Ranking the Albums: Neil Young

hey there everybody pete pardo here from cd tranquility welcome to another episode of ranking the albums today we're gonna do a little ranking show that's been asked for by so many of you over the recent months last year whatever it's been a while uh since i first started hearing people asking me to rank the albums of neil young now neil has got a million albums he has quite a lot of studio albums a lot of live albums there's a ton of stuff here so i figured and i don't have all of them and i haven't heard all of them but i've heard a good chunk of them so i figure probably the best way to kind of do this is to give my top ten right my ten favorite neil young studio albums i'm not gonna go into the live albums because that's probably enough for a whole other show but uh as far as the studio albums go i think this would be kind of interesting to kind of tackle and i own most of the ones i'm going to talk about here there are a couple i don't have hard copies of but i know them fairly fairly well so uh i'm going to count down from number 10 go to number one and we're going to start i'm going to pull a mulligan i'm going to pull apart today at number 10. i got a two-way tie because i kind of couldn't decide between these two albums i'm going to talk about i felt bad leaving one of them off the list so we're going to talk first uh about a release from 1977 his eighth studio album overall it's called american stars and bars all right neil young and the guys from crazy horse uh it's a yes another crazy horse session um and you know he worked with this band quite a bit various members but crazy horse was always when crazy horses on the scene usually you knew you were going to get a little more of a rocking good time with neil um got some really good tracks on here you got the essential leica hurricane which is one of his classic songs you've got saddle up to the palomino uh hey babe bite the bullet it's a it's a fun enjoyable rootsy bluesy country rock album it's got a bit of fire and spots yeah i kind of when i look at the career of neil young i mean he's got the real folky stuff the more country flavored stuff he's done some pop he's done some hard rock i think most of the crazy horse albums usually have a little bit of all that kind of stuff so but i i dig this one this is pretty good so american stars and bars 1977 tied for number 10 along with 1976's long may you run okay so this is an album which is technically credited to a still the stills young band so stephen stills neil young right of course from crosby stills nash and young uh came together here this kind of is like a one and done album you know technically it's kind of either credited to neil or steven i think you find this album on both of their discographies under the list of studio albums they've done but like i said technically it's called the stills young band i kind of counted as a neil young album uh both singing both playing guitars and piano you got joe vitale on drums here you got jerry aiello on oregon george perry on bass uh joe lala on percussion uh it's kind of like a upbeat breezy folk rock affair i kind of dig it title track is really strong make love to you another good song at the melodic midnight on the bay uh 12 8 blues is really good and fun guardian angel i like this one um i would have liked a little bit more electric guitar from the guys on this particular album you know maybe a little bit more jamming from them because both you know really good musicians but as it is it's still it's it's got more of a band feel right and i kind of dig that long may you run 1976 tie for number 10 with american stars and bars uh number nine we're gonna go an album that i do not have a hard copy of so this is 1996's broken arrow his 22nd studio album it's like i remember when broken arrow came out uh and it's hard to believe that's like all those years ago right like over 25 years ago it's crazy uh another crazy horse album as you can tell i like the crazy horse albums i think those are some of my favorites obviously um some longer tracks on this particular one this is very much an album full of kind of cool guitar jams and just real loose playing you've got a big time loose change slip away scarred music arcade you get the big lengthy take on the jimmy reed classic baby what you want me to do like i said it's a very loose album a lot of guitars a lot of a lot of kind of loose jams and whatnot no hits on this one but it's fun uh one of the few latter period neil young albums that i that that really has grabbed me because there's been a lot of i've listened to a lot of them i don't really care for a lot of them but uh you know out of the ones that i have heard of the last 20 25 years this is the one i think that i like the most so a broken arrow from 1996 comes in at number nine coming in at number eight another one that i don't have a cd copy of i used to have this on lp i am going to get this on cd because i'm just surprised that i never did but 1981's reactor okay with the cool kind of weird futuristic red and black album cover right