Mind you, quite a few people who post here thought he'd delivered a strong one with Barn, and at least half those who reviewed it on this board thought the songwriting was a significant improvement over the last few (I thought so myself, and was not especially pleased with Colorado). Not a universal opinion, but it was pretty well liked.
I'd say it did happen on "Barn". I just wish they had rehearsed the songs a bit more before recording, but the songs are classic Neil in my book.
This thread is still the only place on the internet going with the World Record album title as far as I can tell, which is in’trestin’… Might be funnier to call it An Old World Record.
"Dr. Rubin...report to the control room with a defibrillator and the latest version of Autotune...STAT!"
jesus christ. just back from vacation and saw this thread. silly me, i thought there might actually be information about the new album, but it's the same folks bitching about the same old ****.
In the mythology of Neil, he wrote “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” in fifteen minutes during a fever dream while he was sick. Or those songs just came to him out of thin air in a fever dream while he was sick. My point is that he’s always written spontaneously. Asking him to sit down with a pen and some composition paper and edit and rewrite his songs is simply not how he’s ever worked. Maybe the songs are weaker today, because he’s near the end of his life and his faculties are slipping or whatever, but you can’t ask him to be something he’s not. He’s doing the same thing he’s always done, just with admittedly weaker results. But something like “Don’t Forget Love” could have replaced the unfinished, half-assed “Cripple Creek Ferry” on After the Gold Rush, and, if “Don’t Forget Love” had been released in 1970 with Young Neil singing it, people wouldn’t be like, “Oh, this is awful,” they’d be like “That’s the quirky closer to After the Gold Rush.”
I don’t mind his recent albums, but they don’t really grab me either. They are worth the price of a cd to me… to get to sit with an old friend for a few minutes and see what’s been on his mind lately. And there’s typically one or two songs that I’ll come back to, like Welcome Back from Barn. I actually liked Barn more than I thought I would. Now I don’t disagree with you about his process or anything, but I honestly think that the difference between Barn and ATGR has more to do with the lack of peaks than a comparison of the most throwaway tune. ATGR has the title track, Tell Me Why, Only Love, Southern Man, Don’t Let It Bring You Down. It’s one of his greatest accomplishments. Barn is worth hearing, but I fear that it’s unfair to Barn to put it next to one of Neil’s most enduring albums.
I look forward to hearing the new album. It took a couple weeks before pulling the trigger on Barn. Glad I did pick up the vinyl. It is, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers, my most played from the last year.
All told, we are gonna get another studio (3rd in a row) NY&CH album before 2022 ends. YEAH !! Barn was better than Colorado so we'll see what's in the tank.
I don't get the dislike for Young's newer albums. Peace Trail might not be On The Beach Part II but it still has some great songs on it. It works well as cohesive whole.
I don’t dislike them. I like them. But I love his earlier work. And a lot of other music by other people. So the new ones tend to be, “oh, that’s nice. It’s good to hear from my old friend Neil.” But they don’t stay in rotation. That is true of almost all of his peers as well. They are not at a stage in life where a lot of great music is made. Neil is doing better than most. But of all of them, I think Neil has the most potential to find a promising vein and actually make a great album again. So I hope for that every time, which is unfair to where Neil is in his life and career.
I think that's an intriguing and valid point that could cover a slew of terrific latter-day tracks. "Sun Green," or "Bandit," or "Beautiful Bluebird," or "Eternity," or "The Way," or "Welcome Back," or a number of take-your-own-pick dismissed numbers that could've sat proudly on more consistent LPs made during a phase when listeners weren't yet swamped with a career more than a half-century in length. But (your word) "half-assed" "Cripple Creek Ferry" charms perhaps because it's so frankly slight--or so quirky. Mysterious, even. That works a whole lot better than the grand message of "Don't Forget Love," which is slight (arguably charmingly so) but aims to deliver A Big Lesson. "Cripple Creek" (and "Till The Morning Comes") kinda let a little bit of the air out of album sides that are pretty intense overall.
Yeah, that’s true. I’m not really trying to knock the more recent albums. He was in some insane creative zone during that run in the ‘70s. I’ll defend Barn as a good album that’s worth hearing. I just think standing it next to ATGR is like standing a pretty good baseball player next to Willie Mays. I’m delighted that Neil is managing to look backwards and forward at the same time.
Neil has been spontaneous and impulsive his whole life. If he thinks it, it won’t be too long before that thought becomes a song regardless of how much time he’s spent on it. There was enough there in Colorado and Barn to make them both interesting. I’m with @Tom Daniels. Some of the best Neil Young tunes are interchangeable. You could arrange or sing them acoustic or electric with a guitar or piano or any combination . I’m not so sure you can say that about a lot of the tracks on Colorado or Barn. I hope Neil has one more great album in him even if it’s not World Record. He’s an automatic purchase either way. I hope he brought his A game with him to the Rick Rubin sessions, if not it won’t matter even if Rick Rubin is filled with the spirit of David Briggs.
I agree with most of what you say, but I don’t think Neil could write new songs to match “After the Gold Rush,” “Tell Me Why,” and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” if he simply “tried harder.” That ship has sailed. As someone noted above, though, he can still crank out a tune like “Peace Trail,” which, if it had appeared on a 1970s album, would be very highly rated today, I suspect. Even something like “Don’t Forget Love” is pretty good, in my opinion.
