I own a ton of Neil Young records. I am not a troll. I am a fan. I just play it the way I feel it. I will rephrase what I said though. This is not the Crazy Horse I love. Poncho’s departure killed the magic… (Nils doesn’t have it).
Fair enough. Apologies for the troll comment. I think there's still some magic in the new song, and I think there was some magic in Colorado. Not a lot, granted, but Milky Way was pretty nice. I think there will be more magic in the new album, but we will have to wait and see.
I agree completely! While I like the Nil’s Horse I loved Poncho Horse. That is the Horse that will live in my heart forever!
I recall the 1993 live version was somewhere in between those lengths. Maybe 8minutes? that was my fave version.
But Briggs almost always brought him back around. …and the album you mention was an FU to David Geffen who was demanding a rock and roll album (for rest of that particular chapter even Briggs was powerless).
One of my favorite NY lines was about Geffen suing him for "not making music representative of Neil Young" after Everybody's Rockin and Old Ways came out. Something to the effect of as long as Geffen keeps suing me for not making records that he wants, I'll continue to put out these types of records and they will become representative of Neil Young.
Yeah, it had a nice groove. I thought it was the best song of the one MGs show I saw. I didn’t feel like that band tapped into other Neil songs completely. Harvest Moon was a gem, too.
"Milky Way" was definitely the standout on Colorado for me, which I heard once and haven't gone back to (there's just too much music to listen to, particularly from NY himself!). I don't love this new track on a first listen, but it's not bad. Love Neil's restless creative spirit--you can't keep the dude down.
The numbered special edition (box set) is also available at third party stores. The only things I couldn't find anywhere else are the standalone Blu-ray and the cassette.
It's a shame that the Sessions didn't get a DVD release. For me, the 14 minute Change Your Mind isn't in the same league as Cowgirl or River, but I'd be interested to hear the CS version.
So essentially the hi-res is the only carrot offered by Greedy Hand. Looks like Bezos will get my money this time.
Question: Which of Neil's records "sums up" his studio recordings of the last 15 years or so? I think it's The Monsanto Years. Because The Monsanto Years is a (frustrating!) combination of extremely compelling musical "ideas" with undercooked "ah, who cares if it could be better?" execution. Take just a millisecond to imagine The Monsanto Years with more vibrant production and sharpened-up lyrics—the occasional bouts of blandness, exorcised. It wouldn't just be an exceptional Neil Young record for 2015... it would be an exceptional Neil Young record, period. It would have been the samurai sword of modern Neil Young albums. And that's 2005-2019, I think. It was a period of intense artistic creation where the albums often fell short at the hurdle we can dispassionately label as "quality control". (Or in other words, come back to life, David Briggs.) Now, before deciding I'm being unfairly harsh, here, please consider the flip-side of my assessment — Neil Young is as powerful an artist as ever. Still. Watching this new Instagram video, you can hear that artistry in his voice. And you can see it in that (proprietary) twinkle in his eyes. (Without disrespect, a particularly cheeky commentator like you or I might refer to him as a "wily old bird".) And looking back, not much has changed. Neil talks about recording in a barn back in the 80s — and yes, watching this clip on Instagram, we get the sense that this is exactly the same guy who made those records from a different age: An age when David Briggs and Ben Keith still were with us in person, and not "just" in spirit. A time when careers were at stake — as opposed to an even more terrifying threat to life itself. So...what do you think? Will Barn turn out to be the latest in a series of Crazy Horse classics? You know my thoughts on this. Neil's best records are the ones where he isn't in awe of inspiration from the muse, but understands that it's his job—through all of his tenacity and artistic skill—to follow the thread of that inspiration and bring it to life. Naturally a perfectionist, Neil's response in recent years has sometimes been to leap to the other extreme of complacent half-heartedness (in work ethic, if not in spirit). There's a workable middle ground. Not just a middle ground, but an artistic extreme in its own right, actually. It's the same prosperous middle ground that brought us such magical albums as Greendale, Earth and Psychedelic Pill. Going to that place doesn't just bring us great records — I think it's also when Neil finds the music most rewarding. All folks involved in the creation of those albums I just mentioned can surely say to themselves "you know, we did a damn good job, there". (Or, just as gallantly: "we gave it our best shot".) What do you think? In the ruins of our 2021 world, am I asking for too much? To answer "yes" to that question would be to underestimate Neil Young. Dangerous territory, my friend.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX66jEixZe1z4QRGvVOhTviCzPoHTc0tK Here’s a link to the first Crazy Horse album (1971). Nils penned 2 songs.
For those who, like me, don't have an IG account: https://www.pixwox.com/it/profile/neilyoungarchives/
Neil will never again reach the magical consistency of his 1970s albums. However I buy almost every album he releases and always find something worthwhile on each one.
