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Neil Young Other products by Reprise Records Ratting 4.5 Out of 5.0 Special Offer Total New 34 Use
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His self-titled 1968 self-titled solo album, following his exit from Buffalo Springfield, bridged what was and what would be. Though his only album not to chart-'The Loner'- its most memorable track-Neil Young marked the launching point of an illustrious solo career.

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 "A halting debut" 2010-06-16
By Philip Bradshaw (toronto canada)
I am sitting in a comfy chair about to embark upon my reviewing journey of the music of Neil Young. I have sorted the records and CDs into chronological order. I see in front me 10 of the former and 16 of the latter. I am not counting the DVDs or the Springfield or the CSNY recordings. Notwithstanding the foregoing I consider myself more of a casual fan, rather than a devoted one (I was a devoted fan, inter alia, of Del Shannon, Procol Harum and Steely Dan). I mention the foregoing simply because it appears to me that for many artists the vast majority of the reviewers appear to be the diehards, people for whom the depositing of a bad review is positively painful!

Neil Young is an earnest, yet hesitant beginning to Young's solo career. It is primarily a folk album, and as a lover of the genre, I have no problem with that. I think that side one is consistently stronger than the flip side. It contains the LP's best song, The Loner - definitely not a folk song. I find side two nice but innocuous.

All-in-all I much preferred Young's contributions to the Buffalo Springfield albums. Other than The Loner there is nothing here to compare with Clancy, Flying on the Ground, Burned, Out of My Mind, Mr. Soul and Expecting to Fly. By the same token I think that the gentle folk approach found on this debut was more successful on the later Harvest and After the Goldrush.



 "Tough to go wrong with early Neil Young...." 2010-04-27
By Dan L. Manes (United States; Cleveland , Ohio)
Neil's an established artist, so i'm not going to spend a whole long while blabbering on and on about this album. To put it simply, if you like(not even love) Neil Young, than you should own this album. It doesn't have a weak track throughout and is great late sixties, Young at his finest.

Don't hesitate to grab, especially the newly remastered version. It sounds great!


 "Best Since Buffalo Springfield" 2010-04-26
By T. A. Stephenson (Nashville "Music City USA")
Neil Youg left the SPRINGFIELD (B.S. ruled the west coast music scene) to start a trend of members leaving their previous bands to go solo.
In my opinion this disc still holds up better than any of the schmaltzy matieral that came later in his career.
If you're a Mr. Young fan, listen to his best! T.A. Stephenson


 "just one little annoying thing" 2010-03-12
By Bertrand Stclair (new york, new york United States)
Everything others have said about this album is true: it is an excellent album from Neil's phase when he still sought memorable, original melodies and sounds. All I can add is that what may pass for slightly quaint conceits now (although no less listenable for that), such as opening the album with an instrumental, countrified thing, or letting Jack Nitzsche go to town on String Quartet From Whiskey Boot Hill with a contemporary (read: occasionally atonal) chamber music interlude, was innovative at the time of its creation, and made everyone feel like there was still hope for the progress of rock.
Now on to my little annoying thing. The good news is that this remaster is truly a remaster, a warm, "round"-sounding one well worth the money, unlike the myriad remasters where you sit dumbfounded and wonder where the difference with the previous release is, and where your money has gone. The one teensy thing that bothers me is that the loudness levels don't seem to be equal from song to song. Right off the bat, you'll want to hear The Emperor of Wyoming louder than The Loner, which follows it. Granted, the first one is soft and leans toward violins, the second is a pretty hard rocker with a typical Neil-fuzzed electric guitar and the killer 60's organ; they are naturally different-sounding songs, but I'd have thought that was precisely what remasters were for: to find the best possible balance for all songs on the album (among other things).
I don't know if this is the case for all four in this initial series of remasters: I started at the beginning, we'll see where this leads, but I do hope the levels are more consistent on the remaining albums.


