Neil Young - The third decade and a half
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:23 pm
A "Decade III" compilation similar to the first "Decade" would be very useful. It conveniently begins with his return to Reprise, too. Ain't gonna happen, though.
Anyway, you might as well burn it yourself, Neil's CD's get a little louder the same time he (or Tim Mulligan, his mastering engineer of choice) got into HDCD, but most of them seem to sound MUCH better than contemporary CD's. He doesn't fall prey to the ultra-sharp, square-wave sound that most CD's circa 2000 have.
Reading the Morthland biography, I started compiling some stuff.
First CD, "This Note's For You." Mastered by Doug Sax, recorded in digital, it does have the 'digicrap' sound (Morthland calls it that), but that's mostly production. Kind of slick and sterile, there are audience bootlegs from this era that sound so much better, musically speaking. Still good for that one title track which got a HILARIOUS music video spoofing Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, and Whitney Houston's TV commercial productions at the time.
Next two are the bomb, "El Dorado" foreign EP and "Freedom." Doug Sax mastered both, both digitally recorded, but sound REALLY good, better than any digital recording I've heard from the same time. In terms of songwriting, arguably the best of the third decade. ESSENTIAL.
"Ragged Glory" is where Mulligan gets on, I think, and masters the rest. The production is drier than "Freedom," total garage-rock, raw and sloppy, allowing even the last bit of distortion to die out. Arguably the best album of the third decade based on performance and sound alone. ESSENTIAL.
"Weld" supposedly is better on the laserdisc, but I haven't heard it. The mixes on the CD are murkier because Neil remixed it due to tensions with David Briggs, who mixed the LD. Neil admits he messed up. Still, the CD sounds good. A GREAT live set.
"Harvest Moon" was made because Neil had some really bad tinnitus from touring. Makes you wonder how he can be so caught up with sound if his hearing's so damaged? So he did this acoustic album. I like five songs from it, the first two cuts, the title cut, "One of these Days," and the epic closing cut.
The title track to "Philadelphia" is great, too bad it didn't win an Oscar. Bernie Grundman mastered it for CD (a none Neil release) and it's VERY dynamic.
"Sleeps With Angels" is underrated and somewhat forgotten. A grungy, oppressive-sounding, harrowing album with some funny moments for levity.
"Mirror Ball" is where HDCD begins, I think. Not big on Pearl Jam fan, but "Downtown" and "I'm The Ocean" are great, the two I kept.
"Broken Arrow" has a bonus cut on the vinyl version, so I've heard. I thin it's called "Interstate," it's supposed to be good, but I don't have it. I heard it's on a CD single, too. The CD has a few great cuts. "Big Time," "Loose Change," and "Music Arcade" I kept. Morthland said it would've been a great Ep, I would agree.
That's about it for the third decade. After that, there are a few live albums, a soundtrack, etc. but I wasn't terribly interested in them. I did check out "Silver and Gold," and the two best songs are two lost classics, the title track and "Razor Love," both originally written in the 1980's and even performed in the studio, but those earlier versions are still unreleased. "Good To See You" is a nice, tossed-off number they played a lot on the radio, so I kept that, too.
I also checked out "Are You Passionate?" which Tim Riley of NPR liked but I really hate it. It sounds like Neil's totally exhausted as an artistic force. If he retired after this one, I wouldn't have been surprised. Cool that he got the Stax players, and they work up a nice groove on a few cuts, but his singing, the songs themselves, feh. I kept one track, "Goin' Home," which is also the only one with Crazy Horse. They played this live before it ever showed up on record. Not a classic, but pretty hard-rocking stuff.
Still on the fence about "Greendale."
Anyway, you might as well burn it yourself, Neil's CD's get a little louder the same time he (or Tim Mulligan, his mastering engineer of choice) got into HDCD, but most of them seem to sound MUCH better than contemporary CD's. He doesn't fall prey to the ultra-sharp, square-wave sound that most CD's circa 2000 have.
Reading the Morthland biography, I started compiling some stuff.
First CD, "This Note's For You." Mastered by Doug Sax, recorded in digital, it does have the 'digicrap' sound (Morthland calls it that), but that's mostly production. Kind of slick and sterile, there are audience bootlegs from this era that sound so much better, musically speaking. Still good for that one title track which got a HILARIOUS music video spoofing Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, and Whitney Houston's TV commercial productions at the time.
Next two are the bomb, "El Dorado" foreign EP and "Freedom." Doug Sax mastered both, both digitally recorded, but sound REALLY good, better than any digital recording I've heard from the same time. In terms of songwriting, arguably the best of the third decade. ESSENTIAL.
"Ragged Glory" is where Mulligan gets on, I think, and masters the rest. The production is drier than "Freedom," total garage-rock, raw and sloppy, allowing even the last bit of distortion to die out. Arguably the best album of the third decade based on performance and sound alone. ESSENTIAL.
"Weld" supposedly is better on the laserdisc, but I haven't heard it. The mixes on the CD are murkier because Neil remixed it due to tensions with David Briggs, who mixed the LD. Neil admits he messed up. Still, the CD sounds good. A GREAT live set.
"Harvest Moon" was made because Neil had some really bad tinnitus from touring. Makes you wonder how he can be so caught up with sound if his hearing's so damaged? So he did this acoustic album. I like five songs from it, the first two cuts, the title cut, "One of these Days," and the epic closing cut.
The title track to "Philadelphia" is great, too bad it didn't win an Oscar. Bernie Grundman mastered it for CD (a none Neil release) and it's VERY dynamic.
"Sleeps With Angels" is underrated and somewhat forgotten. A grungy, oppressive-sounding, harrowing album with some funny moments for levity.
"Mirror Ball" is where HDCD begins, I think. Not big on Pearl Jam fan, but "Downtown" and "I'm The Ocean" are great, the two I kept.
"Broken Arrow" has a bonus cut on the vinyl version, so I've heard. I thin it's called "Interstate," it's supposed to be good, but I don't have it. I heard it's on a CD single, too. The CD has a few great cuts. "Big Time," "Loose Change," and "Music Arcade" I kept. Morthland said it would've been a great Ep, I would agree.
That's about it for the third decade. After that, there are a few live albums, a soundtrack, etc. but I wasn't terribly interested in them. I did check out "Silver and Gold," and the two best songs are two lost classics, the title track and "Razor Love," both originally written in the 1980's and even performed in the studio, but those earlier versions are still unreleased. "Good To See You" is a nice, tossed-off number they played a lot on the radio, so I kept that, too.
I also checked out "Are You Passionate?" which Tim Riley of NPR liked but I really hate it. It sounds like Neil's totally exhausted as an artistic force. If he retired after this one, I wouldn't have been surprised. Cool that he got the Stax players, and they work up a nice groove on a few cuts, but his singing, the songs themselves, feh. I kept one track, "Goin' Home," which is also the only one with Crazy Horse. They played this live before it ever showed up on record. Not a classic, but pretty hard-rocking stuff.
Still on the fence about "Greendale."
