin perennial for the rest of the decade iirc

Young & Crazy Horse should do a 20th-anniversary tour next year playing Sleeps, with R.E.M. opening playing Monster. Every ticket purchase comes with a used copy of each CD.

1994 fonts

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3e/Neil_Young_%26_Crazy_Horse-Sleeps_With_Angels_%28album_cover%29.jpg/220px-Neil_Young_%26_Crazy_Horse-Sleeps_With_Angels_%28album_cover%29.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Hootie_%26_the_Blowfish_-_Cracked_Rear_View.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/MightyJoeMoonalbumcover.png/220px-MightyJoeMoonalbumcover.png

Somewhat weirdly (because I assumed Harvest Moon charted higher), it was his first top 10 record since Rust Never Sleeps.

yet HM is double platinum. SWA fell off the charts quickly after its peak.

THE AC/DC RULE!!!!!!

Another 1994 album with a similar font and colour scheme:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vwnxAfRpL._SY450_.jpg

I think I've only heard this album all the way through once, twice tops. Based on that limited experience of it, I actually prefer Broken Arrow when it comes to post-Ragged Glory NY&CH stuff, but maybe I need to revisit.

you do!

I revisited "Broken Arrow" and found it wanting, alas. Pretty aimless, I thought, with a couple of standouts. I remember when "Broken Arrow" came out, and between that and "Mirror Ball" sort of stifled Neil's comeback momentum a tad.

Mirror Ball has some good shit on it. Way better than Broken Arrow.

Sleeps With Angels is a mixed bag for me, some of the darker ones like "Driveby" and "Safeway Cart" are pretty great but out of all the Neil records out there this is rarely the one I need to listen to at any given moment.

Love Broken Arrow; probably my favorite post-Ragged Glory Crazy Horse.

I was pretty apprehensive about Mirror Ball when it came out, and said apprehension was rewarded and reinforced with every listen. Pearl Jam is far too stiff and rigid in their playing and approach to back Neil.

Pearl Jam's is crappy drummer at the time is far too stiff and rigid in his playing and approach to back Neil.

"I'm The Ocean" gets better with every listen though.

bet Neil didn't mind when Jeff Ament started slappin' that bass.

"I'm the Ocean" is the main one I was thinking of

generally love the first half of mirror ball.

maybe Broken Arrow is better than I'm giving it credit for, but I honestly can't remember anything on it

Pearl Jam wasn't really the right band for him, but there are far more wrong bands he could have picked, I guess.

I mean, I suppose Booker T. and the MGs was a weird choice, too. I like how Neil has stayed chums with Pearl Jam, at least.

xp yeah, but they don't play too much like "pearl jam" on that record, do they? other than a few misplaced bass slaps... [i say this w/o having heard a pearl jam record in full since 1994, so grain of salt]

I dunno, it sounds like at least one frame of Pearl Jam mind, their plodding side (vs. their Hendrix side). They keep it simple and mostly stay out of the way.

For me it's not so much that they do or don't play like "Pearl Jam"; it's that they sound anonymous and devoid of character. Granted, in certain contexts (Neil being one), the facelessness of a backing band wouldn't necessarily be an impediment; but on Mirror Ball I feel like that anonymity is keeping the songs from really taking off.

"Mirror Ball" sounding pretty good this afternoon, actually. Songs are solid. Pearl Jam, no Pearl Jam ... whatever it takes, I guess. No more personality-free than the Neil benchers on, say, "Living With War."

It doesn't hurt that PJ encourages Neil to keep the tempos up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqhTj23YRDY

i was in no position to dig neil young at the time - though i think i liked to listen to mirror ball later - so i listened to this mainly because nirvana, and man 'piece of crap' just seemed so dumb and cranky to me at the time, really colored my reaction to the whole album

Someone on the Hoffman forums said they thought “my heart” sounded like a song Kermit would sing and now I can’t unsee that frog sitting on a fence singing it to a sunset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IS1Wir4KWg

such a good album

safeway cart one of the coolest, darkest grooves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXgnpFz1HUk

This is probably my favorite NY album after Tonight’s the Night. Must have played it 50-100 times back in 2008-2009, always an instant flashback to that time.

love it. love the wheezy flute in “prime of life”.

Still his last great LP for me but I’m fond of Prairie Wind and, for some reason, Peace Trail.

I think the sum is better than the parts here, with My Heart at the top and Change Your Mind (interminable and bad chorus) at the bottom. Still love it to bits though.

The cover looks like it should be part of the X Files opening.

hehe I enjoy Peace Trail, good use of auto tune on "My Pledge"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YW5KrCf-iY

Yes! That’s my favourite single track of his from the past decade

love it. love the wheezy flute in “prime of life”.

― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead)

xpost Peace Trail is great, a last gasp of Neil weirdness

thanks for the revive. hadn't listened to this in like ten years probably. a bit perplexing that i'm now older than neil was when he put this out. guh.

really love "western hero". still think "change your mind" is one of his best songs.

"Safeway Cart," "Prime of Life," "Piece of Crap," jams all. "Change Your Mind" doesn't work, though.

you, alfred, you're wrong this time. *looks around, waves hands* you're all wrong!

"Change Your Mind" is great, come on now.

given the directions of influence it feels weird, but to me lots of Sleeps With Angels feels like Neil doing a Wipers album

by which i mean it rules, and i've never understood why a lot of people pick Ragged Glory over it

All that stuff about “the magic touch” and the repetitive chorus is a bit cringe for me, I’m afraid

by which i mean it rules, and i've never understood why a lot of people pick Ragged Glory over it

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz),

The relentless of the guitar attack and the absence of ballads represented a break from the '80s.

Never heard this album - I'm a Neil sceptic - but wow Safeway Cart is fantastic. Like Tortoise doing Set the Controls, or sumthin.

Yeah, "Safeway Cart" is pretty awesome. Especially loved it when it came up in Claire Denis's Beau Travail (one of my very favorite films).

Neil is heavily revisiting this one (and Mirror Ball!) on his solo tour thus far. Considering I'm seeing him next week, and this is a key album for me, I'm p psyched to know I might hear some of these cuts live.

Happy 30th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IS1Wir4KWg

Didn't see that video had been posted upthread. So...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovum-GjYWKQ

Did he ever make an album as varied (or consistently good) as this again? I'm sentimentally fond of Prairie Wind, not sure that's the answer though.

My most or second most listened to Neil album, held at No. 2 in the UK behind my most or second most listened to Prince album, released concurrently

Went through a listening of Neil’s grunge period last year. He was definitely on a roll, probably his 2nd great run of records.

Freedom
Ragged Glory
Arc Weld / Way Down in the Rust Bucket
Harvest Moon
Sleeps with Angels
Mirror Ball
Broken Arrow
Year of the Horse

xxp I would say Psychedelic Pill is solid if not nearly as varied.

and I agree about his “grunge” run, total magic.

yeah otm