Album would be perfect if not for Welfare Mothers and Ride My Llama.

Top 5 NY albums:

1. After the Gold Rush
2. Ragged Glory
3. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
4. Rust Never Sleeps
5. Life

Yeah, there is no denying this album.

Tonight's the Night
Freedom
Rust Never Sleeps
Zuma
After the Gold Rush

For me, I'm going:

1. Zuma
2. Rust Never Sleeps
3. On the Beach
4. Ragged Glory
5. After the Goldrush


I love Zuma so much. I totally understand why it isn't most people's favorites. I get that a bunch of the songs seem totally frivolous. They seem even more frivolous coming after an emotional bloodletting like Tonight's the Night.

But it's one of my favorite albums of all time for several reasons. Reasons one and two are "Danger Bird" and "Cortez the Killer." Also, "Don't Cry No Tears" is a perfect opener and "Through My Sails" is a perfect closer. Also, "Pardon My Heart" is just a beautiful song. And throughout the entire album there is some of my favorite guitar playing ever! Even in the "frivolous, goofy love songs." Or whatever they are.

I was just listening to Tonight's the Night for a while. It's a good album. I get why people like it so much. It has such a unique vibe. The songs themselves are mostly pretty great. I think I value an album like Zuma and Rust more than Tonight's the Night because there is so much musical focus. Like...Neil just wrote a ton of great songs and played the shit out of them. And you could tell he was really excited to be playing this music. I understand that people love Tonight for the exact opposite reasons. Because it's sloppy and ramshackle and Neil sounds like he's about to die. It's certainly unique, but I prefer the insanely focused and excited Neil.

OTFM - I've never heard Nils play anything so perfect and on the edge as the solo in Speakin' Out. It was nice to hear him be Neil's foil for a while, too bad he didn't play on more albums. How good is TTN? I don't think World on a String has even been mentioned yet.

This week, my top 5 are

After The Gold Rush
Tonight's the Night
Rust Never Sleeps/Live Rust
Freedom
Everybody Knows

Yeah, Zuma is simply one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Up there with Goat and Jailbreak. For the longest time, it was "just a Crazy Horse album... oh, yeah, and 'Cortez' is on there." The same thing happened to me with this album that happened with Tonight's The Night, though. Right around when I started realizing that for the first time in ten years Neil Young had once again claimed the position as my favorite artist to ever make music, all these songs that I thought were just kind of okay were suddenly just goddamn incredible. It's not this outpouring of life-affirming musical joy in the form of seven minute guitar jams like on Ragged Glory, but it is an utterly essential document of the Poncho era Horse's ability to crank out these perfect no bullshit garage rockers and a stellar testament to Neil's insane balance of quantity + quality within his '70s songwriting run. Just a bunch of great songs played fantastically.

The powers of this era of NY/CH would eventually culminate in "Powderfinger," but you can hear the seeds of that song being sown with "Barstool Blues." And "Stupid Girl" (this one is about as perfect as they come.) And then of course there's "Danger Bird" which is that special kind of NY song that I treasure above all else. And "Pardon My Heart" and "Lookin' For A Love" are of course just fucking beautiful. I know which songs I haven't named yet, but I love these, too! Except "Drive Back," which has this '70s hard rock quality that just isn't particularly natural for NY/CH. Whole album is strong, though. I love it.

I feel pretty comfortable with this, regardless of where Zuma placed on my list. When I first heard Zuma, I'd never listened to all of Tonight's the Night. Zuma is Young's great sleeper album for me. It's easy to see the genius of "Cortez the Killer," "Danger Bird," or "Barstool Blues," but "Stupid Girl" and "Don't Cry No Tears," or "Lookin' For a Love" and the CSNY reunion "Through My Sails" eluded me for awhile. And then I came to realize these seemingly slight songs revealed themselves anew with each additional spin, until finally I wondered how I ever missed Zuma's brilliance. Now, as great as the obvious standouts are, that record is all about "Stupid Girl," "Lookin' for a Love," and "Drive Back." Whenever I'm making a playlist and it's time for a Neil track, I'm trying to decide if I've used "Stupid Girl" too often or not.

Loving all the love for Zuma! I couldn't agree more with the last two posts. I had sort of a similar development with Zuma as Kiss the Floor actually. It's easy to love "Danger Bird" and "Cortez" I think. But then all the other songs started falling into place. I went through a period a few months ago where I was just completely in love with "Through My Sails." It might seem like a bit of a slight song as it comes after "Cortez." But it's such a beautiful album closer in that regard. Zuma is another album that has a wonderful tracklist and is just really listenable. It moves from the mostly straightforward hard rocking and poppy guitar songs to beautiful ballads to absolutely epic seven minute songs that are two of my favorite songs ever recorded.