 ""I Don't Care if All of the Mountains Turn to Dust in the Air"" 2009-09-17
By The Wild One (Sugar Moutain (with the barkers and the colored balloons))



This past weekend I purchased and listened back-to-back to the newly remastered and restored versions of Neil Young's first two solo albums, Neil Young and Everybody Knows this is Nowhere (the latter recorded with his backing band, Crazy Horse.) This was a great experience not only because of the wonderfully improved sound quality of these reissues but also because it afforded me the opportunity to reacquaint myself with all of the material--some of it undeservedly forgotten--on both of these albums. In the case of this album, Neil's first solo outing after his three records with the Buffalo Springfield, The Loner is the only track that has proven to be immortalized, which is unfortunate as it is only one of many strong songs on here. The most consistent thing about this album is the strength of the melodies-- not one of them is a clunker and the majority is likely among Neil's strongest ever:

The first track, The Emperor of Wyoming, is a pleasant country-tinged instrumental that grows rapidly on the listener. It is a catchy melody and one of the most upbeat and completely happy-sounding things Neil has ever penned. Not so much a gem as it is an unjustly neglected trinket, Emperor gives gives the album a characteristic quirky edge right off the bat, being absolutely nothing like what follows.

The Loner is by far the most well known song on the album and one of Neil's strongest rockers, with a driving melody and some of his most intense and brilliant lyrics ever, centered on themes of isolation and loneliness. I've loved this song since I first heard it and am delighted that it now sounds better than ever, the awesomely powerful rhythm section rocking harder than a sailboat caught in a storm at sea while Neil's guitar bursts through the melee with new crispness. (Needless to say, the people behind the restoration did a good job.) Continuing one of Neil's most effective album sequences, we segue into If I Could Have Her Tonight. Once again, the remastering job has done wonders-- I've always thought that musically it's near-perfect pop but for the first time, I'm aware of just how underrated this short song is. It's a direct and emotional story of romantic yearning, told in the eminently relatable manner it seems only Neil can effect-- the listener is completely convinced that everything being sung is real, that's it's based on true events. I've Been Waiting for You is even better, an absolute work of art by an artist in a determined search for the love. While the rhythm section (highlighted by George Grantham's excellent drumming) propels this second heavy rocker, a swirling mist of keyboards and guitars wraps itself around the listener, steadily building through the verses as the desire is expounded upon, building to a crescendo at the chorus as the artist's fantasy of meeting his greatest love is envisaged. Young's guitar soars once again during the instrumental break with an epic passionate solo.

Ending out a superb side one is The Old Laughing Lady, a rambling song about vice. Musically, it is a deceptively gentle, lulling ballad. Lyrically, it is as restless, conflicted, and mournful as most of the songs on here. Verses one, two, and four are especially excellent, particularly with the line "you can't have a cupboard if there ain't no wall", whereas verse three ("see the drunkard of the village') states the theme almost too literally and directly as compared to the subtlety and poeticism of those around it. The song has one of the album's more complex arrangements, with intricate string sections by co-producer Jack Nitzche (who also produced Neil's Expecting to Fly on Buffalo Springfield Again) and backing vocals from several female soul singers, apparently signifying the titular character. The number ends with a hypnotic repetition of notes as the Old Laughing Lady does her thing...

The String Quartet from Whiskey Boot Hill and Here We are in the Years act as a sort of suite. String Quartet was written by Nitzche. In another context, I think I'd really enjoy this but here, it's the least interesting track in sight. Still, with its quaintness and tranquil tone, it leads well into Here we Are in the Years-- which has really grown on me over the years that I've listened to it. Them most interesting thing about it is that it features almost no repetition of melody. It coasts from tune to tune at mid-tempo carried by atmospheric piano as Neil atmospherically describes the beauties of the countryside and laments the fact that it seems that some are working to destroy it, one bit at a time. One of my favorite Neil Young lyrics can be found here: "Time itself is bought and sold. Spreading fear of growing old contains a thousand foolish games that we play"--so completely true and so well-stated.

The next two songs also seem to go together: What Did You Do to My Life? and I've Loved Her So long. The former, another mid-tempo, also seems connected to I've Been Waiting for You, showing the flip side of that scenario with an equally infectious melody and unique, electronically-based arrangement. The lyrics again are brilliant. I quote one of my favorites, from the chorus, in my title: "I don't care if all of the mountains turn to dust in the air", with a buzzing synthesizer portending this disaster. Neil's vocal as he demands, "What did you do to my life?" behind these words is equally haunting. I've Loved Her So Long, by contrast, is an impassioned slow balled for a lost partner--not haunting so much as melancholy. Melody and lyrics are uniformly strong, with Jim Messina providing a particularly strong bass line and the refrain especially memorable. The song's one possible weakness is a slightly overwrought reappearance of the choir from Old Laughing Lady, effective in the background of the verses but just a little to close to wailing at some spots in the chorus, Nitzche apparently trying to turn it into a '50s soul record, which works to some degree but not entirely. There is an acoustic performance of this song which is just as good, if not better, on Live at the River Boat from Archives 1. In both cases Neil's passion for the song and for his lover--even though she has left him--come through.

