Tonight's The Nightis maybe the best Rock-album that's been done...

So start there for a starter...

2 1 2 0

You could probably start with the new live one from '68. It's outstanding.

Quote
Come On
Tonight's The Nightis maybe the best Rock-album that's been done...

So start there for a starter...

great album, no doubt about it. but, not a good place to start for a neophyte neil fan....dark, brooding....in fact, could have the affect of upsetting the appetite for more neil! haha....

Hi,
why not start with his last studio work : Chrome Dreams II,
brialliantly mixture of tracks and moods ( and length ),

and don´t diss Reactor,finest trash stuff,a great one.

Have fun on your Young journey...

Quote
shortfatfanny
Hi,
why not start with his last studio work : Chrome Dreams II,
brialliantly mixture of tracks and moods ( and length ),

and don´t diss Reactor,finest trash stuff,a great one.

Have fun on your Young journey...

good points. CDII is a fine collection, demonstrating many of neils sides, styles and moods. and reactor has the best meat and potatoes song ever.....

.... and reactor has the best meat and potatoes song ever.....[/quote]

So true...Great Lyrics.

The recent Greatest Hits album is an easy start.

Neil Young is one of the very few great rock artists (along with the Stones and the Beatles) whose work has, tragically, not yet been remastered.

Drew

Thanks guys!

A lot to think about here. I have to say...I'm not really too excited about this venture. With Dylan...I had a pretty big appetite for him. I know very little about Neil Young. I've heard a few songs recently here and there which sparked my interest and people constantly tell me I should get into him and also apparently the music I write is somewhat similar to that of Neil's. So you can see, I'm intrigued.

I've listen to a lot of the samples to the albums on Amazon, and I must admit...nothing has jumped out at me. When I asked for help on Dylan here on IORR and got many responses...I bought like 5 albums straight away. I suspect, I will take it much slower with Neil Young.

From the looks of it...I will start with Decade, definitely. And maybe Tonight's The Night as Come on and T&A mentioned. This will be a tough one, I imagine...but I'll give it a shot.

I will let you guys know what happens! THANKS AGAIN!

Quote
T&A
yeah, i knew you were just looking for a reaction, vl13....to each his own. you've heard the story about dylan hearing heart of gold for the first time?

No, T&A, I'm not familiar with that story, but I'd love to hear it.

Quote
VoodooLounge13

Quote
T&A
yeah, i knew you were just looking for a reaction, vl13....to each his own. you've heard the story about dylan hearing heart of gold for the first time?

No, T&A, I'm not familiar with that story, but I'd love to hear it.

well, i guess it wasn't necessarily about the first time he heard it - this is bob from a 1985 interview.....

In 1985, Bob Dylan admitted that he hated this song, despite always liking Neil Young:

"The only time it bothered me that someone sounded like me was when I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, in about '72 and the big song at the time was "Heart of Gold." I used to hate it when it came on the radio. I always liked Neil Young, but it bothered me every time I listened to "Heart of Gold." I think it was up at number one for a long time, and I'd say, "Shit, that's me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me."

Heart of Gold..Decade...and Live Rust are the best three I can think of to begin. It is not as long a journey to check out Neil for a rookie as Dylan, who has written more good songs than anyone i can think of.

Get the Greatest Hits from a few years back BUT only if you can get the DVD version for maximum sound quality.

In 1966 Neil Young as a member of The Mynah Birds cut a single for Motown Records.
Lead vocals on both tracks are by Rick James who was AWOL from the US Navy at the time.