First place the greatest NY jam, "Cowgirl in the Sand", showed up. Just not the best version, is all.

Also...if forced to choose a favorite song from the middle section of Zuma I might go with "Barstool Blues." Or "Drive Back." I actually really enjoy "Drive Back," Paves! I think it's a lot of fun. And there are cool little flourishes like the piano stuff and the cowbell. Some ridiculous guitar playing. It's certainly a little bit forgettable but I always get somewhat excited when it comes on after "Stupid Girl" which I think is just ok.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is just one of those absolutely perfect moments in the history of rock music that makes me almost want to bow down to the entire universe of LP canonization and All Music Guide five star rated albums and what have you. I might actually call it the quintessential "classic" pop/rock Long Player. It is a document of a promising artist finally stumbling onto something that still comes across as breathtakingly original, a whole new way of approaching the always seemingly exhausted guitar/bass/drums/vocals combination, yet having that new approach be so basic in a "How did somebody not think of this before?" way that it opened the doors for countless artists and subgenres and just general ways of thinking about music. That doesn't just apply to Crazy Horse, as during this '69-'70 era, you had the Stooges, the first Sabbath LP, Plastic Ono Band, CCR, all achieving similar things. But none resonates with me more than Neil and the original Whitten era Horse. So many musical elements are just balanced so wonderfully. Other bands were playing extended guitar solos and other Canadians were romanticizing the Old South, but not how Crazy Horse did, not in that stripped down primal two chord way that is just pure unmovable soul and power. The twin epics on the album are certainly definitive examples of all this, not to mention the much loved "Cinnamon Girl" with its monster guitar riff, but then everything else there is about as great as you can do in terms of "quality album tracks." "The Losing End" is probably my favorite song on the whole album. Seven songs... a few obvious anchors and then several supporting tracks that hold their own more than one can really hope for. Perfect album.

Which is part of the reason why I consider Live At The Fillmore East to be an easy choice for top five Neil recording of all time. Because it somehow manages to improve upon perfection. I almost can't believe it, but that's just what that record does. Crank that version of "Cowgirl In The Sand," try to imagine you're right there watching it happen, and then try to disagree with me.

11/10.

No wonder Paves was voted quintessential choice for rock god on the board. Had I existed, I'd have probly voted for that too.
Best fucking album.
A+

Song is really all about how the band falls into that two chord riff that carries the solo sections and how goddamn menacingly heavy that sounds. It's supposed to just barrel out of the gates. Fillmore version does that even better than the original. There's no space at all, Neil just launches into a solo, tearing up the high notes before he's even sung any of the actual song. 16 minutes later and it still hasn't let up.

Also, Billy Talbot has to start playing that (fantastic) bass riff horrifically out of tune at some point. He spends most of the Fillmore version doing this, nobody cares or does anything about it, and it's awesome. Happens a little bit on the studio recording, but just a little. Not enough.

Now on disc three of Archives, Vol. 1. Thanks to this thread and the fact that this dude is pretty much all I listen to, anyway, so I might as well go all out. Good night.

And when i say best, I mean both rust and nowhere. Sid, you're voted up there too. And pigfuck k. I love you internet people. But slightly less than I love Neil Young.

A couple months ago I finally stumbled across this 1971 BBC performance on YouTube. My family had a VHS tape with this on it back when I was four or five and I remember watching it with my brother a lot until the thing just straight up broke. I think it was from when it aired on PBS. I had no idea what it was for years, as it wasn't available on DVD or anything. Lo and behold, YouTube makes the possibly not possible happen.




Very much of that Massey Hall/pre-Harvest period but you get a great rendition of "Out On The Weekend" here where he fucks up the words.

this is a great record

Great concert, one of his best. The versions here of 'Journey Through the Past' and 'A Man Needs a Maid' are absolutely the definitive versions. I won't hear another word otherwise.

As for 'Out on the Weekend', I don't think he stuffs the lyrics up at all - I just don't think he'd written them yet!

He played a gig later that week (four days later) at the Royal Festival Hall and he plays 'Harvest' for the first time, and I shit you not, he says he wrote the song the night before. So it's obvious he was in a creative peak (how many of those can one guy have!) and I think 'Out On the Weekend' just wasn't finished yet. He'd got the first verse down, but he was still using the "ooh, oooh" bit.

1 Rust Never Sleeps
2 Everybody Knows this is Nowhere
3 Tonight's the Night
4 Harvest
5 After the Goldrush

Thanks for the youtube Paves.

I'll tell you one thing, I was wasted when I saw the Rust tour. I kind of regret that but I was on a road trip from college.

