Mirrorball95

EDIT: I would like to ask the Mods not to merge this with the 'Neil Young' post that Rezz pointed out as this thread is solely focusing on the Favourite Album/Period of his music rather than just a general discussion on Neil Young.
This way I should be able to attract posters who have a deep interest in Neil Young's works rather than 'casual fans' who have only heard
'Heart Of Gold' or 'Rockin' In The Free World' for instance.
If this could be allowed I would be most grateful.

Alrite this is a thread dedicated to discussing Neil Young's lengthy career spanning from late 60s right through til present day.

Throughout his career he has constantly changed; baffling fans & winning new ones in the process; but has still managed to remain relevant throughout 4 generations due to his immense talent in songwriting not to mention his enormous stage presence & technical ability.

Personally, I do not know anyone who doesn't like Neil Young.

My personal favourite period(s) of his career is in his later works from
80s & 90s but especially 90s.
My favourite album usually juggles between;
Ragged Glory (1990), 'Mirrorball (With Pearl Jam)'- (1995) &
'Sleeps With Angels (1994) ;depending on what mood i'm in.

I find it too difficult, on a whole to rank his best album of his career so Ive done a decade by decade ranking of what i think is the best albums from that period, which I think is a fairer solution.

60s:
1) Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969)
2) Neil Young(Debut) (1968)

70s:
1) After The Gold Rush (1970)
2) On The Beach (1974)
3)Zuma (1975)
4)Tonight's The Night (1975)
5)Comes A Time (1978)
6)Harvest (1972)
7)American Stars N Bars (1977)

80s:
1)Trans (1982)
2)Landing On Water (1986)
3)Freedom (1989)
4)This Note's For You (1988)
5)Re-Actor (1981)
6)Old Ways (1985)
7)Life (1987)
8)Everybody's Rockin' (1983)
9)Hawks & Doves (1980)

90s:
1) Ragged Glory (1990)
2) Mirrorball (With Pearl Jam) (1995)
3) Sleeps With Angels (1994)
4) Broken Arrow (1996)
5) Harvest Moon (1992)

2000s:
1) Praire Wind (2005)
2) Chrome Dreams II (2007)
3) Are You Passionate (With Booker T & The Mgs) (2002)
4) Greendale (2003)
5) Living With War (2006)
6) Silver & Gold (2000)
7) Fork In The Road (2009)

Live Albums:
1) Weld/Arc (1991)
2) Unplugged (1993)
3) Live Rust (1979)
4) Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
5) Road Rock Vol.1 (2000)
6) Year Of The Horse (1997- Havent got yet).

P.S. I am aware I havent bothered to include Buffalo Springfield.
Also I missed out the Eldorado Ep as it only has about 4 or 5 tracks (not all exclusive) so I wouldnt class it as a proper album.

I also dont have the extremely rare 70s live album 'Time Fades Away'.
I saw it for around £150 on amazon recentley & thought f*ck that lol.

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Dr_Rez

An awesome thread but I have a feeling a mod will merge it with http://www.musicbanter.com/classic-r...eil-young.html that one.

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My favorite era of the mighty Young has to be 60's 70's. Like most other artists it seems to be the beginning of truly great rock music.

Pretty good synopsis here, but with his recent albums I dont see how you could put those four above Living With War. That album is great. His muddy fuzzy tone is wonderful and the message of the album sure hits home to anyone alive for the last 10 years.

Maybe its just my general hate towards most 80's music, but like most artists 80s:
1)Trans (1982)
2)Landing On Water (1986)
3)Freedom (1989)
4)This Note's For You (1988)
5)Re-Actor (1981)
6)Old Ways (1985)
7)Life (1987)
8)Everybody's Rockin' (1983)
9)Hawks & Doves (1980)

were a low point for me. Something about that 80's big band type of sound just turns me off. Now I haven't heard all those albums but I don't doubt that they have there strong similarities.


edit: I really need to listen to Tonight's The Night and some more live albums. Whats your take on Tonight's The Night?