uh that was his 11th studio album and the second one that i ever bought actually lots of hard rock some new wave experimental things going on this particular album neil cranking up the guitar using the synclavir t-bone i think is a really cool song that kind of rocks shots is another good raucous one rapid transit's kind of interesting opera star get back on it fun album didn't sell all that well though i think uh you know 1981 again a lot of these like 7 60s and 70s rockers going into the 80s kind of like where do you fit so neil i think was experimenting with all sorts of stuff on this album for some people the old the old guard probably didn't like it not faulty enough um but you know i'm sure he gained some new fans uh with this particular album but again not a big seller but i kind of dig fun out coming in at number seven 1975's sixth album recorded after the uh deaths of crazy horse guitarist danny whitton and uh good friend and rhodey bruce berry both from drug overdoses this without drug overdoses a pretty dark bleak period in the career of neil young he did not take the deaths of his friends well at all this is just a like i said a bleak grief stricken album uh hauntingly effective though but uh sloppy and frail and just get it oddly works not an easy listen this this is not one of those albums that uh and everything about the album you know the old photography and everything just you know it just looks like a bunch of dudes who are really having a hard time with all this loss they've suffered just getting together in like a drunken stupor and making music uh the title track is classic speaking as good you got albuquerque rolling down the number for the road kind of like a sloppy aimless kind of jam type of thing uh come on baby let's go downtown i mean the whole album has just got this bluesy folky messy loose feel to it but you know when you're in the mood for it it's a pretty good one and it's it's it's a notorious album for a reason and some folks either love it or they hate it right but i always kind of dug this and i even like you know some of these songs played live i think you even have a little bit more power to them so that's my number seven coming in at number six we're going to go all the way back to the beginning 1968 neil young self-titled all right uh you know i'm actually surprised this one is as high as it is because there are times where i don't like this album much and there are times where i'm oddly in the mood for it uh so here neil's fresh out of the buffalo springfield you got uh the classic track the loner awesome song and then you know you got the lush the old laughing lady here we are in the years the last trip to tulsa this is definitely more of a folky country type of album it's very laid back mostly acoustic album like i said i gotta be in the mood for this when i am i really dig it a lot when i'm not i don't so it's but you know it's pulling in number six which i think is fairly fairly high but it's a it's a good sounding album he sounds great on it and uh you know it's a definitely good mood album i think all right my top five i mean this these are probably not gonna be a surprise to a lot of people but i think these will be pretty high on most people's lists but uh we're gonna go number five we're gonna go to 1972 for harvest all right yeah i mean his fourth album this is definitely a country folk classic again not one that i will reach for all the time but i truly appreciate uh how really great this album is lots of guests you know i'm backing vocals you got the guys from crosby stills and nash on here got orchestral stuff on here loads of acoustic and lap and pedal steel guitars harmonicas right you know you know how i love harmonica right but i don't mind it on some of this stuff uh and you know get neil's very fragile yet effective vocals on you know stuff like heart of gold what a great song that is harvest another great song old man needling the damage done out in the weekend and more i mean it's it's one of his gems for sure i prefer the more rocking stuff but i think for me of his more mellow albums this by far is uh my favorite of all of them so harvest coming in at number five coming in at number four we're gonna go uh yuma from 1972 i'm sorry 1975 1972 another crazy horse album uh neil young crazy horse added again bluesy hard rock country pop folk fuzz drenched cortez the killer uh you got danger bird on here don't cry no tears pardon my heart drive back very strong album uh band making a comeback uh after the death of danny whitton and uh this has got uh frank san pedro billy talbot and ralph molina joining neil on this one you know it's got all this kind of cartoony drawing all over it kind of stripped back but i dig it good good rocking album fun album to listen to definitely like that 1970 number three after the gold rush his third album another one of his classic classic albums and uh you know some timeless classics on here you've got crazy horse on this album as well as there's a bunch of other people when you dance i can really love excellent song tell me why get the