I don't know if I can pick a top 5, but this list is hard to argue with.

1. On the Beach
2. Massey Hall
3. Tonight's the Night
4. Rust Never Sleeps
5. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

anyone catch "Long May You Run" during the closing ceremony? Pretty great.

there really isn't a bad Neil Young thread on this board.

looks like I am in the minority here for liking On The Beach more then anything else the man has done.

No, lots of people feel that way. Michael K., Tim, and myself all listed it as being one of his five greatest, after all.

The fact that I call Rust Never Sleeps his best means nothing. There is no Neil Young album that stands head and shoulders above the rest, only ones that offer things you can't get anywhere else.

i made an MP3 disc for the car with Neil Young to Live Rust.

it will probably be in my disc player until the end of the summer.


Paves, what are your thoughts on Trans. I like it alot more then i probably should.....

Yeah, I love Trans. There's a song or two where it starts to drag but overall it is excellent and one of the more enjoyable things he did during the '80s.

Lots of love for that album here.

pretty much one of the best fuck you albums of all time.

1. On the Beach
2. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
3. Tonight's the Night
4. Zuma
5. After the Goldrush

excellent top 5 right there.

You are not alone! Sometimes I feel like On the Beach is his best work. Sometimes it's my favorite Neil record. If someone were to say that it's his best I probably wouldn't argue with them. While Zuma is a personal fave for me, in a lot of ways I see On the Beach and Rust as the more objective high points of his career. Even though that is really debatable as made evident in this thread.

I did not used to like On The Beach as much as many of my other favorite Neil Young releases, but the last time I made a top 100 albums of all time list (one year ago), it was in the top 10. That is no mean feat for any album. The amazing thing was that it wasn't even the highest Neil Young album, though.

Side two of On The Beach is, IMO, the greatest side on any Neil Young album. I voted "Ambulance Blues" as my number one favorite song of all time in the songs poll last summer.

And side one is obviously made up of mostly genius songs, as well. It is about as good of a Long Player as you can get. I could say that about multiple NY albums, though.

After The Goldrush was my favorite for a very very long time. Then i scored a copy of On The Beach (for FREE!), and I've never looked back.

On The Beach just holds a mood for its entire run time that no other NY release can really compete with

Yeah, the title track plus "Ambulance Blues" on the same side of a record makes for a pretty special album! I've always been a big fan of "Revolution Blues" as well. It's one of those albums though where all the songs just fall into place wonderfully. Even "For the Turnstiles" is great. Didn't he even put "For the Turnstiles" on the Decade collection?

Walk On and For The Turnstiles are both on Decades.

As phenomenal as each song from On The Beach may be, I hate listening to them individually. I need to hear the whole album start to finish and let it slowly kill me each time. One of my 5 favorite albums ever.

agreed. theres maybe 10 albums that make me do this.

this is obviously one of them.

this is very true. On the Beach - as douchey as this sounds - didn't click for me until I heard the vinyl. The production was off-putting and the songs weren't terribly immediate, but the vinyl is so warm and intimate sounding. "Ambulance Blues" is maybe the best slow burner in existence, and certainly one of the greatest all-time album closers. It's so easy to hyperbolize this album, but all that grandiose praise is truly deserved. And yes, side 2 of On the Beach is the greatest side in Young's catalog and a contender for greatest side in the history of pop music.

Did Neil ever record with The Band, aside from "Revolution Blues"? I love the chemistry on that track.




not counting The Last Watlz

Levon Helm lays down some predictably excellent drumwork on "The Old Homestead."

"for the turnstiles" is one of my all-time favourite songs from one of my all-time favourite albums.

rough top 5:

1. on the beach
2. everybody knows this is nowhere
3. harvest
4. rust never sleeps
5. after the gold rush

if i included the archives series, the fillmore and massey hall sets would slot in at #2 and #3 respectively.

does anybody know......

is this


the same show as this?

i believe they are one and the same, but i've never had it confirmed, and they do have remarkably similar track listings...

i've been pumping zuma a bit lately myself. i'll be damned if "cortez the killer" isn't one of neil's finest moments. the way it melts into "through my sails" is flawless.

listened to weld for the first time in ages today.

righteous.

listened to rust never sleeps the other day and absolutely loved it.


as a dude who used to approach this album for the sheer fact that it contained the guitar rock staple, "hey hey my my" i came to the following discoveries/conclusions.....


"pocahontas" is an amazingly well written song.



the best line of the entire album, however, is in "sail away"

see the losers in the best bars, meet the winners in the dives

it's the type of line that only NEIL FUCKING YOUNG could write and not sound conceited or phony




also, there is a weird high pitched telephone like noise in the middle of "sedan delivery"