Neil Young album

Album   Released Publisher Rating
Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (DVD) 2009 Warner Bros.
Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (Blu-Ray) 2009 Warner Bros.
Fork in the Road (CD/DVD) 2009 Reprise
Chrome Dreams II (CD/DVD) 2007 Reprise
Chrome Dreams II (B&N Exclusive) 2007 Warner Bros.
Live at Massey Hall 1971 (CD/DVD) 2007 Reprise
Live at the Fillmore East (CD/DVD) 2006 Reprise
Living with War - "In the Beginning" 2006 Reprise
Prairie Wind (Bonus DVD) 2005 Reprise
Greatest Hits (Bonus DVD) 2004 Reprise
Greatest Hits (Bonus 7") 2004 Classics
Greendale (DVD Audio) 2003 Reprise
Greendale (Second Edition) 2003 Reprise
Road Rock, Vol. 1 (DVD Audio) 2000 Reprise
Back to the topNeil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
June 02, 2009
Label:
Warner Bros.
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
Contemporary Pop/Rock
Album Rock
Any project in the works for two decades is bound to generate its fair share of myths and so it is with Neil Young's Archives, a series of a multi-disc box sets chronicling Young's history. Originally envisioned in the late '80s as a Decade II, the project quickly mutated into a monster covering every little corner of Neil's career. With its escalation came delays, so many that it sometimes seemed that the project never really existed; it was just a shared fantasy between Neil and his faithful. During that long, long wait, fans held tight to the idea that Archives was a clearinghouse of rarities similar to Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series, a treasure trove of unreleased songs and epochal live performances that would trump whatever bootleggers had to offer. While rare and unheard music is certainly a key part of Archives, particularly on the first disc covering the pre-history of 1963-1965, viewing this project as merely a CD box set is wildly misleading. Neil Young has designed Archives as nothing less than an immersive multimedia autobiography, an interactive experience where the music, text, video, and pictures feed off each other, creating a virtual journey through Neil's past.

Because this is a biography, Archives, Vol. 1 winds up relying very heavily on previously released recordings, containing almost all of Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest, key Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cuts, and the previously released archival live albums Live at the Fillmore East 1970 and Live at Massey Hall 1971. Such a large chunk of familiar material is bound to disappoint any listener expecting Archives to be a rarities-only set, forgetting that its origin was as a sequel to Decade, the triple-LP set that mixed up hits with unreleased tunes. Archives follows a similar blueprint, excavating many rare gems -- some, like "Bad Fog of Loneliness" quite familiar to bootleggers; some, like an extraordinary "Dance Dance Dance" cut with Graham Nash, not -- and placing them neatly alongside his well-known jewels, so the end effect isn't a rush of discovery but ongoing quiet revelation, an impression underpinned by the set's leisurely pace.

The entire Archives is designed to trace Neil's evolution, to explain how his dead ends were really detours and how his mood swings weren't all that wild; it preserves Young's history as he perceived it. To that end, the DVD and especially BluRay editions of the set are essential to understanding both the project and Neil himself, so much so that the CD edition feels almost like an afterthought, a skimming of the surface of a deep lake. Often, Young delayed Archives due to the limits of technology, a claim that seemed no more than an excuse to keep the project incomplete, but Archives in its BluRay incarnation lives up to all of Neil's promises over the years, coming close to collecting everything -- lyrics, press, artwork, TV performances, doodles, scraps of every sort -- in one place, letting users linger for as long as they'd like in a specific era. Surely, the sound quality on BluRay is extraordinary -- the music leaps out of the speakers yet never sounds overly clean, digital, or modern -- but it's the interactive nature of the set that impresses most. While the DVD set also is complexly interactive, BluRay is designed to be continually updated via the Internet, so Young can add songs and videos whenever he wants, placing the new material as a virtual pushpin on each disc's time line. Acting as a supplement to the text biographies on each disc -- the biography only covering the years on the disc -- the time line places Young's evolution on a broader scale and is illuminated by this extra material, such as a downright thrilling CSNY performance of "Down by the River" on ABC-TV, but this is merely a teaser for the main event: the virtual filing cabinet, where every song on the set has its own folder bulging with handwritten lyrics, press clips, photos, snippets of in-concert introductions, alternate takes -- the list is almost endless and it's always different, so it's easy to flip back to a song and discover a bunch of information you missed the first time around. Add to this, there are an untold number of Easter eggs, sometimes housing the best stuff here, such as videos of Young combing through the archives and reminiscing in 1997, or a 15-minute film clip of Young discovering a CSNY bootleg while record shopping in the early '70s and then taking it from the store.

This level of detail may suggest the one serious flaw in Archives: it cannot be taken casually. It demands complete, undivided attention, requiring users to dig as deep as they'd like, and it's no stretch to say that it could take a week or two to discover everything here. Also, the set comes so tantalizingly close to being complete, it's a major irritation to have one song lopped off of each the albums; surely, the extra storage space on DVD and BluRay could have allowed for complete runs of Everybody, Gold Rush, and Harvest. But really, these complaints feel churlish when faced with a box that is an embarrassment of riches, offering so much more than anybody could have imagined during that long, long wait. Not only was the wait worth it, Archives feels like it was 20 years in the making. It's an extraordinary work that redefines what an autobiography can be.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Aurora N/A N/A
2 The Sultan N/A N/A
3 I Wonder N/A N/A
4 Mustang N/A N/A
5 I'll Love You Forever N/A N/A
6 (I'm a Man And) I Can't Cry N/A N/A
7 Hello Lonely Woman N/A N/A
8 Casting Me Away from You N/A N/A
9 There Goes My Babe N/A N/A
10 Sugar Mountain N/A N/A
11 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing N/A N/A
12 Runaround Babe N/A N/A
13 The Ballad of Peggy Grover N/A N/A
14 The Rent Is Always Due N/A N/A
15 Extra, Extra N/A N/A
16 I Wonder (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
17 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
18 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong N/A N/A
19 Burned N/A N/A
20 Out of My Mind N/A N/A
21 Down, Down, Down N/A N/A
22 Kahuna Sunset N/A N/A
23 Mr. Soul N/A N/A
24 Sell Out N/A N/A
25 Down to the Wire N/A N/A
26 Expecting to Fly N/A N/A
27 Slowly Burning N/A N/A
28 One More Sign N/A N/A
29 Broken Arrow N/A N/A
30 I Am a Child N/A N/A
31 Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It? (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
32 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
33 For What It's Worth (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
34 "This Is It! " (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
35 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere N/A N/A
36 The Loner N/A N/A
37 Birds N/A N/A
38 What Did You Do to My Life? N/A N/A
39 The Last Trip to Tulsa N/A N/A
40 Here We Are in the Years N/A N/A
41 I've Been Waiting for You N/A N/A
42 The Old Laughing Lady N/A N/A
43 I've Loved Her So Long N/A N/A
44 Sugar Mountain N/A N/A
45 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing N/A N/A
46 Down by the River N/A N/A
47 Cowgirl in the Sand N/A N/A
48 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere N/A N/A
49 The Emperor of Wyoming (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
50 Sugar Mountain (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
51 The Old Laughing Lady (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
52 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
53 On the Way Home (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
54 I've Loved Her So Long (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
