I’ve been a Neil Young fan for as long as I can remember. My dad’s voicemail is me at age three or four singing “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” which I recorded in line for the drive-through at a Greek restaurant. I recently rediscovered him on my own, with my first time listening to “After the Gold Rush.” Being such a pivotal moment, I remember the exact thing I was doing. I was playing “Slay the Spire” on a really good run I had while finishing listening to “Songs of Leonard Cohen” for the first time. I thought it would be funny to listen to those two classic folk albums while playing “Slay the Spire,” and it was. It happened to turn out to be two of my favorite albums of all time.
1977
1977 is the year I consider to be maybe the best for music, with releases like “Low,” “Animals,” “Trans Europe Express” and “Before and After Science” all being somewhere in my top 25 albums ever made. When I heard Young never released an album from 1977, I was incredibly excited to hear “Chrome Dreams.” Even more so, I actually looked at the track list and saw studio recordings of some of his greatest songs, “Pocahontas” and “Powderfinger,” as well as many other songs I recognized from his various albums. As I should’ve known by now, Young never disappoints. Even “Trans,” his album where he mostly sings through a vocoder and is heavily electronic, has some amazing songs. He is one of the greatest to ever do it, and this album gives me and others a reason to revisit just after what I would consider his prime.
Hot Streak
Young had maybe one of the best streaks in music in the late 60s and early 70s, releasing “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” “Deja Vu” with CSNY, “After the Gold Rush” and “Harvest” all back-to-back. After “Harvest” he still made great music, but nothing that really came close to any of his earlier stuff — apart from albums “Zuma” and “Rust Never Sleeps,” and the song “Harvest Moon.” However, “Chrome Dreams” makes me want to go back and listen to all of his albums again. It has some of the rockier songs that definitely had some help from Crazy Horse, one of his backing bands. But it also had a good selection of classic Young folk-sounding songs, and it weaves between those two types excellently.
One of the Best to do it
Young is a masterful songwriter. He has so many incredible, memorable songs. “Chrome Dreams” does a great job of reminding the listener that he still made good music in between the early 70s and 90s. This is one of his best and I am seriously shocked that he decided to release “American Stars ‘n Bars” instead of “Chrome Dreams.” Especially considering this album has the two best songs from that album. I’m just glad this album finally got a real release. It’s something I will be listening to a lot in the future.
