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!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-07-07 14:19 by bv.

you haven't had enuff time to digest all that dylan yet! haha...

you'll get as many different opinionns on neil as you find posts here....

for my money:

everybody knows this is nowhere, after the gold rush, harvest, on the beach, ragged glory,harvest moon & living with war would represent a really good starter set of his best studio albums. the 2cd weld might be the best place to start for live work with crazy horse....

stick with the early stuff to begin with:-

Massey Hall
after the goldrush
live at Fillmore
Decade - best of the compilations
Sugar Mountain

this is where you start...................

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T&A
you haven't had enuff time to digest all that dylan yet! haha...

you'll get as many different opinionns on neil as you find posts here....

for my money:

everybody knows this is nowhere, after the gold rush, harvest, on the beach, ragged glory,harvest moon & living with war would represent a really good starter set of his best studio albums. the 2cd weld might be the best place to start for live work with crazy horse....

have to disagree, albums such as ragged glory & living with war are NOT a starting point for NY. To understand him you need to start at the start and understand how he evolved later into recording those albums (RG & LWW). Unlike his early stuff they are not classics, the only reason they get the high profile is because they are by NY, anyone else and they would have sunk/stunk without trace.

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ERC6761

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T&A
you haven't had enuff time to digest all that dylan yet! haha...

you'll get as many different opinionns on neil as you find posts here....

for my money:

everybody knows this is nowhere, after the gold rush, harvest, on the beach, ragged glory,harvest moon & living with war would represent a really good starter set of his best studio albums. the 2cd weld might be the best place to start for live work with crazy horse....

have to disagree, albums such as ragged glory & living with war are NOT a starting point for NY. To understand him you need to start at the start and understand how he evolved later into recording those albums (RG & LWW). Unlike his early stuff they are not classics, the only reason they get the high profile is because they are by NY, anyone else and they would have sunk/stunk without trace.

as i said - nobody would agree here.

but, justin will take my advice and get ragged glory and living with war....so deal with it.

You can't go wrong with Decade as a starting point. Add in Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust and Comes A Time. Freedom is great, too. I would avoid the 80's era Geffen releases until you are a fanatic. Enjoy!

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T&A

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ERC6761

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T&A
you haven't had enuff time to digest all that dylan yet! haha...

you'll get as many different opinionns on neil as you find posts here....

for my money:

everybody knows this is nowhere, after the gold rush, harvest, on the beach, ragged glory,harvest moon & living with war would represent a really good starter set of his best studio albums. the 2cd weld might be the best place to start for live work with crazy horse....

have to disagree, albums such as ragged glory & living with war are NOT a starting point for NY. To understand him you need to start at the start and understand how he evolved later into recording those albums (RG & LWW). Unlike his early stuff they are not classics, the only reason they get the high profile is because they are by NY, anyone else and they would have sunk/stunk without trace.

as i said - nobody would agree here.

but, justin will take my advice and get ragged glory and living with war....so deal with it.

if Justin takes your advice he's making a mistake..........deal with that

First off,After The Goldrush,a top notch mixture of acoustic and electric NY without one duff track.Then Everybody Knows..,On The Beach,Tonight's The Night,Zuma and for 'later' stuff,Freedom and Ragged Glory.But definitely start off with ATG.
For live albums go with Massey Hall,Live Rust or Weld.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-18 02:58 by still ill.

DECADE

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ERC6761
if Justin takes your advice he's making a mistake..........deal with that

where's monty hall when you need him?

Harvest and After the Goldrush. Listen to them 'til you're sick. Then get the others.

"The wonder of Jimi Hendrix was that he could stand up at all he was so pumped full of drugs." Patsy, Patsy Stone

Live rust, After The gold rush, Comes A time, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, On The Beach. This is the starting Point! MEZ

After The Gold Rush
Harvest
Decade

Buy ARC first.....

Old Ways...Landing On Water...

Just Kidding.

Decade is probably a good overview.

Massey Hall and Filmore East are both excellent...Get the Archives when they come out in July 20xx.

There is so much wonderful stuff you have to look forward to.

Ragged Glory is a sonic marvel.

Decade is the first hits collection; definitely start there.
Early 70s acoustic era -- After the Gold Rush
Late 70s Electric -- Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust (half acoustic, half electric)
80s Geffen Era -- Lucky 13 (Greatest Hits of Geffen) or Trans but it's an acquired taste
1990s the Rebirth -- Ragged Glory, then Weld (live)
1995 -- Mirror Ball (Neil w/Pearl Jam as his band)
Everything after 1995 is second tier Neil IMHO.

Your journey will be similar to a Dylan journey; he's got so many styles and eras; some albums are just unbelievably good and a few are nearly unlistenable (for me Re*ac*tor, Everybody's Rockin', Landing On Water, Road Rock Vol. 1 and Are You Passionate) some are just dull (Hawks and Doves, Harvest Moon, Silver and Gold).

I'm no Neil Young fan/expert but i'd think, like with every other band, do it chronologically. The music people wright evolves over time therfor you can only "understand" it by following the same path.

You would never really understand the stones music if haven't heard the first couple of albums with all the covers. If you listen to them you will understand the whole R&B, blues base in their music.

Cheers,
Wuudy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-18 06:13 by Wuudy.

>I'm no Neil Young fan/expert but i'd think, like with every other band, do it chronically

Well don't kill yourself lol. I personally wouldn't advise doing it *chronologically* -- I like Buffalo Springfield and Neil's solo debut but they're not exactly captivating for a new convert. DECADE provides a nice chronological overview of the first era (even though it's heavy on HARVEST and overlooks TIME FADES AWAY).