55 I Am a Child (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
56 1956 Bubblegum Disaster (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
57 The Last Trip to Tulsa (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
58 Broken Arrow (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
59 Whiskey Boot Hill (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
60 Expecting to Fly (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
61 Cinnamon Girl N/A N/A
62 Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets) N/A N/A
63 Round and Round (It Won't Be Long) N/A N/A
64 Oh Lonesome Me N/A N/A
65 Birds N/A N/A
66 Everybody's Alone N/A N/A
67 I Believe in You N/A N/A
68 Sea of Madness N/A N/A
69 Dance Dance Dance N/A N/A
70 Country Girl N/A N/A
71 Helpless N/A N/A
72 It Might Have Been N/A N/A
73 I Believe in You (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
74 I've Loved Her So Long (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
75 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
76 Winterlong (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
77 Down by the River (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
78 Wonderin' (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
79 Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
80 Cowgirl in the Sand (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
81 Tell Me Why N/A N/A
82 After the Gold Rush N/A N/A
83 Only Love Can Break Your Heart N/A N/A
84 Wonderin' N/A N/A
85 Don't Let It Bring You Down N/A N/A
86 Cripple Creek Ferry N/A N/A
87 Southern Man N/A N/A
88 Till the Morning Comes N/A N/A
89 When You Dance, I Can Really Love N/A N/A
90 Ohio N/A N/A
91 Only Love Can Break Your Heart N/A N/A
92 Tell Me Why N/A N/A
93 Music Is Love N/A N/A
94 See the Sky About to Rain N/A N/A
95 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
96 When You Dance, I Can Really Love (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
97 Birds (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
98 On the Way Home (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
99 Tell Me Why (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
100 Old Man (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
101 Journey Through the Past (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
102 Helpless (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
103 Love in Mind (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
104 A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold (Suite) (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
105 Cowgirl in the Sand (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
106 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
107 There's a World (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
108 Bad Fog of Loneliness (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
109 The Needle and the Damage Done (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
110 Ohio (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
111 See the Sky About to Rain (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
112 Down by the River (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
113 Dance Dance Dance (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
114 I Am a Child (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
115 Heart of Gold N/A N/A
116 The Needle and the Damage Done N/A N/A
117 Bad Fog of Loneliness N/A N/A
118 Old Man N/A N/A
119 Heart of Gold N/A N/A
120 Dance Dance Dance N/A N/A
121 A Man Needs a Maid N/A N/A
122 Harvest N/A N/A
123 Journey Through the Past N/A N/A
124 Are You Ready for the Country? N/A N/A
125 Alabama N/A N/A
126 Words (Between the Lines of Age) N/A N/A
127 Soldier N/A N/A
128 War Song N/A N/A
129 Journey Through the Past: A Film by Neil Young N/A N/A
Back to the topNeil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (Blu-Ray)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
June 02, 2009
Label:
Warner Bros.
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
Contemporary Pop/Rock
Album Rock
Any project in the works for two decades is bound to generate its fair share of myths and so it is with Neil Young's Archives, a series of a multi-disc box sets chronicling Young's history. Originally envisioned in the late '80s as a Decade II, the project quickly mutated into a monster covering every little corner of Neil's career. With its escalation came delays, so many that it sometimes seemed that the project never really existed; it was just a shared fantasy between Neil and his faithful. During that long, long wait, fans held tight to the idea that Archives was a clearinghouse of rarities similar to Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series, a treasure trove of unreleased songs and epochal live performances that would trump whatever bootleggers had to offer. While rare and unheard music is certainly a key part of Archives, particularly on the first disc covering the pre-history of 1963-1965, viewing this project as merely a CD box set is wildly misleading. Neil Young has designed Archives as nothing less than an immersive multimedia autobiography, an interactive experience where the music, text, video, and pictures feed off each other, creating a virtual journey through Neil's past.

Because this is a biography, Archives, Vol. 1 winds up relying very heavily on previously released recordings, containing almost all of Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest, key Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cuts, and the previously released archival live albums Live at the Fillmore East 1970 and Live at Massey Hall 1971. Such a large chunk of familiar material is bound to disappoint any listener expecting Archives to be a rarities-only set, forgetting that its origin was as a sequel to Decade, the triple-LP set that mixed up hits with unreleased tunes. Archives follows a similar blueprint, excavating many rare gems -- some, like "Bad Fog of Loneliness" quite familiar to bootleggers; some, like an extraordinary "Dance Dance Dance" cut with Graham Nash, not -- and placing them neatly alongside his well-known jewels, so the end effect isn't a rush of discovery but ongoing quiet revelation, an impression underpinned by the set's leisurely pace.

The entire Archives is designed to trace Neil's evolution, to explain how his dead ends were really detours and how his mood swings weren't all that wild; it preserves Young's history as he perceived it. To that end, the DVD and especially BluRay editions of the set are essential to understanding both the project and Neil himself, so much so that the CD edition feels almost like an afterthought, a skimming of the surface of a deep lake. Often, Young delayed Archives due to the limits of technology, a claim that seemed no more than an excuse to keep the project incomplete, but Archives in its BluRay incarnation lives up to all of Neil's promises over the years, coming close to collecting everything -- lyrics, press, artwork, TV performances, doodles, scraps of every sort -- in one place, letting users linger for as long as they'd like in a specific era. Surely, the sound quality on BluRay is extraordinary -- the music leaps out of the speakers yet never sounds overly clean, digital, or modern -- but it's the interactive nature of the set that impresses most. While the DVD set also is complexly interactive, BluRay is designed to be continually updated via the Internet, so Young can add songs and videos whenever he wants, placing the new material as a virtual pushpin on each disc's time line. Acting as a supplement to the text biographies on each disc -- the biography only covering the years on the disc -- the time line places Young's evolution on a broader scale and is illuminated by this extra material, such as a downright thrilling CSNY performance of "Down by the River" on ABC-TV, but this is merely a teaser for the main event: the virtual filing cabinet, where every song on the set has its own folder bulging with handwritten lyrics, press clips, photos, snippets of in-concert introductions, alternate takes -- the list is almost endless and it's always different, so it's easy to flip back to a song and discover a bunch of information you missed the first time around. Add to this, there are an untold number of Easter eggs, sometimes housing the best stuff here, such as videos of Young combing through the archives and reminiscing in 1997, or a 15-minute film clip of Young discovering a CSNY bootleg while record shopping in the early '70s and then taking it from the store.

