1989 – Neil Young – Eldorado EP: Just 5 songs, 3 of which appear on his next release Freedom.  The first glimpses of Neil back on his game.
	1989 – Neil Young - Freedom: Neil’s best album since 1979′s Rust Never Sleeps.  This release is book ended by a live acoustic version and studio  version with full band of the great anthemic song “Rockin’ in the Free World”.  ESSENTIAL
	1990 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Ragged Glory: Neil reunites with the Horse and famed producer David Briggs for this album that proved that he and the Horse could still rock out.  I have always thought that the title of this record was the perfect descriptor for the bands particular brand of raw, unbridled rock n roll. ESSENTIAL
	1992 – Neil Young – Harvest Moon: This album was partly intended to be a sequel to one of Neil’s most popular albums Harvest, having roughly the same players and feel as the original.  It unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to it’s predecessor but it is a solid and consistent release.  ESSENTIAL
	1994 – Neil Young – Sleeps With Angels: Neil was creatively reinvigorated and he claims he was inspired by the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain.  Sadly the albums release would precede another death, as David Briggs would die of lung cancer in 1995.  This was their last collaboration together.  The album features some of the most instrumentally and tonally diverse to come from the band.
	1995 – Neil Young – Mirror Ball: Instead of using Crazy Horse on this release he decided to enlist Pearl Jam and they were happy to back him.  Whatever your opinion of the band they are a tight rock band and they provided a great backdrop to some enjoyable songs on this release.  ESSENTIAL
	1996 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Broken Arrow: Along the same vibe as the previous two records.  After this record Neil would retreat from public life and go on a long hiatus.
Live Albums from this period:
	1991 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Arc/Weld: Weld is a great heavy set of Neil/Horse classics.  This conventional live album was also releases as a double disc set that included the bonus disc Arc which is a bit of an anomaly being it was a compilation of snippets of shapeless heavy distortion recorded during that tour.
	1993 – Neil Young – Unplugged: Famously preformed twice because Neil wasn’t happy with the first performance.  In fact he was so unhappy with it he paid for the first performance himself.  Although he was extremely sensitive about the decision to team up with MTV on this, he ends up putting out a compelling acoustic performance with some great acoustic versions of classics like Mr. Soul, Pocahontas, and Transformer Man.  ESSENTIAL

Here is a playlist I have put together featuring my favorites from this era.  If you can not see the playlist below, please follow this link.

This will be my last post on Neil Young… for at least awhile.  I will not be covering Neil’s music from 2000 on as I have found little interest in it outside of a few releases.

	1981 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Re-ac-tor: The next step on from the heavier tracks off of Rust Never Sleeps.  Unfortunately the mix is off and the material is uninspired.
	1983 – Neil Young – Trans: Young take a hard left turn here and releases an album that features 5 vocoder heavy/electronic music tracks and 3 conventional rock tracks, which completely mystified his critics and fans.
	1983 – Neil Young & The Shocking Pinks – Everybody’s Rockin’: Another genre switch here, this time to Rockabilly.  At the very least features some entertaining songs, some even are a little funny… but the album is representative of this era as they feature style over substance.
	1985 – Neil Young – Old Ways: Most of the material was originally recorded in 1982 but not release until 3 years later because of problems with his label.  This time around its a country album for Neil and a cast of guest country stars including Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.
	1986 – Neil Young – Landing On Water: If I had to label this release with a genre it would be “over-produced corporate 80s synth pop.  A few goods songs but overall probably one of his worst albums.
	1987 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Life: Back to Crazy Horse again after releasing 4 albums without them.  You get a few decent track among an album that includes some 80s synthy stuff and some conventional NY w/ CH tracks.  Note the cover art featuring someone behind bars with a NY poster on the back wall which eludes to his feelings about his record label at the time.  This would be his last record with Geffen (except for the shotty best of from this period entitled Lucky 13.
	1988 – Neil Young & The Bluenotes – This Note’s For You: Neil’s first album back on his original label Reprise Records.  This time Neil is backed by The Bluenotes (including a 6 pc horn section) for a album of Blues and R&B numbers.  Includes the song “This Note’s For You” which Neil actually won a the Video of the Year award at the MTV video music awards in 1988 which MTV had previously refused to play because they were parodied the video.
	1988 – Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young – American Dream: Young reunites yet again with these burnouts.  What you get is a bunch of tracks from the wash-ups and a few halfway decent numbers from Neil.

Even though it is a difficult era, I thought I would still put together a playlist below of my favorites songs from it.  If you can not see the playlist below, please follow this link.