wonderful title track which is you know legendary song uh only love can break your heart really emotional really heartfelt song i like that a lot you got southern man on here uh one of the great country rock albums of all time i think definitely a keeper classic cover there one of the 70s uh great great kind of country rock folky albums right that's starting off at the the beginning of the decade uh another one that i do not i i thought i had it but i guess somehow i lost it somewhere along the way i thought i had it on cd or maybe i had this on cassette because this album my number two came out when basically everybody was moving over the cd so i wonder if i had it on cassette and just never replaced it on cd but i'm going to rectify that i'm going to order because it almost made my number one but 1990s ragged glory which was like the big return for neil and crazy horse kicking off the new decade the 90s and it fit right in with kind of you know all the stuff that was coming out of seattle the big you know the grungy sounds distorted fuzzed out guitars all that kind of stuff uh it was his 18th studio well she's 18 albums already by 1990. lots of hard rock riffing going on uh ragged glory you got love to burn mansion on the hill up love and only love feedback and fuzz guitar all over the place this was uh you know a lot of the this was a great album for neil because i think a lot of the young rock and grunge and alternative fans where like all of a sudden say wow this old guy he can rock just like you know pearl jam and nirvana and allison chains in sound garden right so we're into this and he neil befriended a lot of the folks a lot of musicians from that scene so uh you know big big return to form for neil and crazy horse so ragged glory coming in number two i like a lot of the stuff on there uh but my number one is you know if it wasn't for ragged glory uh you know this one would there would be like no contest for me i think this one and ragged glory for me are clearly my top two favorites and again i think it comes down to the fact that i love when neil and you know the rest of the guys just come and they they rock because i think you know while neil i think most folks really gravitate towards his more mellow stuff for me i like neil the rocker and everybody knows this is nowhere from 1969 his second solo album uh for me is an absolute classic i mean just some great stuff on here nice mix of rockers and some of those you know country folky tracks cinnamon girl absolutely amazing love the title track you got the big epic tracks down by the river and cowgirl in the sand you know which have great guitar jams just love both of those i love the live versions of them too uh yeah this is just top to bottom just a really really good album and it's easily my favorite i think love the cover you know him and the dog and uh yeah good stuff it's funny because i for whatever reason i i always like god that's a 1969 album just seemed like this was like later on but uh no 1969 second album knocks it out of the park so yeah there you have it everybody everybody knows this is nowhere number one ragged glory number two after the gold rush number three zoom on number four number five is harvest number six neil young self-titled number seven tonight's the night number eight reactor number nine broken arrow and tied for number ten long may you run an american stars and bars so uh you got 11 albums here uh i was able to just want to kind of show some of the so i've got like you know this collection and uh this collection i went and got a bunch of these and they i don't think they've gone past the uh discs eight and a half to twelve i kind of thought they would continue on with this series but they haven't and then you know the great uh weld i've also got uh live rust and uh you know this great live at the fillmore from 1970 which is amazing i mean there's a lot of good live albums and things like that but uh yeah so neil young uh you know i'm not a i'm not a tremendous neil young fan it's like i like the albums i dig i really do but there's quite a lot of them that i really don't care for all that much again because for me it's like i'm not a big folk or country rock guy uh so i tend to you know some of the uh the albums in that vein i have the ones i i kind of like and the others that i don't but the stuff where he's rocking out a little bit more i think i tend to favor for the most part but uh you know and then i got to be in the mood to listen to neil cause i don't always like his vocals sometimes i do sometimes i know and uh i you know i dig it when he rocks out he pulls out the less pole and rocks out of it so there you have it visit us on the web at www.ctranquility.org we're on facebook we're on twitter of course where you're on youtube all the damn time list your favorites in the comments below and uh we'll see you real soon here on the channel i am p paro thanks for watching take care

Channel: Sea of Tranquility

Views: 23,326

Keywords: neilyoung, crazyhorse

Id: xjYloPQzvcI

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 29 2022