This level of detail may suggest the one serious flaw in Archives: it cannot be taken casually. It demands complete, undivided attention, requiring users to dig as deep as they'd like, and it's no stretch to say that it could take a week or two to discover everything here. Also, the set comes so tantalizingly close to being complete, it's a major irritation to have one song lopped off of each the albums; surely, the extra storage space on DVD and BluRay could have allowed for complete runs of Everybody, Gold Rush, and Harvest. But really, these complaints feel churlish when faced with a box that is an embarrassment of riches, offering so much more than anybody could have imagined during that long, long wait. Not only was the wait worth it, Archives feels like it was 20 years in the making. It's an extraordinary work that redefines what an autobiography can be.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Aurora N/A N/A
2 The Sultan N/A N/A
3 I Wonder N/A N/A
4 Mustang N/A N/A
5 I'll Love You Forever N/A N/A
6 (I'm a Man And) I Can't Cry N/A N/A
7 Hello Lonely Woman N/A N/A
8 Casting Me Away from You N/A N/A
9 There Goes My Babe N/A N/A
10 Sugar Mountain N/A N/A
11 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing N/A N/A
12 Runaround Babe N/A N/A
13 The Ballad of Peggy Grover N/A N/A
14 The Rent Is Always Due N/A N/A
15 Extra, Extra N/A N/A
16 I Wonder (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
17 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
18 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong N/A N/A
19 Burned N/A N/A
20 Out of My Mind N/A N/A
21 Down, Down, Down N/A N/A
22 Kahuna Sunset N/A N/A
23 Mr. Soul N/A N/A
24 Sell Out N/A N/A
25 Down to the Wire N/A N/A
26 Expecting to Fly N/A N/A
27 Slowly Burning N/A N/A
28 One More Sign N/A N/A
29 Broken Arrow N/A N/A
30 I Am a Child N/A N/A
31 Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It? (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
32 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
33 For What It's Worth (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
34 "This Is It! " (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
35 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere N/A N/A
36 The Loner N/A N/A
37 Birds N/A N/A
38 What Did You Do to My Life? N/A N/A
39 The Last Trip to Tulsa N/A N/A
40 Here We Are in the Years N/A N/A
41 I've Been Waiting for You N/A N/A
42 The Old Laughing Lady N/A N/A
43 I've Loved Her So Long N/A N/A
44 Sugar Mountain N/A N/A
45 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing N/A N/A
46 Down by the River N/A N/A
47 Cowgirl in the Sand N/A N/A
48 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere N/A N/A
49 The Emperor of Wyoming (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
50 Sugar Mountain (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
51 The Old Laughing Lady (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
52 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong(Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
53 On the Way Home (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
54 I've Loved Her So Long (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
55 I Am a Child (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
56 1956 Bubblegum Disaster (Liveat the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
57 The Last Trip to Tulsa (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
58 Broken Arrow (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
59 Whiskey Boot Hill (Live at the Riverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
60 Expecting to Fly (Live at theRiverboat, Toronto 1969) N/A N/A
61 Cinnamon Girl N/A N/A
62 Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets) N/A N/A
63 Round and Round (It Won't Be Long) N/A N/A
64 Oh Lonesome Me N/A N/A
65 Birds N/A N/A
66 Everybody's Alone N/A N/A
67 I Believe in You N/A N/A
68 Sea of Madness N/A N/A
69 Dance Dance Dance N/A N/A
70 Country Girl N/A N/A
71 Helpless N/A N/A
72 It Might Have Been N/A N/A
73 I Believe in You (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
74 I've Loved Her So Long (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
75 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
76 Winterlong (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
77 Down by the River (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
78 Wonderin' (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
79 Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
80 Cowgirl in the Sand (Live at the Fillmore East 1970) N/A N/A
81 Tell Me Why N/A N/A
82 After the Gold Rush N/A N/A
83 Only Love Can Break Your Heart N/A N/A
84 Wonderin' N/A N/A
85 Don't Let It Bring You Down N/A N/A
86 Cripple Creek Ferry N/A N/A
87 Southern Man N/A N/A
88 Till the Morning Comes N/A N/A
89 When You Dance, I Can Really Love N/A N/A
90 Ohio N/A N/A
91 Only Love Can Break Your Heart N/A N/A
92 Tell Me Why N/A N/A
93 Music Is Love N/A N/A
94 See the Sky About to Rain N/A N/A
95 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
96 When You Dance, I Can Really Love (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
97 Birds (Hidden Track) N/A N/A
98 On the Way Home (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
99 Tell Me Why (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
100 Old Man (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
101 Journey Through the Past (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
102 Helpless (Live at Massey Hall1970) N/A N/A
103 Love in Mind (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
104 A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold (Suite) (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
105 Cowgirl in the Sand (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
106 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
107 There's a World (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
108 Bad Fog of Loneliness (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
109 The Needle and the Damage Done (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
110 Ohio (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
111 See the Sky About to Rain (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
112 Down by the River (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
113 Dance Dance Dance (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
114 I Am a Child (Live at Massey Hall 1970) N/A N/A
115 Heart of Gold N/A N/A
116 The Needle and the Damage Done N/A N/A
117 Bad Fog of Loneliness N/A N/A
118 Old Man N/A N/A
119 Heart of Gold N/A N/A
120 Dance Dance Dance N/A N/A
121 A Man Needs a Maid N/A N/A
122 Harvest N/A N/A
123 Journey Through the Past N/A N/A
124 Are You Ready for the Country? N/A N/A
125 Alabama N/A N/A
126 Words (Between the Lines of Age) N/A N/A
127 Soldier N/A N/A
128 War Song N/A N/A
129 Journey Through the Past: A Film by Neil Young N/A N/A
Back to the topFork in the Road (CD/DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
April 07, 2009
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Album Rock
Protest Songs
It somehow is fitting that Fork in the Road arrived in stores a week after President Barack Obama announced his bail-out plan for the American automobile industry: it's Neil Young's one-man campaign to remind everybody what cars used to mean and what they should be again. Neil always has had a soft spot for cars -- he drove a hearse from Toronto to Los Angeles, immortalizing the vehicle in "Long May You Run" -- so this album-length motor manifesto couldn't be called unexpected, nor could its palpable, ever-flowing undercurrent of nostalgia be a surprise for a man who owns a toy train company. Plus, romanticizing the classic years of Detroit is natural; those big boats were gorgeous, so unlike the colorless, characterless sedans that rule the road these days. Neil knows this and knows that dependence on oil is crippling the culture, not to mention the environment, and is enough of an evangelist to cobble together his own green machine, putting an electric engine in a 1959 Lincoln Continental, driving the car to Washington and writing a whole album about the vehicle and its downtrodden times. Fittingly, Fork in the Road is like his Lincvolt: it has a new engine in an old body, so it has all of the classic contours but runs a little differently. The Lincvolt might be smooth and efficient, but Fork in the Road is charmingly clunky, a side effect of its quick creation and Young's hard-headedness. Neil might be writing records as quickly as a blogger these days but musically he's stuck in the past, never letting go of his chunky Les Paul and candied folk harmonies, embracing his status as an old crank so enthusiastically he happily presents himself as a crazy old coot on the album's cover. At times, he certainly does sound like the resident codger, snarling about the fading economy and how everybody's been downsized, good naturedly sneering "big rock star/my sales have tanked/I still got you/thanks" on the title track. Despite the undercurrent of auto nostalgia here, Young isn't living in the past and he's keenly aware of the present. This blend of dreamy thoughts of yesteryear, spitting fury over the present, and planning for the future gives Fork in the Road a bit of a kick that propels it through a few songs that aren't much more than a garage groove, but the whole thing benefits from its messiness; the loose ends make it feel alive. [A CD/DVD version was also released.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 When Worlds Collide 4:13 Young
2 Fuel Line 3:11 Young
3 Just Singing a Song 3:31 Young
4 Johnny Magic 4:17 Young
5 Cough Up the Bucks 4:37 Young
6 Get Behind the Wheel 3:08 Young
7 Off the Road 3:21 Young
8 Hit the Road 3:36 Young
9 Light a Candle 3:00 Young
10 Fork in the Road 5:46 Young
11 When Worlds Collide (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
12 Fuel Line (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
13 Just Singing a Song (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
14 Johnny Magic (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
15 Cough Up the Bucks (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
16 Get Behind the Wheel (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
17 Off the Road (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
18 Hit the Road (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
19 Light a Candle (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
20 Fork in the Road (HD 24-Bit/96 KHZ Stereo Mix) N/A Young
21 Bonus Material (DVD)(*) N/A N/A
Back to the topChrome Dreams II (CD/DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
October 23, 2007
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Album Rock
Neil Young spent his 2006 hawking Living with War, an album as immediate as a news bulletin, so perhaps it made sense that after its promo push was done he would retreat into the past, planning to finally finish Archives, the long-promised box set of unreleased performances from his vaults. Two individual discs of classic live performances were released in the winter of 2006/2007, acting as a teaser for the proposed fall release of the box, but like with most things involving Neil, things didn't work precisely as planned, as he once again pushed Archives to the back burner so he could release Chrome Dreams II, a sequel to an album that never came out in the first place. The first Chrome Dreams was slated for a 1977 release, but for some indiscernible reason Young scrapped the album, parsing out some of the songs on subsequent albums, sometimes re-recording the originals, sometimes overdubbing, sometimes just sticking the previously unreleased tracks onto new albums. Among the Chrome Dreams songs that popped later are some of his greatest, including "Like a Hurricane" and an originally acoustic "Powderfinger" and "Pocahontas," along with other such excellent tunes as "Sedan Delivery," "Too Far Gone," and "Look Out for My Love," a pedigree that would suggest that Chrome Dreams II could include its fair share of major songs. Despite the inclusion of the long-bootlegged (and simply long at a lumbering 18 minutes) "Ordinary People," that's not quite true: it's a modest collection of stray songs and new tunes, pieced together in a fashion similar to 1989's Freedom, which in fact is where the 1977 "Too Far Gone" was finally unveiled.

