As you know, more often than not I prefer succinct, immaculately paced pop songs. No filler, no meandering. And I'm not much of a guitar head.... but Neil Young is the exception. Neil's the one guy whose guitar jams send me to another plane of existence. The longer, the slower, the more meandering the better! I saw an article detailing the top 10 Neil Young guitar tracks, and it was a pretty crumby list, so I decided to try my hand at it myself. Here are the top 25 best songs you need to listen to if you're looking for the venerable Neil Young's guitar pyrotechnics.
25. T-Bone
-- This 9 minute f-all existential jam from 1981's Re*Ac*Tor annoys many with its unrelenting repetition, but it also provides a bed of mashed potatoes for some meaty guitar solos that a Crazy Horse fan will love.
24. Last Dance
-- This bleak rocker from the 1973 Time Fades Away tour provides pounding sensibilities to mimic the drudgeries of daily life. It also provides an agitated and unhinged Neil with his chance to channel all of his anger from this hazard-prone tour into siq guitar grooves.
23. Ten Men Workin'
-- This rambunctious opener from 1988's This Note's For You became a guitar solo highlight when Neil hit the road with a rocking bluesy band in '87 and '88.
22. World on a String
-- Simple and short, this little rocker from 1975's catharsis-charged Tonight's The Night simmers in just the right way, providing one of shortest, sweetest, and undeniably tastiest little solos of Neil's career. It may be dirt cheap but it's damn satisfying.
21. This Note's For You
-- This 1988 2-minute title track turned into a blazing extended firestorm when the band played it live, thankfully being released in a live version on the 1993 "Lucky Thirteen" compilation.
20. Peace and Love
-- When Neil hooked up with Pearl Jam for 1995's Mirrorball, the prime results were smooth, spacey headjams and this track embodies that kind of guitar glory about as well as any.
19. Goin' Home
-- Neil scrapped the 'Toast' album in favor of 2001's Are You Passionate? But one track made it into the production cut -- this untouchable jam ranks as the last true new Crazy Horse track released in ten years! And yes it's as good as you'd imagine it.
18. Scenery
-- This long, slow burning cut from 1995's Mirrorball with a stark riff and a loose atmosphere is possibly that album's finest track and an unprecedented guitar haven which is sure to send you flying by the end.
17. Cinnamon Girl
-- This archetypal hard rocker from 1969's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere introduced the world to Crazy Horse and to Neil's most ingenius technique: the "one-note" guitar solo. It's not a sprawling jam like Crazy Horse excels in, but as far as succinct rockers go this is Neil's all-time best.
16. Loose Change
-- 1996's Broken Arrow gifted Crazy Horse fans with the most guitar-oriented album Neil has ever made. Loose Change exemplifies the style with a plodding, serenely shimmering lucidity full of guitar goodness and a 9 minute runtime.
15. Slip Away
-- This ethereal jam, also from Broken Arrow, takes you farther above the clouds than the rest of the already atmosphere-orbiting album. Neil's punctuated riff and lingering licks transport me into a cosmic pool hall on a night out half-way between reality and dream.
14. Fuckin' Up
-- 1990's Ragged Glory returned Neil not only to the pique of the cutting edge (the uninhibitedly noisy album, praised by punk guru Steve Albini, effortlessly predated the breaking of grunge to mainstream audiences) but to the guitar rock fervor he had been beloved for through much of the 70s. This disillusioned cut burns with X'er cynicism and handles some of Neil's most timely solos.
13. Love To Burn
-- One of two heavy rocking, 10 minute love-themed jams from Ragged Glory, Love To Burn slides fluidly across a terrain of crunchy licks that are bound to stick in your head.
12. Drive Back
-- Hidden among the many gems on Crazy Horse Mach II's debut album, 1975's Zuma, Drive Back contains without question the most ferocious riffage Neil has ever committed to disc. Though initially very short, on the much praised Zuma live tour, the song took on new dimensions and approached epic jam status.
11. Dangerbird
-- This slug-paced fuzzy anti-social proto-grunge cult classic from Zuma was also home to insane live jams, most notably c/o a 13 & 1/2 minute version from the 1997 live album Year of the Horse.
10. Tonight's The Night
-- Though this eerie bleak title track from 1975 wasn't initially a guitar favorite, it's become a jam classic ever since then, as Neil consistently brings it out to at live gigs in order to groove on its dark emotion, inspiring powerful licks. It has a presence on almost every Crazy Horse tour.
9. Rockin' In The Free World
-- Neil's hit anthem from 1989's Freedom doesn't boast a 10 minute jam but what it does boast is some of the best, most inspired and possessed anti-solos of Neil's career that I just can't help but to freaking adore.
8. Big Time
-- The opener from the guitar-based Broken Arrow offers up contented lyrics and cascading solos for a good 7 minutes. It pretty much exemplifies latter-day Crazy Horse with unparalleled build-up and lingering, illustrious passages.
7. Change Your Mind
-- 1994's Sleeps With Angels may be Neil's slickest and coolest album. The album's centerpiece is this sprawling, foggy midnight exercise in pure electric emotion, boasting expertly crafted solos that seem to carry you through the wee hours of the pitch black morning by pure ethereal osmosis. The band jams at its finest here and racks up the longest studio runtime in Crazy Horse jam history.