It's a good thing then that i mentioned that i'm not a Young fan/expert ;-)

Cheers,
Wuudy

If you haven't, You should check out the film Where the Buffalo Roam(1980). Neil Young sings the theme song.


warning: This movie has a really cool soundtrack of motown, dylan, hendrix,ect, but later versions have surfaced where all of the songs that were origionaly in it except for the Neil young song were taken out and replaced with really cheezy instrumental stuff.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-18 06:48 by ryanpow.

After the Goldrush
Harvest
Zuma
Rust Never Sleeps
Freedom

This would be like handing over Beggars, Bleed, Sticky, Exile and Tattoo You to someone who wants to explore the Stones.

[thepowergoats.com]

Four Way Street by Crosby Stills Nash & Young just for the song "Ohio"

Well, this doesn't belong here exactly, but I have also started to listen to a lot of stuff thanx to this forum (Dylan, Springsteen). Right now I started to explore Led Zeppelin, which I have to confess haven't known at all (excet of Stairway). I bought the Live double DVD with those 4 concerts and right now I am just amazed. I have been missing a lot...Anyway, Neil Young is another white spot in my musical landscape which will need some care. Right now I am too bussy with Led Zep (not that I would fully explore Springsteen and Dylan, that is a long distance run), but the time will come and this topic will be a lot of use for me too...

Yo Justin!

Start with Decade - a great overview of Neil's career from Springfield through to about 1975.


My favourite albums go something like this:

On The Beach
Freedom
Tonight's The Night
Harvest Moon
Sleeps With Angels
Broken Arrow
MTV Unplugged
Ragged Glory
Zuma
After The Goldrush
Everyone Knows this is Nowhere
Time Fades Away (this is unavailable on CD, but it has been widely bootlegged)
Rust Never Sleeps
Live Rust
Lucky 13 (a great Geffen era compilation - he best way to sample the sometimes obtuse music Neil made then, from "Kountry Kraftwerk" (Trans, Landing on Water) to glossy country (Old Times) to rock n roll pastiche (Everbody's Rockin') to half-hearted Crazy Horse workouts (Life)

I'd also recommend the Stills Young Band album, Long May You run, for the title track and Fontainebleau - a poisonous ode to a famous Miami hotel, which has recently reopened.

I don't rate anything he's done after Broken Arrow. But that's just me.

Hope this helps.

Happy listening.

I got into Neil Young much later than most, being younger: on Rockin' In the Free World, but I didn't pick up Freedom for sometime, so the first NY album I bought was Harvest Moon. To this day, it is still by far my favorite album of his. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to it in the dark just imagining him sitting there recording in the studio. The album blows me away.

After that I got Decade and followed as his newer stuff was released, so some of these also rank among my favorites: MirrorBall, with Pearl Jam; Sleeps With Angels has some great tracks; Unplugged; Broken Arrow; and Chrome Dreams II I think are fantastic.

As for older stuff, I love Harvest; Everybody Knows This is Nowhere; Old Ways (NY's attempt at a country album, and a pretty good one); and American Stars n Bars.

Live stuff is tough.......I've never been one of those who can get into Weld. For me, it's just a wall of eletric static/feedback, along with its spinoff, Arc. Those are by far the 2 least played NY albums I own. I would go with any of the Archive releases from the new Sugar Mountain to Massey Hall. I think NY works much better live as an acoustic act than as an electric act.

As one gets into NY's work, his time with Buffalo Springfield CANNOT be overlooked. Here's a teenager writing some of the most powerful songs of the 60's. I'd definitely pick up their Retrospective, which has all the choice cuts on it.

For me, really, NY has never put out a fully crap album - here's much debate - but each one has at least one gem on it. I think he's a true genius, and we'll be sorry the day he passes. For me, he ranks well above Dylan, who's pallatable only in small doses and gets far too much credit, but that's just MHO. Neil Young is what Dylan wished he could have been.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-18 15:02 by VoodooLounge13.

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VoodooLounge13
Neil Young is what Dylan wished he could have been.

reverse the subject and object in this sentence and that you've got it right....

LMAO - took a little longer'n I expected for someone to jump on me for that comment! What can I say?! That's my musical tastes. Dylan's never done it for me.

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?

All advice necessary has already been given ;-) But to stress a certain point:

DECADE is the perfect starter. It covers the core of Neil's legacy well into the 70s (with the only exception of Rust never Sleeps). It's lovingly compiled by the master himself, peppered with famous Neil highlights and flavoured with some blistering unreleased (until then) material. In other words: A perfect little box set, before this was even invented.

ya know i dont feel the love in this thread.after all john/paul said "all you need is love"(she loves me yeah yeah)greetings to my good friend T&A !

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Greenblues
All advice necessary has already been given ;-) But to stress a certain point:

DECADE is the perfect starter. It covers the core of Neil's legacy well into the 70s (with the only exception of Rust never Sleeps). It's lovingly compiled by the master himself, peppered with famous Neil highlights and flavoured with some blistering unreleased (until then) material. In other words: A perfect little box set, before this was even invented.

Decade was released in 1977, so it also lacks any tracks from Comes A Time. In the late 80s, Neil started talking about a second Decade album, covering the years 1977-1987. Then he changed his mind and started working on a big box set .... still workin' on it ....