Indeed, Chrome Dreams II shares more similarities to Freedom than the original Chrome Dreams -- so much so that it's a mystery why it's dubbed as a sequel, but it's a mystery not worth pondering, as there are few clues to their correlation, and even if a definitive answer to their kinship could be dredged up, it wouldn't illuminate the 2007 album, which is merely a good Neil Young album. Perhaps a little more than good, actually, as this has a shagginess and tattered heart that's been missing from his work for a long time, as he's spent a good chunk of the past 15 years pursuing conceptual works, ranging from thematic concept albums (Living with War, Greendale) to musical genre exercises (Are You Passionate?, Prairie Wind). Here Neil dabbles in all his signatures, starting the album with the sweet country corn of "Beautiful Bluebird," then careening to the mildly menacing minor-key groove "Boxcar" before he gets to the light, almost bouncy soul-pop of "The Believer" (complete with call-and-response backing vocals), the Crazy Horse mysticism of "Spirit Road," the lazy loping country of "Every After," and the elongated guitar workout of "No Hidden Path." He even gets way out with "The Way," singing with a children's choir, a stab at innocence that's cheerfully at odds with the sludgy "Dirty Old Man," an unexpected revival of the boneheaded off-color jokes of "Welfare Mothers," and then, of course, there's the album's centerpiece, "Ordinary People," a winding epic recorded with the Bluenotes in 1988 that's dated in its splashy production (and perhaps its blaring horns, since Neil largely abandoned the Bluenotes after This Note's for You), yet it sounds immediate and gripping. It's the kind of song to build an album upon, which is precisely what Neil has done with Chrome Dreams II, using it as an excuse to round up other songs with no home. This doesn't make for an album that holds together thematically the way other latter-day Neil albums do, but its mess is endearing, recalling how charmingly ragged albums like After the Gold Rush, Tonight's the Night, Rust Never Sleeps, and Freedom are, even if Chrome Dreams II never manages to soar as high as those classics.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Beautiful Bluebird 4:30 Young
2 Boxcar 2:46 Young
3 Ordinary People 18:12 Young
4 Shining Light 4:46 Young
5 The Believer 2:43 Young
6 Spirit Road 6:35 Young
7 Dirty Old Man 3:20 Young
8 Ever After 3:34 Young
9 No Hidden Path 14:33 Young
10 The Way 5:14 Young
11 (DVD) N/A N/A
Back to the topChrome Dreams II (B&N Exclusive)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
October 23, 2007
Label:
Warner Bros.
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Album Rock
Neil Young spent his 2006 hawking Living with War, an album as immediate as a news bulletin, so perhaps it made sense that after its promo push was done he would retreat into the past, planning to finally finish Archives, the long-promised box set of unreleased performances from his vaults. Two individual discs of classic live performances were released in the winter of 2006/2007, acting as a teaser for the proposed fall release of the box, but like with most things involving Neil, things didn't work precisely as planned, as he once again pushed Archives to the back burner so he could release Chrome Dreams II, a sequel to an album that never came out in the first place. The first Chrome Dreams was slated for a 1977 release, but for some indiscernible reason Young scrapped the album, parsing out some of the songs on subsequent albums, sometimes re-recording the originals, sometimes overdubbing, sometimes just sticking the previously unreleased tracks onto new albums. Among the Chrome Dreams songs that popped later are some of his greatest, including "Like a Hurricane" and an originally acoustic "Powderfinger" and "Pocahontas," along with other such excellent tunes as "Sedan Delivery," "Too Far Gone," and "Look Out for My Love," a pedigree that would suggest that Chrome Dreams II could include its fair share of major songs. Despite the inclusion of the long-bootlegged (and simply long at a lumbering 18 minutes) "Ordinary People," that's not quite true: it's a modest collection of stray songs and new tunes, pieced together in a fashion similar to 1989's Freedom, which in fact is where the 1977 "Too Far Gone" was finally unveiled.