	1973 – Neil Young - Time Fades Away: A strikingly noncommercial followup to 1972s hugely successful release Harvest.  An album of new material recorded entirely live in concert.  Neil had to fire guitarist Danny Whitten before the tour started and he overdosed and died shortly after.  What you get is an extremely raw recording of some of Young’s most emotional songs drunkenly delivered on this album that is still unreleased on CD.  ESSENTIAL
	1974 – Neil Young – On The Beach: Another mid 70s gem that didn’t see a proper CD release until 2003.  Young is joined on this revelatory set of music by Cajun Countryman Rusty Kershaw.  The album has a great vibe all the way through and is probably one of Young’s most consistent recordings.  ESSENTIAL
	1975 – Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night: Originally recorded in 1973 but not released by Young until 75.  A legendary release known for its loose off kilter cuts.  Book ended by the title track, “Tonight’s the night”, an interesting reaction to loosing both Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry to drugs.  ESSENTIAL
	1975 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Zuma: The debut of new rhythm guitarist Frank Sampedro. Young and the Horse return to form along with his producer David Briggs.  ESSENTIAL
	1976 – The Stills Young Band – Long May You Run: Young reunited with his old band mate from Buffalo Springfield on this release.  Really the only song that came from these sessions that is worth a damn is the title track by Neil.
	1977 – Neil Young – American Stars ‘N Bars: A fairly mediocre collection of songs thrown together that includes one of my favorite tunes “Like A Hurricane”.
	1978 – Neil Young – Comes A Time: Young’s most accessible music since the release of Harvest in 1972.  Put together from acoustic demos with the band overdubbed in.  Some really great songs that wasn’t released on CD until 1988.  ESSENTIAL
	1979 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps: Some regard this as Young’s last great album until his resurgence in the early 90s.  Another album book ended by a great song, this time the Rock N’ Roll epic “My My, Hey Hey…” / “Hey Hey, My My…”.  Some of the other tunes on the album would be his hardest edged songs so far.  ESSENTIAL
	1980 – Neil Young – Hawks & Doves: Another fairly mediocre mix of tracks which include a few great stand outs including the experimental “Lost In Space”.
Live releases from this era:
	1979 – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Live Rust: A great live album including most of the tunes from Rust Never Sleeps along with great renditions of some of Young’s classic tunes.  ESSENTIAL

There are also two albums during this period that Young had put together and sadly decided not to release.  They are known by the titles Homegrown and Chrome Dreams (Young released Chrome Dreams II in 2007 as somewhat of an inside joke).  They both featured the song that were scattered throughout his output in the 70s but some tracks have still not seen release.  If you really search you may be able to find fan re-sequenced releases of Chrome Dreams put together by what songs were said to be included.

Here is a playlist I have put together featuring my favorites from this era.  I tried to stay away from the most well known tunes.  If you can not see the playlist below, please follow this link.

For the last couple of months I have had the great pleasure of reading this book and re-examining the catalog of Neil Young.  I have been a fan of Neil’s music ever since a friend turned me on to Decade (1977 career retrospective) in high school.  This book allowed me to literally dissect Neil Young’s immense body of work piece by piece, learning the background of what I was hearing.

The material is extremely interesting, or as Young would say "innaresting".  The format in which the information and story is delivered is genius.  The book surpasses what your garden variety biography would deliver with a mish mash of chronological story telling, excerpts from interviews with Young himself, short biographies and quotes from the large cast of characters that have occupied Young’s life, all mixed in with commentary from the Author.

The book covers Neil’s life up to around 1998 including a quick but detailed history of his Grandparents and Parents lives.  Once you get to his High School days you will learn all about his influences and his early musical ventures.  Moving further on though his musical career the bulk of the book is about the music he created as a solo artist, with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Crazy Horse, and the many other incarnations of his backing groups.  Among the characters that are covered include his manager Elliot Roberts, the producer for many of his albums David Briggs, early collaborator Jack Nitzsche, and most of the members of the bands he was involved with.

My only qualm with the book is that I think Jimmy McDonough is a little heavy handed with his opinions about some of Young’s work and decisions.  Most of the time he is right and he tells Young to his face, but I do think he has some pretty high expectations.

I have always found Young to be a fascinating character, and I was surprised by some new facts.  For example before he moved to America, Young was in a group called the The Mynah Birds with Rick James (Beotch!) of all people.  They even recorded an album for Motown which sadly has never seen release.  Another strange connection was his involvement with Devo which I covered in a recent post which you can see here.   The last little tidbit I’ll offer is his involvement in the toy train industry.  In the early 1990′s Young purchased part of the Lionel toy company and eventually bought them out.  Also check out the ever eccentric Young’s newest projects on this recent post.

Usually I include a playlist with each of my music book reviews and I fully intend to do so for this one as well.  Actually it will be more like 3-4 playlists, each covering a different era of his recording career.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps (DVD)

The live concert video featuring a performance from the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps Tour.  Originally released in 1979 and reissued by Sanctuary on DVD in 2002.  I’ve never really enjoyed live concert films very much, but I regard this one as a gem with its classic set list, bizarre interludes, and odd stage props.  Neil really went all out on the concept for these shows in 78′ as his usual humorous between song banter is replaced by weird rock music and pop culture references.  One of the most striking things about the film/tour is the inclusion of the "Road Eyes", which were glowing eyed jawa looking creatures who took over the stage hand/roadie duties during the performance.  Another interesting inclusion is the PA announcements that take place during the intermission, which after awhile you may or may not realize are from the overblown festival Woodstock (an event that Young played at as part of CSNY).  Even after all the osbscure references, costuming, and odd set design… at the films core is a rock solid performance from Young and the Horse.

A little known fact about the title for the film and album of the same name is that its a direct quote from the lead singer of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh (aka Booji Boy).  Neil first heard Mark say this during filming of the feature Human Highway; a film project that Neil worked on in the late 70s and early 80s that featured the actors Dennis Hoffman & Dean Stockwell and also the members of Devo.

Enjoy the performance of one of my favorite Neil Young songs from the show below.  Beware if you are short on patience… its a long jam.