The final track, The Last Trip to Tulsa, is nine and 1/2 minute opus that could itself be the subject of an entire review. It is unique among Neil's other long numbers in that it features only he and and he accompanies himself on only the acoustic guitar. The result is a unique, great-sounding song, especially with the great remastering job here. The melody remains the same, but varies compellingly throughout from a serenely relaxed, almost meditative tempo to desperate agitation, with Neil hitting the strings so hard at some points, you're surprised not to hear one snap off. The lyrics are completely bizarre: great imagery but nonsensical for the most part. The narrative is semi-coherent, moving between waking and sleeping, as well a dead and living, states throughout. During the sleeping portions, the songs seems like a collection of a night's worth of dreams-- brief and not at all related to one and other. There are some interesting passages that one suspects may just hold deeper meaning. For one, I wonder whether the "Two men eating pennies" mightn't be Charles Green and Brian Stone, the managers of the Springfield, with whom Neil did not get on very well. They are apparently strong businessmen if nothing else. This fits in with the autobiographical nature of some of the other verses: "I used to be a folk singer..."

There is also the priest who, in the absence of his congregation, would rather not "play the fool", a clear blow at hypocrisy and the lack of integrity all-too-often present in leaders.



Then there is the "death section": the narrator dies after being shot through the nose with an arrow by a Native American and then somehow comes back to life at some point during or just after examination by an apparently friendly coroner. Some have read racial meanings into the manner of death. Most likely, however, Neil, who has for years been fascinated by Native American culture, was examining the duality he often found in himself. He may also have been bemoaning racial disharmony of the day. The connection isn't all that improbable when one considers this was the age of Martin Luther King Jr., and the African-American equality movement.

Whatever the case may be, after some further bizarre but captivating ramblings about, among other things, a brilliantly nightmarish filling station with yellow servicemen and green fuel and opening up a person's mind (with the great line, "if you guarantee the postage, I'll mail you back the key"), Neil summarizes the whole thing by saying all of this happened on "my last trip to Tulsa, just before the snow." This is just a guess, and it certainly doesn't explain why he chose Tulsa, OK, but when talking about this particular place the narrator apparently goes to regularly, Neil may have been speaking of the mental state that forces an artist to create, that part of their mind all creative people have that feeds them ideas and from whence all of these vignettes were conjured. That would certainly explain where all the bizarre images come from.

The song, and album, end on one of Neil's more memorable verses, as insant karma is exercised when a friend won't help chop down a palm tree the narrator's been working on "for 87 years" and the tree lands on his back when finally cut down, presumably killing him. It's cold; sardonic; ironic; and completely Neil, and also a great, if random, note to end the album on.

The only reservation I have with this album is that, even in the days of vinyl as primary format, it could have easily been longer than it was. It works great as is and is a complete work of art but one wonders whether tracks like Slowly Burning, a Springfield instrumental just released on the Archives, Whiskey Boot Hill (also on NYA1) and Birds-- a version of which was recorded at the time--might have fit with the songs on the album and really added to it.

Bearing all of this in mind, this would probably be a four-star album under most circumstances, but I felt that because the remaster was so strong, this release warranted a fifth. Like Everybody Knows this is nowhere, the clarity is wonderful and adds a dimension to the album, coming after the inferior 1990 release. I personally also prefer the cover without the "Neil Young" plopped on top of it. This lets the beautiful portrait of Neil--and the surreal pro-environment background showing cities and pollution gradually taking over the countryside--be visible without obstruction. (And that's not even mentioning the original "Neil Young of the Buffalo Springfield" sticker on the shrink-wrap.) So another point for the reissue there.

I'd recommend, especially if you don't already own "Neil Young" on CD, that you pick up this reissue. It's a great album and sounds brilliant as can be in its reissued form. This is a beautiful piece of work and, like the entire Archives concept, a testament to how much Neil cares about his legacy.


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