Indeed, Chrome Dreams II shares more similarities to Freedom than the original Chrome Dreams -- so much so that it's a mystery why it's dubbed as a sequel, but it's a mystery not worth pondering, as there are few clues to their correlation, and even if a definitive answer to their kinship could be dredged up, it wouldn't illuminate the 2007 album, which is merely a good Neil Young album. Perhaps a little more than good, actually, as this has a shagginess and tattered heart that's been missing from his work for a long time, as he's spent a good chunk of the past 15 years pursuing conceptual works, ranging from thematic concept albums (Living with War, Greendale) to musical genre exercises (Are You Passionate?, Prairie Wind). Here Neil dabbles in all his signatures, starting the album with the sweet country corn of "Beautiful Bluebird," then careening to the mildly menacing minor-key groove "Boxcar" before he gets to the light, almost bouncy soul-pop of "The Believer" (complete with call-and-response backing vocals), the Crazy Horse mysticism of "Spirit Road," the lazy loping country of "Every After," and the elongated guitar workout of "No Hidden Path." He even gets way out with "The Way," singing with a children's choir, a stab at innocence that's cheerfully at odds with the sludgy "Dirty Old Man," an unexpected revival of the boneheaded off-color jokes of "Welfare Mothers," and then, of course, there's the album's centerpiece, "Ordinary People," a winding epic recorded with the Bluenotes in 1988 that's dated in its splashy production (and perhaps its blaring horns, since Neil largely abandoned the Bluenotes after This Note's for You), yet it sounds immediate and gripping. It's the kind of song to build an album upon, which is precisely what Neil has done with Chrome Dreams II, using it as an excuse to round up other songs with no home. This doesn't make for an album that holds together thematically the way other latter-day Neil albums do, but its mess is endearing, recalling how charmingly ragged albums like After the Gold Rush, Tonight's the Night, Rust Never Sleeps, and Freedom are, even if Chrome Dreams II never manages to soar as high as those classics.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Beautiful Bluebird 4:30 Young
2 Boxcar 2:46 Young
3 Ordinary People 18:12 Young
4 Shining Light 4:46 Young
5 The Believer 2:43 Young
6 Spirit Road 6:35 Young
7 Dirty Old Man 3:20 Young
8 Ever After 3:34 Young
9 No Hidden Path 14:33 Young
10 The Way 5:14 Young
11 Broken Arrow (*) 4:37 Young
Back to the topLive at Massey Hall 1971 (CD/DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
March 13, 2007
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
The second volume of Neil Young's long-promised, suddenly thriving Archives series is Live at Massey Hall, preserving a 1971 acoustic show at the Toronto venue. Where the first volume captured a portion of Neil's past that wasn't particularly well documented on record -- namely, the rampaging original Crazy Horse lineup in its 1970 prime -- this second installment may seem to cover familiar ground, at least to the outside observer who may assume that any solo acoustic Young must sound the same. That, of course, is not the case with an artist as mercurial and willful as Young, who inarguably on a roll in 1971, coming off successes with Crazy Horse, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and his own solo debut, 1970's After the Gold Rush. The concert chronicled on Live at Massey Hall finds Neil dipping into these recent successes for material, as he also airs material that would shortly find a home on 1972's Harvest in addition to playing songs that wouldn't surface until later in the decade -- "Journey Through the Past" and "Love in Mind" wound up on 1973's Time Fades Away, "See the Sky About to Rain" showed up on 1974's On the Beach -- and then there's two songs that never showed up on an official Neil Young album: the stomping hoedown "Dance Dance Dance," which he gave to Crazy Horse, and "Bad Fog of Loneliness," which gets its first release here. This is a remarkably rich set of songs, touching on nearly every aspect of Young's personality, whether it's his sweetness, his sensitivity, his loneliness, or even his often-neglected sense of fun. True, the latter only appears on "Dance Dance Dance," but that comes as a welcome contrast to the stark sadness of "See the Sky About to Rain." But even if "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" retain their intense sense of menace when stripped of the winding guitar workouts of Crazy Horse, this concert isn't dominated by melancholy: it's a warm, giving affair, built upon lovely readings of "Helpless," "Tell Me Why," "Old Man," and an early incarnation of "A Man Needs a Maid" (here played as a medley with "Heart of Gold") that removes the bombast of the Harvest arrangement, revealing the fragile, sweet song that lies underneath. While this concert isn't as freewheeling and rich as Young's studio albums of the early '70s -- each record had a distinctive character different from its predecessor, thanks in part to producer David Briggs, arranger/pianist Jack Nitzsche, and Young's supporting musicians, including Crazy Horse or the Stray Gators -- it nevertheless captures the essence of Neil Young the singer and songwriter at his artistic peak. That's the reason why this concert has been a legendary bootleg for nearly four decades and why its release 36 years after its recording is so special: it may not add an additional narrative to Neil Young's history, but it adds detail, color, and texture to a familiar chapter of his career, rendering it fresh once more. No wonder Briggs wanted to release this concert as an album between After the Gold Rush and Harvest: it not only holds its own against those classics, it enhances them. [Live at Massey Hall was also released as a two-disc set that contained a CD of the show and a DVD containing the same concert in high fidelity audio.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 On the Way Home 3:42 Young
2 Tell Me Why 2:29 Young
3 Old Man 4:57 Young
4 Journey Through the Past 4:15 Young
5 Helpless 4:16 Young
6 Love in Mind 2:47 Young
7 A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold Suite 6:39 Young
8 Cowgirl in the Sand 3:45 Young
9 Don't Let It Bring You Down 2:46 Young
10 There's a World 3:33 Young
11 Bad Fog of Loneliness 3:27 Young
12 The Needle and the Damage Done 3:55 Young
13 Ohio 3:40 Young
14 See the Sky About to Rain 4:05 Young
15 Down by the River 4:08 Young
16 Dance, Dance, Dance 5:48 Young
17 I Am a Child 3:19 Young
Back to the topLive at the Fillmore East (CD/DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
November 14, 2006
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Album Rock
Ever since he started rumbling about releasing his archives some 20, 30 years ago -- it's been so long, it's hard to keep track of the specifics -- Neil Young talked about it as a mammoth box set, or perhaps a series of box sets each chronicling a different era in his career, comprised entirely of unreleased recordings, some live, some studio. It was an eagerly anticipated set, since everybody knew that he had scores of unreleased recordings in his vaults. Not just songs, but full albums that were scrapped at the last minute. He regularly tested out new songs on tour, sometimes rewriting them later, sometimes never releasing them on album. Some of his peers had similar habits -- Bob Dylan had a similar treasure trove of unreleased recordings -- but unlike Dylan, Young took an active interest in archiving this material himself. Given the amount of unreleased tapes, some patience was in order, but as the years stretched into decades, with Neil tinkering away, changing his mind, waiting for digital sound to get out of the dark ages, it was easy to wonder if the set would ever come out. When it did, it was not with a splash, as was the official Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, which was inaugurated as a triple-disc box in 1991. No, Young eased his way into the series by releasing a single disc called Live at the Fillmore East late in 2006.

Billed as the second volume of the "Performance Series" -- clearly, the numbers are assigned chronologically in order of recording, not release -- Live at the Fillmore East is not dissimilar to the subsequent entries in Dylan's bootleg series: it focuses on a specific, significant tour in Young's past. In this case, it's Neil's 1970 tour with Crazy Horse, supporting Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, his first record with the band. This was the original lineup of Crazy Horse featuring Danny Whitten, who would die tragically of a heroin overdose a mere two years later, making this a pivotal tour in Young's history. Whitten's ghost haunted Young & Crazy Horse throughout the '70s, particularly on his gloomy masterpiece Tonight's the Night, which featured a version of Whitten's great "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" recorded during the group's stint at the Fillmore East in March 1970, which this album documents in a fuller fashion. That version of "Downtown" on Tonight's the Night hints at the power of this performance: simultaneously lithe and lumbering, it captures how Neil & Crazy Horse could sound at once unpredictable and inevitable. Part of that came from bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, whose ramshackle rhythms were uniquely suited for Young, and pianist Jack Nitzsche also added texture to this tour, but this performance reveals how empathetic the interplay between Young and Whitten was. These guitarists weren't rivals; they interlocked and rode Talbot and Molina's steady, if occasionally misshapen, groove for as long as they could go -- and in the case of the 12-minute "Down by the River" and the 16-minute "Cowgirl in the Sand," it was very long indeed, but they're never boring; they're hypnotic in their circular riffs and solos. Add to that a ragged, beautiful "Winterlong" and the sweet, loping "Wonderin'" -- performed here, but not released until Young revived and revamped it for his 1983 rockabilly record Everybody's Rockin' -- and this is truly a special performance and more than worthy beginning to the archives project.

