Album Review: Neil Young

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Neil Young and Crazy Horse -‘Americana’ (Reprise)

So, let’s get the obvious pointers out of the way first. This is Neil Young’s 33rd solo album since his first, 1969’s self-titled debut. It is also the first time he has united with his longtime backing band Crazy Horse since 2003’s Greendale.

If you’d only ever heard one or two albums by Neil Young, it would be easy to try and pigeonhole him. But impressively, over four decades in music (getting onto five), he has sought not so much to reinvent himself as to continue to explore new avenues. Americana has been spoken of as being one of his more ‘unusual’ records (see also: Everybody’s Rockin’, Trans etc..) Yes, he has long been considered to produce records that would be considered ‘folk’ but also he has experimented with far rockier sounds (see his last album, the rather fine Le Noise, Ragged Glory). And on this album, the two come together.

The album is comprised of eleven folk songs, many of which as Young points out, are songs that they (he and Crazy Horse) would have learned in Kindergarten, plus finishing with ‘God save The Queen’ which would originally have been the de facto american National Anthem, until Independence. Rather wisely, there is no sound of the controversial ‘Rebellious Scots to crush’ line that appeared in early versions of this song. The songs presented are not pastiche, nor novelty, but rather Young and co.’s interpretation of them in their own style.

The album opens with ‘O Susanna’ – if there’s meant to be any reference to the infamous spat between Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd it’s not here), ‘I’ve come from Alabama with my B.A.N.J.O. on my knee.’ It’s not twee, it is Young and it is great. ‘Gallows Pole’ appears on investigation to be even older (0and possibly of European origin), and was performed by Led Zeppelin in the 1970s. ‘Jesus’ Chariot’ is probably better known on this side of the Atlantic as ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain’, while ‘Clementine’ as long been reworded as a playground song (‘build a bonfire, build a bonfire, stick the teachers on the top/Stick *** in the middle and then burn the bloody lot!’).

Sure, these are ‘folk songs’ as in belonging to the people, rather than just having an acoustic guitar on them. The band truly make these their own -and if this is seen as being one of Young’s more ‘diffifult’ or ‘unusal’ albums, it’s a heck of a lot easier to get to grips with than most.

****

Americana is out now on Reprise

Stream the album at The Guardian’s website

Tom Jones vs. Neil Young

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Tom Jones –as I posted last month
is shortly to release his new album Spirit In The Room, on May 21. This is the second track to do the rounds from it, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Tower Of Song’. The video seems to be reminiscent -if not as harrowing -as Johnny Cash’s video for ‘Hurt’:

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Meanwhile, Neil Young has teamed up again with Crazy Horse for his new album, Americana, due out on June 4.

This is the first track to do the rounds from this, a version of the old song ‘Oh Susanna.’

Album review – Neil Young

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Neil Young -‘Le Noise’ (Reprise)

nail Young is now into his fifth decade as a musician. In an alternative universe, his early seventies albums After The Goldrush and Harvest would still be seen as his career high points and he would be continuing to churn out albums that sounded a bit like them, only not as good.

However, we live in the best of all possible worlds, and one of the many things Neil Young has shown himself capable of is working within different genres. Sure there have been others too (Elvis Costello and David Bowie) but young manages to keep his musical mind active and his audiences on their toes. It’s not to take away from Harvest and Goldrush, but Young is at his most exciting when he’s investigating other areas.

What makes Le Noise so special is that the album is just Young and his electric guitar, and being fantastically well produced by Daniel Lanois.Lanois has channelled the voice and guitar so that bass, drums, keys (whatever) do not feel conspicuous by their absence, but instead this feels like a warm album, intense in the best possible way.

And the approach that Young and Lanois have taken should not detract from the fact that the songs are pretty awesome, too. Highlights are the openiong ‘Walk With Me’ and the quite possibly autobiographical ‘The Hitcher’ where Young reflects on drug use. Young has been pretty prolific over his career, and I still feel that this is one of his best albums for some time, certainly superior to recent offerings like Fork In The Road and Living With War. The Wire‘s review suggested that he do something similar, produced by Sunn o)))’s Stephen O’ Malley. Sounds good to me, too…

****

Le Noise is out now on Reprise

Neil Young -‘Walk With Me.’ mp3

Neil Young -‘Hitchhiker.’ mp3