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| REVIEWS |
Neil
Young
Greatest Hits
(Warner
Bros.)
The short review of this album is one word: No.
The longer review goes something like this…
I always knew the music industry was heartless, but this is
a new low. Like a beautiful baby abandoned at birth and left
to a life on the street, this CD has all the workings of a genuine
masterpiece, but not a single drop of the love a project like
this required. Ignoring a ludicrous track ordering, lack of
liner notes, and quite possibly the worst music DVD ever created,
Greatest Hits is an album filled with musical gems.
But don’t let that fool you- Neil Young wrote albums upon
albums of gems; it took two discs to sum up a small section
of his career (on the much superior Decade), and this selection
disregards so much of his catalog (75’s essential Zuma,
96’s excellent Merkinball are both ignored, not
to mention the entirety of Buffalo Springfield’s recordings)
that it cannot even be recommended as a beginner’s introduction
to the world of Young. Unlike a band like Guided By Voices or
an artist like Donovan, Neil Young never filled his albums with
filler. Young is far closer to Bob Dylan, whose greatest hits
span three volumes. On this album, the listener gets 16 tracks.
Let me make myself clear- it would be an insult to Young to
own this slapdash album in place of his catalog.
Of course, this is not to belittle the songs themselves, but
instead the sequencing, song choice and overall lack of care
given to these masterpieces. The album opens jarringly with
the sprawling 9-minute rocker “Down by the River”
followed by the even longer “Cowgirl in the Sand.”
This deterrent effect can be blamed on the pointless chronological
track listing. The order adds no effect of progression to the
compilation, because Young jumped from genre to genre throughout
his career, and instead makes Greatest Hits feel even
more rushed and cheap. After “Helpless,” the albums
third track, a mellow acoustic series of tracks follows, save
the CSNY classic “Ohio.” This has the effect of
implying to the uninitiated that Young forgot how to rock for
a portion of his career. Why the album’s creators neglected
to include even one track from perhaps his most emotional album,
Tonight’s The Night, is unthinkable. “Heart
of Gold” is still one of the most heartbreaking songs
ever written, but it losses its fragility when shoved next to
the mammoth “Like A Hurricane.” No two tracks flow
into each other, and no two tracks would seem like a logical
progress if the album’s producers had actually listened
to the track order before they released the album.
What rock songs they do include in the album’s later part,
such as the so-so sludgy live version of “Hey Hey (My
My)” (replete with god-awful backup singers) and the mandatory
anthem “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World,”
are neither his finest, nor especially characteristic tracks.
And the bonus DVD is nothing if not the final insult to the
buyer’s intelligence. One might reasonably expect concert
footage, interviews, or even music videos. What the DVD contains
is something far less essential- video footage of a record player
playing the songs that are on the album, followed by two not-great
music videos. That’s it. Occasionally, the camera shakes
or loses focus temporarily, giving the “film” even
more of a low budget, freshman-film-school-project feel. Neil
himself even realizes this, and, in his own cryptic way, apologizes
for this half assed (and conveniently just in time for Christmas)
cash in. The liner notes for this CD consist of one line written
by Young himself. The line shows exactly how mechanical, half-hearted,
and capitalistic this CD really is: “Greatest hits inclusion
based on original records sales, airplay and known download
history.” This is the biggest rock tragedy since “Baba
O’Riley” was hawking SUVs; and a sad statement about
the lack of heart in the recording industry today.
Reviewed by
Gabriel Kalmuss-Katz
January 14th, 2005 |
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