Neil Young Year of The Horse

Old folkie that he is, Neil Young harbors a soft spot for songs as protest, and The Monsanto Years is full of them. Where he often railed against war, here the purported target is the agricultural company Monsanto, a firm that, among other things, specializes in genetically modified crops, but Young uses that as a pivot to rage against all manner of modern outrages. Apathy among the populace, avarice among corporations, and cultural homogenization provide the throughline on The Monsanto Years, and while the weathered hippie takes some time to lay down his electric guitar and breathe, this isn't a mournful album like Living with War, his W-era missive. This is a raging record and to that end, Young hired the Promise of the Real, a ragtag outfit led by Willie Nelson's guitarist son Lukas, to approximate Crazy Horse's lop-legged lumber…

Neil Young used his union with the Promise of the Real – the gangly crew fronted by Willie Nelson's kids Lukas and Micah – to tackle weighty social problems on The Monsanto Years, a record supported by a relatively expansive tour…

Return to Greendale is the next installment in Neil Young’s Performance Series and features a concert (audio and on film) from the historic and unique 2003 tour supporting the release of the Neil Young with Crazy Horse album Greendale. On the 2003 tour, Neil Young and Crazy Horse were joined on stage by a large cast of singers and actors to perform the story Neil Young wrote about the small town of Greendale and how a dramatic event affects the people living there. The ten songs from the powerful original album are performed in sequence, with the cast speaking the sung words - adding to the intensity of the performance.

This box set continues the chronological re-releasing of Neil Young’s Official Releases, remastered where analog tapes exist. Volume 4, released as a 4 LP box and 4 CD box. The ORS Vol 4 collects an eclectic set of decade-spanning sounds. Hawks & Doves (1980) revisits his folk roots and explores some of his most country-leaning offerings; the blistering Re•ac•tor (1981) showcases a stomping set of heavy, overdriven rock with Crazy Horse; and This Note’s for You (1988) casts Young as a big band leader, belting out intricately arranged blues. The Eldorado EP (1989), a 5 track mini-album, previously only released on CD in Australia and Japan, is full of feral distortion and earthy crunch featuring Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas). It includes two thundering tracks — “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love”— not available on any other album, along with different versions of 3 tracks that appeared on Freedom later the same year.

Though he never really slowed down at any point, Neil Young stayed on an especially prolific streak as the 2010s bled into the 2020s. In addition to a steady rollout of archival material, official versions of long-bootlegged shows, and other miscellanea, Neil has produced albums of entirely new material at a rate unmatched by most artists in his age bracket who have been at it for as long as he has. World Record follows quickly behind the mellow rocking of 2021's Barn, and again finds Young ably backed by his longest-running comrades, Crazy Horse. This time around, however, the band worked with producer Rick Rubin, capturing everything live in the studio and sticking to an analog-heavy recording process. World Record is an album built of unlikely combinations that somehow work.

Given the quirkiness of Neil Young's recording career, with its frequent cancellations of releases and last-minute rearrangements of material, it is a relief to report that this two-disc compilation is so conventional and so satisfying. A 35-track selection of the best of Young's work between 1966 and 1976, it includes songs performed by Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and the Stills-Young Band, as well as solo work. In addition to five unreleased songs, Decade offers such key tracks as the Springfield's "Mr. Soul," "Broken Arrow," and "I Am a Child"; "Sugar Mountain," a song that had appeared only as a single before; "Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," and "Cowgirl in the Sand" from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; "Southern Man" and the title track from After the Gold Rush; and "Old Man" and the chart-topping "Heart of Gold" from Harvest. This is the material that built Young's reputation between 1966 and 1972, although he is more idiosyncratic with the later material, including the blockbusters "Like a Hurricane" and "Cortez the Killer" but mixing in more unreleased recordings as the set draws to a close.

Though he never really slowed down at any point, Neil Young stayed on an especially prolific streak as the 2010s bled into the 2020s. In addition to a steady rollout of archival material, official versions of long-bootlegged shows, and other miscellanea, Neil has produced albums of entirely new material at a rate unmatched by most artists in his age bracket who have been at it for as long as he has. World Record follows quickly behind the mellow rocking of 2021's Barn, and again finds Young ably backed by his longest-running comrades, Crazy Horse. This time around, however, the band worked with producer Rick Rubin, capturing everything live in the studio and sticking to an analog-heavy recording process. World Record is an album built of unlikely combinations that somehow work.