Jonny Redshirt

I like Neil Young, but I find him to be massively overrated. He's simply too overly serious most of the time and too much of his material screams out "Hey, look at me, I love Bob Dylan." Nothing particularly wrong with that - I love Bob Dylan, too - but when Neil picks up an acoustic guitar, he seems to struggle with adding his own identity to his music.

Now, his electric proto-grunge stuff is, for the most part, fantastic. He definitely did some things with the electric guitar Bobby D could never do. "Like A Hurricane" is my pick for Neil Young's best song, but I also love "Down By The River", "Cortez The Killer", and "Cowgirl In The Sand".

It's hard for me to choose his best album, since he's pretty consistent (although none of his albums manage to blow me away), but in a pinch I'd probably go with Tonight's The Night. There's certainly no complaints I can make about identity crisis on that one, and it never gets boring to me at any point, mostly because the pain he was going through at the time is so palpable.

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Screen13

I became interested in his music through listening to Buffalo Springfield. While I already was familiar with his best known songs through the radio (This was around the Early 80's, during the time he was recording the albums that made people wonder), I had to dive into the Springfield's music through the Retrospective to hear what went on before going solo, with a focus on what makes him unique. "Expecting to Fly" is seriously beautiful, "Mr. Soul" caught my ears, "Broken Arrow" was great, and even songs like "Clancy" and "On the Way Home" (I admit, I liked it) stood out while being sang by Richie Furay. By the time Young returned to cranking the amps to 11,000 and recording some of his best in years, I heard plenty for me to say that he's someone I can fully respect after diving into some albums and the Decade mega-set. He innovated in '67, kicked out the slow burning jams with Crazy Horse, had a habit of going to a musical edge, was among the first rockers to release a film that made the few who saw it go "What in the HELL did I just go through?!!!" when many others were making straight out performance pics, had one of the most interesting films that had to wait for video to see an audience, joined forces with Devo and Dennis Hopper (a mega-plus!), and more. In '79-'80, I was into Rust Never Sleeps, and by the release of Weld, there's a fuller understanding. After that, it's been ranging differently (I still have to get his latest), but he's created plenty of music to dig through...and I even have to admit that the Shocking Pinks era was alright in my book ("Wonderin'" still remains to me a very under-rated song and Tim Pope-Directed video).

Unknown Soldier

Yer "Buffalo Springfield Again" is a great album, but I`m surprised that you didn`t mention Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young above. Their harmonies were sublime and the album "Deja Vu" an absolute classic. I love Neil on that album despite the fact I think Dave Crosby had the best material on the album. `s were bad for Neil Young and there are some really bad albums in this period.

Screen13

Yeah, I was mainly focusing on Young as a solo as a bit of an introduction and forgot to mention Deja Vu. My favorite CSN and Y track has to be "Ohio," both as the song that introduced me to the harmonies and as something that's hard to surpass. I only dabbled in CSN - Back when I was just starting to get into music, there was "Wasted on the Way," and as a young Punk-type at that moment (Early 80's memories again), you might get the idea on how that turned me away from the three initials for the time being...although of course with Y American Dream some time later was seriously disappointing as well, so it took me up to the next decade to fully grasp CSN as someone who was just starting to fully experience music listening, and remembering that one classic song that got me beck to diving in once more. While I'm one of those who seriously has to have the Y in the equation, I respect the work of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

I don't know if you were referring to The 80's or '90's, but if you were referring to The 80's, I can understand the opinions of the last Reprise album (Re-ac-tor) to "Lucky 13" era, as it is seriously was a jaw-dropping moment in music history that still made people root for the artist, but in a way I dug the more experimental moments of it if not full on. Everyone has the bad album, Landing on Water and Life were not quite returns to complete form, sounding to me like they were completely trying to satisfy Geffen and keep his career moving (Can't blame him, though). I also understood the Old Ways album, now sounding like the ultimate warm-up to Harvest Moon and his Reprise Return, This Note's for You, was good, but still giving the listener the feeling that those amps should be set at "Crazy Horse Loud" once again. Thankfully, that moment happened.

robjekyll

I think too many people are looking at his Harvest & After the Gold Rush era material, which has its place. I don't think he ever really fit into Buffalo Springfield myself. But, there are albums that aren't as mainstream that are better, for instance On The Beach and Zuma. Never really a big fan of his electric mayhem stuff. I like Neil

s_k

I've always liked his more silent tracks better.
I loved harvest, I loved after the goldrush, indeed.
But I also love the song "Light a Candle" from "Fork in the road"

I think he has the voice to make vulnerable music.
I know a lot of Neil's fans won't agree with me .

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Mr Grieves

Huge neil young fan. I think his mid to late 70s stuff is my favoroite. Rust never sleeps. Zuma. Tonights the night. On the beach. Comes a time. All great albums. People say his eightys albums sucked but at least he was still trying to innovate and be creative with his art not becoming a parody like some dinosaur acts of his era

zachsd

Definitely one of the greatest song-writers of the 20th century. I just love the minimalism that Neil Young is able to convey, especially in tracks like "Down by the River" and "On the Beach." This sense of minimalism, along with his lyrics, make me have to believe that Neil Young suffered/suffers from serious clinical depression. His music really speaks to those who suffer from depression.

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Love-song

...so many great songs...feeling this one tonite...

Comes A Time




You and I...We were captured...
...We took Our Souls...and We flew away
We were right...We were giving...
...that's how We kept what We gave away

there comes a time...

Howard the Duck

i think too many people overlook the Ragged Glory and Harvest Moon albums, which are some of his best work