That doesn't mean that this release is faultless. The main complaint that can be lodged against Live at the Fillmore East is that it's not a complete representation of a 1970 show. During this tour, Neil opened with an acoustic set and then had Crazy Horse come out for an electric set; the acoustic is not here, but most of the electric is, with only "Cinnamon Girl" absent -- and it's absent because there was not existing high-quality tape for it, unlike the rest of music that's featured here. So, it comes down to a matter of taste: for hardcore fans used to bootleg quality, they may lament the lack of a full show, but for those who want the best of this legendary stay at the Fillmore East in the best possible audio quality (including a DVD of the show, where the main program plays to photos of the band from the tour), that's what this set gives you. And in doing so, it gives a good indication that as Neil slowly rolls out the archives, he'll emphasize quality over completeness for better and for worse.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere 3:36 Young
2 Winterlong 3:40 Young
3 Down by the River 12:24 Young
4 Wonderin' 3:35 Young
5 Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown 3:51 Whitten
6 Cowgirl in the Sand 16:09 Young
Back to the topLiving with War - "In the Beginning"
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
May 09, 2006
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Album Rock
Protest Songs
In a move that deliberately echoes the rush release of "Ohio" in the wake of the Kent State shootings, Neil Young bashed out his 2006 protest record Living with War in a matter of days, sometimes recording songs the day they were written, and then seized the opportunities of the digital age by streaming the entire album on his website only weeks after it was recorded, with the official digital and CD releases trailing several days later. It's the best use yet of the instant, widespread distribution that the Web has to offer, and it also hearkens back to the days when folk music was topical, turning the news into song. But if the ballads of the 19th century were passed along gradually, growing along the way, or if the protest tunes of the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s grew in stature being performed regularly, gaining strength as singer after singer sang them, Living with War captures a specific moment in time: early 2006, when George W. Bush's approval ratings slipped to the low 30s, as discontent sowed by the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, rising gas prices, and much more turned into a general malaise in the country (or, in political shorthand, it was the moment when George W. turned into Jimmy Carter). To some, the specificity of Young's writing on Living with War will forever date it, but that's a risk with any topical folk, rock, or pop, from "We Shall Overcome" to "We Are the World" -- or "Ohio," for that matter. Young is aware of this and embraces the allegedly short shelf life of his songs for Living with War by directly addressing the political turmoil in the U.S.A. in 2006 and the real human wreckage it has left behind. As such, it will function as a vivid document of its era, as much as any journalism of its time, but Living with War isn't rock-as-CNN: it's a work of art, and it's a canny one at that, with Young drawing on familiar words and music to create both historic and emotional context for his songs. It's not merely clever that "Living with War" quotes "The Star Spangled Banner," or that "Flags of Freedom" consciously reworks Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" -- it helps tie Young's work to the past and gives his new work greater resonance. And nowhere is that more true than on "Let's Impeach the President" and how its melody recalls "The City of New Orleans" to help underscore what was lost in the government's bungled reaction to Katrina's devastation to the legendary American city. With a grandstanding title like that, along with its George W. soundbites, "Let's Impeach the President" is the flashiest song here, and it crystallizes what's good about the album: sure, it pulls no punches and it's angry, but it's not just ranting; it's artfully written and effective, as is Living with War as a whole. It's not perfect, but it has a vitality lacking in Young's recorded work of the last 15 years or so, and its blend of Greendale's loud, meandering guitar rock and the bittersweet mournful, aging hippie vibe of Prairie Wind is not only appealing, it's better executed than either of those good yet flawed records -- and that execution not only applies to the ragged glory of the recording, but to the songs themselves. They manage to be unified in a way that Young wanted Greendale to be but didn't quite pull off, yet they also stand on their own and are, overall, more memorable than those on Prairie Wind. And that's the reason why, politics aside, Living with War stands as a very strong, effective Neil Young album that will continue to have a punch long after the George W. Bush administration has faded into the history books. [In late 2006, Young released a version of the album made up of the songs as they were originally mixed immediately following their recording. No remixing was done and the vocal choir overdubs that were added a week later aren't present; what you get is a look at the project in it's raw state. Also included in the package is a DVD that presents documentary video footage of the sessions.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 After the Garden 3:27 Young
2 Living with War 5:10 Young
3 The Restless Consumer 5:52 Young
4 Shock and Awe 4:57 Young
5 Families 2:33 Young
6 Flags of Freedom 3:47 Young
7 Let's Impeach the President 4:32 Young
8 Lookin' for a Leader 4:10 Young
9 Roger and Out 4:24 Young
Back to the topPrairie Wind (Bonus DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
September 27, 2005
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Country-Rock
Soft Rock
Since Prairie Wind is a return to the soft, lush country-rock sound of Harvest; since Neil Young suffered a brain aneurysm during its recording; since it finds the singer/songwriter reflecting on life and family in the wake of his father's death; and since it's his most cohesive album in a decade, it would seem that all these factors add up to a latter-day masterpiece for Young, but that's not quite the case. Prairie Wind manages to be less than the sum of its parts and the problem isn't a lack of good songs (although it does have a few more clunkers than it should) or a botched concept. Young's decision to revive the country-rock that brought him his greatest popularity never feels like a cynical move -- the music is too warm, comfortable, and friendly to feel like anything but Neil playing to his strengths. However, since he cut this in Nashville with a bunch of studio pros including legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham, it feels just a tad slicker than perhaps it should, since the smooth sound inadvertently highlights the sentimentality of the project. It's hard to begrudge Young if he wants to indulge in rose-colored memories -- a brush with death coupled with a loss of a parent tends to bring out sentimentality -- but such backward-gazing songs as "Far from Home" feel just a hair too close to trite, and the easy-rolling nature of the record doesn't lend them much gravity. There a few other songs that tend toward too close to the simplistic, whether it's the specific invocations of 9/11 and Chris Rock on "No Wonder" or the supremely silly Elvis salute "He Was the King," which are just enough to undermine the flow of the album, even if they fit into the general autumnal, reflective mood of the record. But since they do fit the overall feel of the album, and since they're better, even with their flaws, than the best songs on, say, Silver & Gold or Broken Arrow or Are You Passionate?, they help elevate the whole of Prairie Wind, particularly because there are some genuinely strong Young songs here: the moody opener "The Painter," the gently sighing "Fallin' off the Face of the Earth," the ethereal "It's a Dream," the sweet, laid-back "Here for Your," the understated "This Old Guitar" (there's also the sweeping "When God Made Me," recorded complete with a gospel chorus, one that will either strike a listener as moving or maudlin -- a latter-day "A Man Needs a Maid," only not as strong). This set of songs does indeed make Prairie Wind a better album than anything Young has released in the past decade, which means that it's easy to overrate it. For despite all of its strengths, neither the recording nor the songs are as memorable or as fully realized as his late-'80s/early-'90s comeback records -- Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Harvest Moon -- let alone his classic '70s work. Nevertheless, it's the closest Young has come to making a record that could hold its own with those albums in well over a decade, which means it's worthwhile even if it's never quite as great as it seems like it could have been. [Prairie Wind was also released in an edition with a bonus DVD, which not only contains the entire album in high-resolution audio, but has a film featuring each song being recorded in the studio. As each song plays, the video cuts back and forth between different shots of the musicians laying down their tracks, or there are several images onscreen at once (which means that Neil can at times be seen twice, once playing acoustic and singing, the other singing backup harmonies or playing electric guitars. As bonus DVD features go, this is one of the more intriguing ones to come along in a while.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 The Painter 4:36 Young