6. Love and Only Love
-- The second of two Ragged Glory's love-themed jams recalls more closely the guitar god mastery of Down By The River in its simple marauding chord progression and indelible licks. Live it absorbs even more biting electricity as the destructive 1991 Weld version will show you.
5. Southern Man
-- While 1970's After the Gold Rush was largely a soft, folky affair, Southern Man rages and boils over with some of the most immaculately catchy, tasty, spider-crawling guitar solos of Neil's career. Neil's early forays into guitar mayhem contained a special spark of fury that makes them indelible.
4. Down By The River
-- What more really needs said about this iconic Everybody Knows This is Nowhere jam? It's a jam like no other, the guitar goes places no other guitarist ever has, in history, period.
3. Like a Hurricane
-- From 1977's American Stars N Bars, this perennial favorite is perhaps Crazy Horse's signature song. The windy barrage of sweet juicy licks flows from home off into a dream. The 14 minute live version from Weld is likely my favorite, but every version of this song is freaking fantastic.
2. Cortez the Killer
-- This, Zuma's ultimate track, is the song that proved Crazy Horse, despite the loss of Danny Whitten, was still a formidable beast. The lengthy instrumental intro alone stands as one of the greatest achievements in guitar history, with its beyond immaculate, note-perfect ascension and foreboding atmosphere.
1. Cowgirl in the Sand
-- The final track on Crazy Horse's debut album, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, is unparalleled in its gorgeous supremacy. From the unstoppable cool of the unassuming, almost tribal intro into it's fiery emergence and all-time great ferreting guitar army, it's not just Neil's best guitar track, but his best track, period.
There are plenty of honorable mentions, though!
Great list of songs. I don't think I have any argument at all with your top 5 (placement included). I'm thinking about whether there's a better song that deserves Southern Man's spot, but I can't think of one, and that's a great song.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what was on that top 10 list you mentioned. I'm sure it was horrendous, but it would be interesting to compare with your much better list, and see if any of those songs even turn up at all.
As a guitar fan myself, I may be in tune to the more subtle distinctions of guitar-based songs, but there's certainly some measure of difference between small ferocious solos like, say in Cinnamon Girl, and the meandering jams that dominate this list. They, of course, both have their appeal.
And then there are songs that may utilize a great heavy riff, being spectacular electric songs, even without much to say in terms of a solo. I think that demonstrates the competing appeals of great riffs and great solos. Neil is one of those talented guitarists who is an accomplished practitioner of both.
I did a list last year, that I have no idea if you've seen before, with a similar theme, but a rather different makeup. (This was apparently before I discovered Broken Arrow).
http://screamingaxe.blogspot.com/2010/11/rockin-out-with-neil-young.html
In any case, I consider November to be a great month to dig out the Neil Young! I still remember the first time I ever listened to Neil's solo debut, when I played it live on air on my radio show in college, to celebrate Neil's birthday.
Southern Man was lower (higher?) in my first draft but I just really have a soft spot for Neil's earliest, most adventurous solos. Southern Man is another solo like DBT and Cowgirl where it's so fun and alive that I have to try to sing along.... to the guitar solo.
ReplyDeleteThe list I saw hit a couple of the marks but you'll be scratching your head at a few of these for sure, and in the end they gave too much emphasis on riff songs IMHO. http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Neil-Young-1114-2011/
I made the decision to stay away from riff oriented tracks like Hey Hey My My. World on a String and Cinnamon Girl got on by virtue of their super-tasty but short solos while Tonight's the Night and Ten Men Workin' got it for their extended live versions.
There is no excuse for Heart of Gold being on that list. IF they had said that it was an excellent acoustic guitar melody, than that would at least be a start (although it's really stretching the definition of "guitar" to include acoustic guitars :p), but they put it on because it's good "songwriting" (which is code for "douchebag with a guitar") and is a #1 hit (popularity over relevance). Anyway, if they like the guitar part, it's just a repeat of Rockin' In The Free World, which is a better song, an electric song, that qualifies both as a great riff and a great solo song, plus it's really popular - and it's not on there?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a patchy, inconsistent list that doesn't seem to understand what it's purpose is.
That's what I said! I mentioned RITFW on the thread on CRF. Whoever the writer was doesn't seem to have put much thought into it. Despite the inclusion of a few songs that are only second tier in popularity instead of first tier... it reads like a list by somebody who only knows 10 Neil Young songs.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, as far as acoustic guitars go... I almost put Ambulance Blues on the list. When you get accused of plagiarizing from "the Jimi Hendrix of acoustic guitar," you know you're on a serious tip with the playing in that song. But it's more of a riff song than a solo so I excluded it. I could have considered something like Last Trip to Tulsa from Canterbury House, since that's about as Crazy Horse-esque as solo acoustic Neil gets. Or Change Your Mind from the Bridge School, that was a straight-up Crazy Horse jam done acoustically. But I don't think he has any songs like that which aren't, in fact, released as electric jams.