If anyone can claim a title like this, Neil is the musician who has been all things, tried all things. And he did most of those things in the 1980s alone. Easily his most contentious period in a career full of them, the 80s was marked by erratic 180 degree turns in style, and eccentric genre experiments. A new album meant a new style, from old time rockabilly, hardcore country & western, and big band jazz, to oddball electronica.
But those who would write-off the decade as a failed experiment will be denying themselves some of Neil's most sardonic, electrifyingly inspired, and most craftily-written material. Hidden in this strange hodgepodge is a lot of material that transcends into Neil's pantheon, with twang and wit.
So here are the 15 best Neil Young songs of the 1980s. And just to be clear, this comprises only songs that Neil Young released in the 1980s, not material recorded in the 80s that has since been released, such as the Lucky Thirteen rarities and the Performance Series live albums. That material will be included in a different list.
Click any song title to hear it on youtube!
15. T-Bone
[Re-Ac-Tor, 1981]
Recalling the monotonous tone of the daily grind from Last Dance on 1973's Time Fades Away, T-Bone is a no-holds-barred guitar fest, displaying over 9 minutes of soloing and only one line of lyrics: Got mashed potatoes, ain't got no T-Bone. This slab of steak may be an acquired taste for many, but to us Neilheads who can't get enough of his guitar, it's an ironic classic. Hey, we can't all afford that T-Bone, Shakey's just laying some reality on us with this dinner plate metaphor.
14. Someday
[Freedom, 1989]
This calmly sentimental piano ballad is as shining & softy as Neil ever gets, but it also takes shots at disingenuous televangelists and pollution. It's smart, cool, and bound to cause a flutter in your heartstrings.
13. Mideast Vacation
[Life, 1987]
-- Over a spacey beat (reminiscent of Ment at Work's hit song Down Under) Neil paints a picture of himself as a marauder, then as a family man who goes up against middle eastern protesters who burn him in effigy. It's dark, cool, and strange, like the best of Neil's 80s material.
12. Too Lonely
[Life, 1987]
-- This is probably the most punk rock song you'll hear from Neil. He has his stable of punkish songs like Piece of Crap and Sedan Delivery, but they sound as much like classic Crazy Horse as something you might hear from a different punk band. Too Lonely sounds like it could be a Ramones acetate, it doesn't even sounds like Crazy Horse until you get to the chorus riff.
11. Sample and Hold
[Trans, 1982]
-- With the droning industrial pace and Fordian factory lyrics, this song best exemplifies the concept of Neil's synth-born Trans experiment. It's one of Neil's most unique pieces, not just an electronic track but a pounding industrial dance song, and a darn fine one.
10. Shots
[Re-Ac-Tor, 1981]
-- This nearly-8-minute chugging jam has a markedly apocalyptic sound, with screeching guitars accompanied by machine gun fire. It adds a hard rock 80s flare to The Horse's well-worn approach.
9. Prisoners of Rock 'N' Roll
[Life, 1987]
-- Defiant, simplistic, party-time garage rock; certainly no rarity from Crazy Horse. It sounds like an outtake from Rust Never Sleeps. But after spending the rest of the decade shying away from this iconic style, Prisoners of Rock 'N' Roll seems like a breathe of fresh air and a new lease on life for Crazy Horse, foreshadowing Neil's return to a more traditional form in the 90s.
8. We Never Danced
[Life, 1987]
-- This celestial slow dance is both buddingly romantic and sadly final. You get the feeling that although Neil's hopeful to reconnect with his would-be-bae, that connection is likely never to come around again. Originally written to be performed by lite pop artist Martha Davis of the Motels for a film named Made in Heaven, it's one of Neil's purest and most competent pop compositions.
7. This Old House
[American Dream, 1988]
-- Crosby Stills Nash & Young reunited in the late 80s for one of their few studio albums. Neil brought them one of his best country songs, a harmonized acoustic groove about an idyllic life and the fact that it's all about to end when the bank repossesses the house. It's the dark flipside to Graham Nash's iconic Our House, which also can serve as a grim metaphor for CSNY themselves (and that may well have been Neil's intention, considering he had recently released Hippie Dream, an angry tune about how "the Wooden Ships were just a hippie dream.")
6. Around The World
[Life, 1987]
-- After the full-on industrial style of Trans, Neil continued to flirt with electronic music for most of the 80s, but with incorporating more of his original rock style. This gem hails from his last album to incorporate electronica and it is one hell of a rip-roaring good track, his hardest rocking of that form.
5. Too Far Gone
[Freedom, 1989]
-- Another one of Neil's premier country laments; This terse, tasty ditty details the aftermath of a night of drunken debauchery and the broken nature of a relationship it illuminates. It's sad, it's sweet, it's one of Neil's smartest love/breakup songs.
4. Touch the Night
[Landing On Water, 1986]
-- Keeping the electronic pulse, dropping the robot vocoder voice, and amping up the guitars even more, Landing On Water is a pretty solid and much underrated Neil album. Touch the Night's fidgeting riff, utterly epic tone, and plasmatic lyrics fill me with emotion every time I listen. It's always been one of my dream encore songs from Neil, it just feels like a magic song.
3. Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero)
[Freedom, 1989]
-- Over a smooth as warm cream, lightly picked guitar and brushed drums, Neil spends almost 9 minutes painting an elaborate picture of cops and robbers, producers and musicians, and ultimately himself -- brooding on the pains of divorce, the complications of adulthood, and the rebellions of youth. It's touching and strong, and one of Neil's greatest acoustic epics.
2. Misfits
[Old Ways, 1985]
-- One of the most idiosyncratic and unquestionably COOLEST songs Neil's ever recorded, Misfits is an entity unto itself. A down home western prairie song about astronauts on a space station, the emphatic, rolling chorus is guaranteed to lift you halfway to space. This is a true rebel at work.
1. Rockin' in the Free World
[Freedom, 1989]
-- There's no avoiding this one. Easily one of Neil's 5 biggest hits of all-time, RITFW is a hot coookin' rocker with a catchy chorus and his ubiquitous killer guitar. A lot of the hits lose their luster after the 200,000th listen, but Rockin' in the Free World is one of the rare few that still kicks a heap of ass. And an old hit that can still stand up to the eccentric ultra-hardcore catalog of a Neil connoisseur, those are the songs you know are truly great.
