JOESEDDIT’S CRATES FULL OF VINYL – NEIL YOUNG (1981-1987)

I’ve got a couple of crates full of old vinyl albums that I haven’t listened to in years due to lack of equipment to play them. Over a period of about a year and a half I revisited each album on the internet or bought the CD and ranked the songs. I also recorded some brief thoughts, rated the album, and posted the results on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists comment section. I’m recycling and categorizing/grouping the posts on this website.

Old Ways

They were calling him “Cousin Neil” on the country radio stations as they were playing some cuts from this album. This one coincided with the whole “Farm Aid” thing and features Willie Nelson on one of the songs. This was part of his “chameleon” phase during the 80s. I think it’s the last Neil Young album I bought. I don’t dislike country music, in fact, Neil has always had a twinge of country in him from the very beginning. But frankly, I was ready for this album to end.

Scale of 1 to 10:  D

1- Are There Any More Real Cowboys?

2- My Boy

3- Once an Angel

4- Old Ways

5- The Wayward Wind

6- California Sunset

7- Where is the Highway Tonight?

8- Get Back to the Country

9- Bound for Glory

10- Misfits

Life

This is the last Neil Young album I ever bought. Strike six and yer out. I loved everything up to “Hawks and Doves” so much that I gave him every possible chance. This is another one I was gonna skip ‘cuz I didn’t listen to it much. At least not much relative to other albums in the crate, anyway. A few of the songs did come back to me so I must have tried harder than I remember. “Inca Queen” is a good song and the next two on my list ain’t bad, either. But there isn’t another song on the album that I would individually grade out any higher than a C… maybe C minus. A few are downright bad.

Scale of 1 to 10:  D

1- Inca Queen

2- Long Walk Home

3- We Never Danced

4- Mideast Vacation

5- When Your Lonely Heart Breaks

6- Cryin’ Eyes

7- Prisoners of Rock ‘N’ Roll

8- Around the World

9- Too Lonely

Everybody’s Rockin’

In the early 80s, Neil Young put out a string of genre specific albums that I like to define as his “chameleon” era. None of ‘em sounded anything like the one before it, and more importantly to me, none of ‘em sounded like the Neil Young of the 60s and 70s. This particular album is made up of ‘rockabily’ songs. I believe it’s a legitimate effort, but at the same time can’t help but think there’s a small dose of “tongue-in-cheek” mixed in there somewhere. The album is kinda fun at first, but it seems as though Neil ran out of cliché’s to borrow half way through the project ‘cuz eventually the songs start to sound very much the same. I probably listened to it less than five times back in the vinyl days and haven’t listened to it again until now. I expect the pattern to continue so I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to listen to it again.

Scale of 1 to 10:  D -

1- Everybody’s Rockin’

2- Betty Lou’s Got a New Pair of Shoes

3- Mystery Train

4- Payola Blues

5- Rainin’ in My Heart

6- Cry, Cry, Cry

7- Wonderin’

8- Kinda Fonda Wanda

9- Bright Lights, Big City

10- Jellyroll Man

Reactor

This album was released about two years after I started getting into Neil Young’s music. At that point I had already collected and absorbed his catalogue and was anxiously awaiting the next “Harvest”, “Comes a Time”, “Everybody Knows”, etc… But as the ensuing years would reveal, Neil was moving on from the sound that made him famous in the late ‘60s thru ‘70s. This album is more akin to the hard driving electric “into the black” version of “Hey Hey, My My” from his “Rust Never Sleeps” LP released only a couple of years earlier. It also lines up with some of his later hits (“Rockin’ in the Free World” for example). I wasn’t yet ready for the change so I was mostly shaking my head with arms crossed on this one. Fast forward to now – with exposure and acceptance to a broader variety over the years – and this is one of, well, quite a few now, albums that is better than anticipated. It’s not a great album – a bit too repetitive/riff oriented – but really not that bad. I fully expected to grade this out somewhere in the “D” range.

Scale of 1 to 10:  C

1- Shots

2- Motor City

3- Southern Pacific

4- Get Back on It

5- T-Bone

6- Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze

7- Opera Star

8- Rapid Transit

Trans

This isn’t the Neil Young I bought this album for. I hadn’t heard much of this type of music from anyone. Well, smatterings I guess, but I didn’t expect Neil to jump on the wagon. Except for “Little Thing Called Love”, I hated it. It doesn’t sound as strange now as it did back then – there’s been music like it since. But still, even though Neil is not to be pigeonholed, this one’s an anomaly.

Scale of 1 to 10:  D

1- Little Thing Called Love

2- Like an Inca

3- Mr. Soul

4- Computer Age

5- Sample and Hold

6- Computer Cowboy

7- We R in Control

8- Hold on to Your Love

9- Transformer Man

Trans

This isn’t the Neil Young I bought this album for. I hadn’t heard much of this type of music from anyone. Well, smatterings I guess, but I didn’t expect Neil to jump on the wagon. Except for “Little Thing Called Love”, I hated it. It doesn’t sound as strange now as it did back then – there’s been music like it since. But still, even though Neil is not to be pigeonholed, this one’s an anomaly.

Scale of 1 to 10:  D

1- Little Thing Called Love

2- Like an Inca

3- Mr. Soul

4- Computer Age

5- Sample and Hold

6- Computer Cowboy

7- We R in Control

8- Hold on to Your Love

9- Transformer Man

Landing on Water

Another ‘80s “wtf?” album from Neil Young. An attempt at “new wave”, I guess. There is very little new wave ‘80s music I like, so there’s strike one. And even under the “new wave” umbrella I don’t think these songs would be considered very good. I don’t remember, but I’d be surprised if I listened to this album more than twice back in the vinyl days. And I’d be even more surprised if I ever listen to it again. The songs could be ranked in any order, it doesn’t matter. May as well pull ‘em out of a hat – they’re all bad.

Scale of 1 to 10:  F

1- Violent Side

2- Touch the Night

3- Drifter

4- Hippie Dream

5- Weight of the World

6- Bad News Beat

7- I Got a Problem

8- People on the Street

9- Hard Luck Stories

10- Pressure