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Mirrorball95

When it comes to Living With War, I must be about the only one who really doesnt bother about it, it just doesnt work for me, I dont really like to listen to it.

Its not that the music is awful or anything, just prefer the other albums.

I can totally understand your viewpoint of the 80s as to me it marked a change in music from the 60s 70s sound and the 80s-present sound (if you know what I mean).
He disallusioned a lot of fans with the likes of 'Trans' but thats what I love about him as an artist, that he doesnt give a f*ck what people think and was always willing to change/try out new ideas and did it several times.

As for the 80s albums, thats where you are wrong, all the albums are totally different from each other.
The only two that I would say sound alike are Re-Actor & Hawks & Doves.

'Trans'
is techno based (some people call it 'Transformer music' ) music with heavy synthesisers & use of vocoder for the vocals.
Was very poorly received by fans & this is the point when a lot of people turned their heads.

'Everybody's Rockin'
was a response to David Geffen saying to him that after Trans when he had originally proposed 'Old Ways' it was rejected and he was told - 'he will go out and do a rock 'n' roll album' and Neil Young basically went out and did just that; an original 50s rock & roll album- which i thought was hilarious.

'Old Ways'
was a sudden move in country music & is one of my favourite country albums of all time. He played will the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings along with another huge array of musicians & female vocalists; see this! Old Ways - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'Landing On Water'
was a return to Rock music, I suppose if you hate all the 'big band' sound you will most likely hate this album like most people apart from me (& others?) dont.
Very heavy synthesisers, typical 80s stadium drumming.
Supposedly poor songs but I think the songs are fantastic & this is amongst my favourite and most played Neil Young albums.

'Life'
was his reunion album with Crazy Horse for the first time in 6 years.
This is also his lowest selling album to date & his last for Geffen.
The music on the album is admittedly pretty mediocre but some great songs are overlooked especially the 8 minute long 'Inca Queen', also the first 3 tracks on the album including 'Long Walk Home' are really good.

There are comical points on this album as well, especially 'Prisoners Of Rock N Roll' in the lyrics:

"We don't wanna be watered down
Takin' orders
from record company clowns".

Also interestingly the album cover


portrays a feeling of Young's that he was imprisoned by the record company & also if you look closely underneath the picture there is the number 4 scratched out to indicate his fourth album for Geffen Records (and ultimately his last).

'This Notes For You'

This was Neil Young's first album after being freed from Geffen records & perhaps Trans aside marks his most adventerous change in style of music.

He renamed his band 'The Bluenotes' which later was changed to
'Ten Men Workin'(which is the first track on the album) after Harold Melvin from the original 70s group made copyright claims.

The style of music of album is best attributed to that of Jazz fused Rock music with some Swing moments thrown in.
The title song in particular 'This Note's For You' is fantastic.

This perhaps marked Neil's return in confidence.

'Freedom'

This album, for many fans, was his 'comeback' album.
But to me he never went away, just people turned their heads when he tried out different styles of music.

The title track 'Rockin' In The Free World' is now perhaps his best known song amongst this generation of fans & I believe it won him a number of new admirers.
The album starts with an intimate live acoustic version of the song and ends with the rockier,hard edge studio version.

The tracks inbetween are also really good, one particularly worth mentioning that you may like is 'Crime In The City'.

This was the album in which he was first recognised to have picked up on the grunge movement with lots of distortion & feedback; a trend that would prove fruitful come the next album, 'Ragged Glory' which happens to be one of my favourites.



So there you go, I dont why I just did all that but you now have a wee rundown of all his 80s albums.

Heres a wee shortlist of the albums I suspect you may like:
'Freedom', 'This Note's For You', 'Old Ways', 'Re-Actor'.

Check the first two out first of all, you may be surprised.

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Dr_Rez

Ill give them another listen. I have only briefly heard them (his 80's albums) so Ill give it another go.

__________________
*Best chance of losing virginity is in prison crew*
*Always Checks Credentials Crew*
*nba > nfl crew*
*Shave one of my legs to pretend its a girl in my bed crew*

Mirrorball95

Ok fair enough check out the ones I mentioned In the shortlist.

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