2 No Wonder 5:45 Young
3 Fallin' Off the Face of the Earth 3:35 Young
4 Far from Home 3:47 Young
5 It's a Dream 6:31 Young
6 Prairie Wind 7:34 Young
7 Here for You 4:32 Young
8 This Old Guitar 5:32 Young
9 He Was the King 6:08 Young
10 When God Made Me 4:05 Young
Back to the topGreatest Hits (Bonus DVD)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
November 16, 2004
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Contemporary Pop/Rock
Album Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
It may be hard to believe, but 2004's Greatest Hits is not only the first retrospective Neil Young has released since 1977's Decade, it's the first ever single-disc collection of his best-known songs. That's a span of 27 years separating the two collections, which is an awful long time to resist a Greatest Hits disc -- many of his peers succumbed, offering countless comps during those years -- and such a resistance to a compilation may not be much a surprise from the legendarily prickly Young, but what is a surprise is that 11 of the 16 songs on Greatest Hits were also on Decade. Of the five songs that were not on Decade, only two date from after the '70s -- 1989's "Rockin' in the Free World" and 1992's "Harvest Moon" -- while one of the remaining three (1970's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart") comes from the time chronicled on Decade; the other two, 1978's "Comes a Time" and 1979's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)," arrived in the two years of the '70s not covered on the 1977 compilation. All this means is that Greatest Hits offers the basic canon, with no frills and none of Neil's trademark idiosyncrasy. Some may miss that cantankerous spirit, pointing out that this contains nothing from his towering twin masterpieces of dark introspection -- Tonight's the Night and On the Beach -- or that there's nothing from Buffalo Springfield (which was covered on Decade) and that noteworthy songs like "Powderfinger," "Cortez the Killer," "Lotta Love," and "Long May You Run" are missing. Ultimately, that doesn't matter much, because Greatest Hits has all the songs that every Neil Young fan, from the devoted to the casual listener, agrees are his biggest and best: "Down by the River," "Cinnamon Girl," "Helpless," "After the Gold Rush," "Southern Man," "Ohio," "The Needle and the Damage Done," "Old Man," "Heart of Gold," "Like a Hurricane." And that's why it works as an all-business introduction for the uninitiated and as a concise summary for those not willing to travel down all the long, winding roads Young has traveled over the years. In other words, it's as good a compilation as it could have been. [Greatest Hits was released in several editions. In addition to the basic single CD, there was a limited edition containing a DVD video with the promo clips for "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Harvest Moon." There was another limited edition with a bonus 7" record. Finally, it was also released as a high-resolution DVD Audio disc.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Down by the River 9:20 Young
2 Cowgirl in the Sand 10:08 Young
3 Cinnamon Girl 3:02 Young
4 Helpless 3:40 Young
5 After the Gold Rush 3:48 Young
6 Only Love Can Break Your Heart 3:11 Young
7 Southern Man 5:33 Young
8 Ohio 3:02 Young
9 The Needle and the Damage Done 2:13 Young
10 Old Man 3:25 Young
11 Heart of Gold 3:09 Young
12 Like a Hurricane 8:23 Young
13 Comes a Time 3:07 Young
14 Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) 5:02 Young, Blackburn
15 Rockin' in the Free World 4:44 Young
16 Harvest Moon 5:03 Young
17 Harvest Moon (DVD) N/A Young
18 Rockin' in the Free World (DVD) N/A Young
Back to the topGreatest Hits (Bonus 7")
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
November 16, 2004
Label:
Classics
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Contemporary Pop/Rock
Album Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
It may be hard to believe, but 2004's Greatest Hits is not only the first retrospective Neil Young has released since 1977's Decade, it's the first ever single-disc collection of his best-known songs. That's a span of 27 years separating the two collections, which is an awful long time to resist a Greatest Hits disc -- many of his peers succumbed, offering countless comps during those years -- and such a resistance to a compilation may not be much a surprise from the legendarily prickly Young, but what is a surprise is that 11 of the 16 songs on Greatest Hits were also on Decade. Of the five songs that were not on Decade, only two date from after the '70s -- 1989's "Rockin' in the Free World" and 1992's "Harvest Moon" -- while one of the remaining three (1970's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart") comes from the time chronicled on Decade; the other two, 1978's "Comes a Time" and 1979's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)," arrived in the two years of the '70s not covered on the 1977 compilation. All this means is that Greatest Hits offers the basic canon, with no frills and none of Neil's trademark idiosyncrasy. Some may miss that cantankerous spirit, pointing out that this contains nothing from his towering twin masterpieces of dark introspection -- Tonight's the Night and On the Beach -- or that there's nothing from Buffalo Springfield (which was covered on Decade) and that noteworthy songs like "Powderfinger," "Cortez the Killer," "Lotta Love," and "Long May You Run" are missing. Ultimately, that doesn't matter much, because Greatest Hits has all the songs that every Neil Young fan, from the devoted to the casual listener, agrees are his biggest and best: "Down by the River," "Cinnamon Girl," "Helpless," "After the Gold Rush," "Southern Man," "Ohio," "The Needle and the Damage Done," "Old Man," "Heart of Gold," "Like a Hurricane." And that's why it works as an all-business introduction for the uninitiated and as a concise summary for those not willing to travel down all the long, winding roads Young has traveled over the years. In other words, it's as good a compilation as it could have been. [Greatest Hits was released in several editions. In addition to the basic single CD, there was a limited edition containing a DVD video with the promo clips for "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Harvest Moon." There was another limited edition with a bonus 7" record. Finally, it was also released as a high-resolution DVD Audio disc.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Down by the River 9:18 Young
2 Cowgirl in the Sand 10:07 Young
3 Cinnamon Girl 2:59 Young
4 Helpless 3:37 Young
5 After the Gold Rush 3:46 Young
6 Only Love Can Break Your Heart 3:09 Young
7 Southern Man 5:31 Young
8 Ohio 2:59 Young
9 The Needle and the Damage Done 2:10 Young
10 Old Man 3:22 Young
11 Heart of Gold 3:07 Young
12 Like a Hurricane 7:20 Young
13 Comes a Time 3:04 Young
14 Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) 5:13 Young, Blackburn
15 Rockin' in the Free World 4:41 Young
16 Harvest Moon 5:03 Young
17 The Loner (*) 3:50 Young
18 Sugar Mountain (Mono Version) 5:35 Young
Back to the topGreendale (DVD Audio)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
August 19, 2003
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
Album Rock
Prior to its release, Greendale received more attention than any Neil Young album in years, but it wasn't positive. Young hauled out his concept album -- about an extended family in a small town called Greendale, and how they're torn apart by a murder -- to unsuspecting audiences, who by and large were not happy about spending anywhere from 55 to 85 dollars to hear a dense convoluted song cycle, complete with rambling narrative from Young, for the first hour of the show and not hearing many hits in the remainder of the set. Early in the summer of 2003, there was a brief blast of stories about this quasi-scandal, setting the stage for the late-summer release of the album: it got Young some needed press, and announced that unlike his last several albums, Young was actually trying this time around. Frankly, he needed a change. Ever since 1994's Sleeps With Angels -- or, if you're less charitable, 1990's Ragged Glory -- he had been drifting, playing with different groups, never quite mustering up enough energy to assemble a consistent set of songs whenever he headed into the studio. Here, the story and the setting give Young a hook for the record, a common theme that he can rally around, and the album benefits so much from that focus that it doesn't really matter that the story is convoluted beyond comprehension; the plot matters so much that it winds up not mattering at all. Close attention and repeated listens offer few rewards to the careful listener, because Young doesn't really say much of anything here, no matter how elaborately he says it. Learning more about the narrative -- whether it's through the simultaneously released DVD of the Young-directed film Greendale, hearing his rambling on-stage between-song narratives, or reading apparent transcriptions of these ramblings in the liner notes -- illuminates the story slightly, even as declarations like "When I was writing this I had no idea what I was doing, so I was just as surprised as you are" emphasize the suspicion that there's not much meaning in the whole enterprise.