It's My Time / Go On And Cry can be found on The Complete Motown Singles VOL6 - Hip-O-Select






ROCKMAN

Has Neil Young always sounded like Kermit The Frog? ;-)

I started my journey into Mr Young's work with "Harvest Moon", too. But I didn't care much about his 70s era material in the beginning, so it went on with "Ragged Glory", which has songs that I absolutely love, "Freedom", which I thought sounded like crap and sold it to a friend not long after. I was then seriously underwhelmed by "Sleeps With Angels" which I only listened to twice in a store in almost its entire length. "Mirror Ball" has some great moments on it, but that crappy cardboard cover scratched the disc unplayable, which is why I despise the so-called ecopak packaging for CDs. "Broken Arrow" is pleasant even until today, though it rewards some patience. "Silver And Gold" is a solid acoustic effort, which would be very good if it had the songs on it too that Neil took aside for the CSNY reunion of "Looking Forward". If you can find a cheap copy of "Looking Forward", get it for "Out Of Control" alone. "Are You Passionate" has Neil in soul music mode, with Duck Dunn and Booker T of Booker T and the MGs, which has some great moments but a lot of filler too. "Living With War", the original with the choir, has Neil in protest singer mode, and might not exactly be audiophile, but the emotion is real, and its easily his best album since at least "Mirror Ball".
For the older stuff, I'd get "On the Beach", "Harvest" and ask somebody else than me maybe ;-)

It has been said here by other people: On the beach.
That's the one to start with.

I've listened to it all for decades and seen the man in virtually every format-including four shows in the last week.

I would actually avoid Decade as a starter. As excellent as it is, and as much otherwise-unavailable material as it contains, I just believe in hearing proper albums first.

Rust Never Sleeps (1979) is a masterpiece and better than any other single Neil album shows off what the man is all about and why he's so revered: solo acoustic on side one and thundering electric with Crazy Horse on side two, it's basically a meditation on youth and aging and history and most importantly, how to keep the flame burning and do rock'n'roll into one's thirties and beyond. More than ten years into an-already legendary career, it was an exquisite statement of purpose. It remains so today.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) with Crazy Horse is just a perfect album. Lean and mean with nary a weakness, it introduced the Horse to the world and set up Neil's entire improvisational recording approach. Still the basis of the legend.

Funnily enough, 1993's Unplugged album is a very good look at that side of Neil. The Harvest Moon performances outclass their studio counterparts and there's a terrific and surprising selection of gems from throughout his career. They're all given a nice, spooky treatment.


Zuma, After The Gold Rush, Tonight's The Night, the soulful and criminally underrated Broken Arrow, Harvest, Live At Massey Hall, 1971...hundreds of great songs and thousands of great performances. Much of it will take some getting used to, but you have a lot to look forward to...

Quote
The GR
Get the Greatest Hits from a few years back BUT only if you can get the DVD version for maximum sound quality.

I'll place my bet on the 200 gram Classic vinyl - Outstanding.

Quote
Rockman
In 1966 Neil Young as a member of The Mynah Birds cut a single for Motown Records.
Lead vocals on both tracks are by Rick James who was AWOL from the US Navy at the time.

It's My Time / Go On And Cry can be found on The Complete Motown Singles VOL6 - Hip-O-Select

Yes, THAT Rick James. Super freaky! Is there a more unlikely Motown recording artist than Neil? (I mean someone who actually recorded on Motown?)

I don't know much about Neil Young but I love this song. I remmeber first hearing it when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live back in '93 I believe it was... this is from Unplugged.







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-21 05:41 by ryanpow.

Am not sure if this was posted before. A rather cool story about Bob Dylan stopping in to visit Neil's old childhood home when his tour swung through Winnipen in November. A bit surreal...


Dylan knockin' on Neil Young's door
Morley Walker, Winnipeg Free Press
Published: Tuesday, November 11, 2008

It's not every day that you drive home from grocery shopping to find Bob Dylan rubbernecking in front of your house.

But that's what happened to Winnipeg city employees John Kiernan and Patti Regan, whose Grosvenor Avenue house was the early 1960s home of music icon Neil Young.

"It was very neat," says Kiernan, 53,who claims to have spent about 25 minutes chatting with the legendary singer-songwriter.

Earlier this month, on the day of Dylan's Winnipeg concert, Kiernan and Regan came home to see two scruffy men who had arrived by taxi standing on the sidewalk outside their house.

"Oh, oh, Neil Young fan alert," said Regan, who has become accustomed to such incidents in the six years they've lived in the amalgamated duplex.

She went to talk to them while Kiernan lugged in the groceries. After he was finished, he walked out to chat, too.

