Who has kept up with Neil Young?

My opinion on what has appeared since then:

Le Noise: some strong highlights
Americana: listenable, but quite unnecessary
Psychedelic Pill: his best since Sleeps With Angels, a good latter day effort from NY&CH
A Letter Home: uninspired covers, terrible sound, not his absolute worst but near the bottom
Storytone: nice little acoustic album
The Monsanto Years: Promise Of The Real deliver the goods, but Neil has no great songs
Earth: a regular live album from this tour would have been so much better
Peace Trail: a relaxed sounding Neil not trying very hard, that's a good thing here
Hitchhiker: Easily in his top 10 album of all time, better than most albums where these songs eventually appeared
The Visitor: better songs than Monsanto Years, inconsistent but still a fine effort

 

I stopped at Pill. I'm done with him aside from archive releases. He's lost me with his new stuff.

 

Funny thing about this thread is I used to think of Neil as the best example of a classic rock period person or act who was still doing it. Ragged Glory comes to mind as an example of that.

Since then? Kind of a snooze I guess.

 

Bowed out after P Pill. I like when my favorite artists spend more than 5 mins on a song, like gives a crap.

 

Like PP very much.

He lost me on everything since.

I wish he would concentrate on quality and not quantity. I prefer a good album every few years as opposed to new releases all the time.

 

The only album I've liked in the last 20 years is Psychedelic Pill. That one is great though. Tired of hearing songs that sound like they were dashed off in 5 minutes. Maybe he's forgotten how to write a good song, or maybe he just doesn't care enough to put in the time to really craft a good song. Either way, the results have been very disappointing.

 

Fork in the Road: Utter Rubbish
Le Noise: quarter Decent songs
Americana: Wonderful refreshing interpretations
Psychedelic Pill: Back to his very Heavy best but a lot of editing is needed
A Letter Home: Wonderful classic songs done very badly and thats the "clean" version
Storytone: The acoustic version is better but overall maybe only a third of it is barely decent.
The Monsanto Years: A thiurd of the songs are reasonable but still have terrible lyrics.
Earth: Great live album ruined be the totally ridiculous sound effects etc.
Peace Trail: Bar the title song.. Unlistenable
The Visitor: Bar maybe 3 songs.. Unlistenable

Now every archive release on the other hand has been totally superb topped off with last years unexpected and sublime "Hitchhiker" recorded acoustically back in 1976. Personally I think Neil has totally lost his muse since P Pill and no longer knows the difference between a good song and a crap one.. a great shame as he was once one of the greatest songwriters on the planet. Thank god his live shows are still awesome.. he never fails to give his all in concert but sadly I doubt he will ever write another classic let along a half decent song judging from his last few albums. Very sad.

 

Interesting a lot of people bowed out after PP like I did.

 

Psychedelic Pill was the last album I bought. I found it partly great and partly boring. I quit after that one. By the way, I thought Fork In The Road was terrible.

 

"On the coast, the long and tempting coast, the cards on the table lie..."

I can see giving up on Neil because he's more or less completely given up on disciplined, carefully crafted careerism in favor of spontaneous improvisational dashed-off old-coot flow, but personally I'm along for the whole ride until I drop dead or he does.

Quantity over quality be damned, I just don't want to miss late-breaking masterpieces like Psychedelic Pill or his consistently brilliant live shows like the latest, the gorgeous live-streamed Omemee "Home Town" gig.

 

ITT: people competing for how much they dislike NY's later work.

a commonality in all NY threads on this site.

 

Yeesh....so many critics. I don't have all his recent records, maybe about half. PP is genius. There's something comforting in knowing NY is still out there, putting out records every 6 months whether we want them or not.

 

Psychedelic pill is great, the last years.
Others I don't like (last 10 years)

 

Got them all and will always buy new Neil site unseen. Did not like Earth but there is enough in the others to find a gem or two. Love PPill and Americana but that seems to be the trend. Often try to think about whether he will be considered a genius in 50 years or forgotten- is he really on topic with Monsanto Years or will all be forgotten. History will tell if he was relevant or not,

Jim

 

Listening to Peace Trail now (nice CD packing & poster/lyric sheet too)...really lovin' this one by Neil. Has Neil's rocking sound and some great lyrics too. (not his Crazy Horse rock, but very nice). Jim Keltner rocks the drum kit, and Boshnell is great on bass. A nice three piece "super group" effort. Simple clean and very nice!

 

the good parts of Monsanto Years are great but it's a maddening album. I think Visitor is WAY better. Forever is a top NY track.

 

I know/have next to nothing by Neil Young (no particular reason), but the only things I do, I adore - ‘Harvest Moon’ the song & video, and (especially) Le Noise (album & video album).

 

Agreed on Fork In The Road; I was amazed Neil would release something so clunky. Given his recent record, the amazement has worn off - Psychedelic Pill being the lone exception (although it could've used some editing).

 

Sorry, I was less impressed with Psychedelic Pill.

I did enjoy Americana and A Letter Home.

 

Whoever was down on Fork in the Road, you are so wrong. That came out at a time I literally had no time to listen to music. but I revisited recently and totally loved it, I'd put it up there in Neil's 6 or 8 best records.

 

I get everything he puts out and there are gems to be found on all of them. Personally, my least favorite is A Letter Home. I rank Monsanto Years quite highly - the guitar work between Neil and Nelson is unreal. I think that if you live with all of the new releases for a few listens, they reveal merit. I firmly believe that there is latter day Neil that would be regarded as classic if released in the 70s, and stuff from then that would be dismissed as poor songwriting if released now. I've said this a few times on this board: this idea that Neil's lyrics have become pablum or too activist is absurd - he's always been this way. From "This whole world keeps spinning round, it's a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down" to "We got mother nature on the run in the 1970s". He's always written 2 to 3 chord rock with simple changes. Neil hasn't changed - his fans have.