All this doesn't really matter, because Greendale works as a record -- it ebbs and flows and it holds together, playing as a unified whole on a level he hasn't approached since Ragged Glory. As Young says in the liner notes, these are things "you can't tell by listening to the songs, you have to listen to the instrumentals to get this," and while that is meant to apply to one of the many Crazy Horse-fueled meandering improvs, it really applies to the album as a whole, since Greendale connects in its overall picture, not the details. Sometimes, such as the quietly eerie and affecting "Bandit," the songs stand apart from the concept, but usually the lyrics are too devoted to his winding narrative to be their own entities. Then again, Greendale was designed to be an interconnected song cycle, and if the narrative neither works nor signifies much, it nevertheless kept Young focused on the construction of the album, whether it's giving the songs memorable hooks or finding ways to make the signature ramshackle vibe of Crazy Horse sound both fresh and appropriate for this tale. It all adds up to a very good record -- one that is interesting, and one that satisfies musically. It may not be a latter-day masterpiece on the level of Dylan's Love and Theft, but it most surely is a comeback for an artist who seemed permanently adrift at sea.
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Falling from Above 7:27 Young
2 Double E 5:18 Young
3 Devil's Sidewalk 5:18 Young
4 Leave the Driving 7:14 Young
5 Carmichael 10:20 Young
6 Bandit 5:12 Young
7 Grandpa's Interview 12:57 Young
8 Bringin' Down Dinner 3:16 Young
9 Sun Green 12:03 Young
10 Be the Rain 9:13 Young
Back to the topGreendale (Second Edition)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
August 19, 2003
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Album Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
Prior to its release, Greendale received more attention than any Neil Young album in years, but it wasn't positive. Young hauled out his concept album -- about an extended family in a small town called Greendale, and how they're torn apart by a murder -- to unsuspecting audiences, who by and large were not happy about spending anywhere from 55 to 85 dollars to hear a dense convoluted song cycle, complete with rambling narrative from Young, for the first hour of the show and not hearing many hits in the remainder of the set. Early in the summer of 2003, there was a brief blast of stories about this quasi-scandal, setting the stage for the late-summer release of the album: it got Young some needed press, and announced that unlike his last several albums, Young was actually trying this time around. Frankly, he needed a change. Ever since 1994's Sleeps With Angels -- or, if you're less charitable, 1990's Ragged Glory -- he had been drifting, playing with different groups, never quite mustering up enough energy to assemble a consistent set of songs whenever he headed into the studio. Here, the story and the setting give Young a hook for the record, a common theme that he can rally around, and the album benefits so much from that focus that it doesn't really matter that the story is convoluted beyond comprehension; the plot matters so much that it winds up not mattering at all. Close attention and repeated listens offer few rewards to the careful listener, because Young doesn't really say much of anything here, no matter how elaborately he says it. Learning more about the narrative -- whether it's through the simultaneously released DVD of the Young-directed film Greendale, hearing his rambling on-stage between-song narratives, or reading apparent transcriptions of these ramblings in the liner notes -- illuminates the story slightly, even as declarations like "When I was writing this I had no idea what I was doing, so I was just as surprised as you are" emphasize the suspicion that there's not much meaning in the whole enterprise.

All this doesn't really matter because Greendale works as a record -- it ebbs and flows and it holds together, playing as a unified whole on a level he hasn't approached since Ragged Glory. As Young says in the liner notes, these are things "you can't tell by listening to the songs, you have to listen to the instrumentals to get this," and while that is meant to apply to one of the many Crazy Horse-fueled meandering improvs, it really applies to the album as a whole since Greendale connects in its overall picture, not the details. Sometimes, such as the quietly eerie and affecting "Bandit," the songs stand apart from the concept, but usually the lyrics are too devoted to his winding narrative to be their own entities. Then again, Greendale was designed to be an interconnected song cycle, and if the narrative neither works nor signifies much, it nevertheless kept Young focused on the construction of the album, whether it's giving the songs memorable hooks or finding ways to make the signature ramshackle vibe of Crazy Horse sound both fresh and appropriate for this tale. It all adds up to a very good record -- one that is interesting, and one that satisfies musically. It may not be a latter-day masterpiece on the level of Dylan's Love and Theft, but it most surely is a comeback for an artist who seemed permanently adrift at sea. [In what is becoming a standard music-biz practice, Greendale was "relaunched" as a "second edition" six months after its release -- meaning, it was reissued with a different cover and a bonus DVD being the only differences in editions. Of course, the "first edition" had a bonus DVD, too, but this is a new DVD, containing a look "Inside Greendale," which is not the full-length film Greendale Young filmed. That will likely be released separately on DVD and it wouldn't come as a great surprise if this "Inside Greendale" would be included as a DVD extra when that happens. But in case that doesn't happen -- or in case fans can't wait a few months for the full-length DVD -- they can always buy the album again to get a DVD they may watch once.]
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Falling from Above 7:27 Young
2 Double E 5:18 Young
3 Devil's Sidewalk 5:18 Young
4 Leave the Driving 7:14 Young
5 Carmichael 10:20 Young
6 Bandit 5:12 Young
7 Grandpa's Interview 12:57 Young
8 Bringin' Down Dinner 3:16 Young
9 Sun Green 12:03 Young
10 Be the Rain 9:13 Young
11 Inside Greendale (DVD) N/A N/A
Back to the topRoad Rock, Vol. 1 (DVD Audio)
Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide
Released:
November 21, 2000
Label:
Reprise
Rating:
Genre:
Pop/Rock
Styles:
Album Rock
Country-Rock
Psychedelic
Folk-Rock
Singer/Songwriter
Hard Rock
Veteran rocker Neil Young presents a strong set of both old and new songs (and even performs the previously unrecorded "Fool for Your Love") in this video shot at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater during Young's 2000 summer concert tour. Young is joined on-stage by a stellar array of legendary sidemen, including Donald "Duck" Dunn, Spooner Oldham, Jim Keltner, and Ben Keith, with Young's wife Pegi Young and sister Astrid Young joining in on backing vocals. Young's 19-song set includes "Razor Love," "Harvest Moon," "Tonight's the Night," "Powderfinger," "Cowgirl in the Sand," and "Words."
Track # Track Time Composer
1 Cowgirl in the Sand N/A Young
2 Walk On N/A Young
3 Fool for Your Love N/A Young
4 Peace of Mind N/A Young
5 Words (Between the Lines of Age) N/A Young
6 Motorcycle Mama N/A Young
7 Tonight's the Night N/A Young
8 All Along the Watchtower N/A Dylan
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