Nothing clicked until he noticed that one of the men had his black leather pants tucked into expensive-looking cowboy boots.

He glanced up and studied the lined, unshaven face topped by a grey tuque and realized he was looking at Dylan.

Kiernan admits they have no documentary proof of Dylan's visit, nor did they even get an autograph.

"It seemed cheesy to ask," he said.

"I was embarrassed that we hadn't bought tickets to the concert."

Kiernan kept his cool, while Regan remained oblivious.

Dylan, 67,was curious about the house and neighbourhood as they related to Young.

Kiernan showed them Young's old bedroom, now painted bright pink and occupied by Kiernan's 16-year-old daughter.

"So this is where Neil would have listened to his music,"Dylan mused.


© The Calgary Herald 2008

[www.canada.com]

So this thread is 7 months old...and I've only now been able to come back with an update...

I finally got into NY about a month and a half ago. First got Harvest...and then the curiosity grew and grew. Next I picked up:

Live Rust
Unplugged
Trans (was tough to find but I love this album! The song "Transformer Man" from Unplugged led me to this album)
Ragged Glory
Harvest Moon
Prairie Wind


I knew NY would take me a while to get into but it was worth it. I'm not even finished yet in my venture...my next paycheck I'm picking up a good chunk of the catalog I don't have. I love how this guy can write something as kick ass as "F#ckin' Up" and then write something as beautiful as "Unknown Legend." True genius. I've got a long way to go on this journey---thought I'd let you guys know where I am!

Now I gotta see Neil live...hope he comes to LA soon!

Live Rust was my conversion. Great Acoustic + Electric live album.

Saw him live in April. He was just as energetic on stage as Mick Jagger. Great performer on top of everything else.

Justin,
Make sure you put Zuma and Freedom high on the list of next purchases.

And good on ya for liking Trans! That means you have a truly open mind when it comes to Neil. I think that album gets such a bad rap, and it's got wonderful songs on it. Have you heard the story that he put most of the vocals through the vocoder because Neil saw the album as an expression of his frustration/challenge of communicating with his son (autistic I think).

Enjoy!

TeaAtThree

TeaAtThree...definitely got Freedom on the list. I've heard so much good things about that one...everyone compares every album to Freedom. So it must be good! Don't worry....I'm pretty sure I'll have all of Neil's stuff. If only these paychecks would get here quicker!!

I just saw on Amazon, the set Weld and it blew my mind...Ragged Glory is a top notch album and I can't even imagine the treatment he gave these songs LIVE. Can't wait to get this one!

Yeah I really love Trans. I had the Unplugged CD playing and then "Transformer Man" came on...I was like "what is this fantastic song?" I literally had it on repeat for half an hour. I kinda wish I had heard the electronic version first to appreciate how obscure (yet perfect) that song choice was for the Unplugged set.

Yeah I heard that he was big on the vocoder because of his son. I really appreciate his flexibility into going into this genre....really paved the way to much of the sound going on today.

Quote
Justin
Okay guys....you guys helped me a ton when I was beginning my journey with Bob Dylan...and now I love the guy. My next project: NEIL YOUNG.

Where do I start? What are the must-haves? Studio albums...live stuff...which of his recent work is worth a listen? Gimme it all!

Please guide this poor boy!

Hi Justin,

Decade is a fine compilation, I don't think you can go wrong with that CD set for starters. Harvest, After The Gold Rush, Rust Never Sleeps and American Stars & Bars I think are essential, but for me, my entry into NY was in the early 90s so I also recommend Ragged Glory and Weld.

Can I just chip in here for Greendale. I saw one of the acoustic shows at Hammersmith Odeon in 2003, where he played the whole album solo, several months before it was released! After 35 years and a significant back catalogue, how risky was that? The acoustic performances were stunning but the electric treatment on the official CD was a bit disappointing. However, the initial release came with a DVD of an acoustic show in Dublin which is worth seeking out. I believe later releases included a DVD of a full band Greendale performance - I haven't seen this so I can't comment.

Just noticed this thread & no-one has mentioned Buffalo Springfield, esp the Satisfaction-inspired riff on 'Mr Soul'