Neil Young - On the Beach
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.58 You Save: $6.40 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.86 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for On the Beach
Free Music Review: Neil's greatest achievement
Hit: 5 Stars
The first time I heard this on vinyl last year, I was blown away; I knew immediately it was (and remains) Neil Young's best album, barring even "Tonight's the Night." This album was the second in what came to be called the Doom Trilogy, bookended by "Time Fades Away" and "Tonight's the Night" (although "On the Beach" was recorded last), and these three albums, though no one thought so at the time, stand as arguably Neil's greatest work. Every song on this album is a classic:"Walk On" is a jaunty swipe at the criticisms of "Time Fades Away," which was a radical departure from the pastoral "Harvest" and, before that, "After the Gold Rush." It's basically Neil saying "Take your opinion and shove it."
"See the Sky About to Rain" is pretty straightforward: a meditative song about life in general, in keeping with the despair the album conveys. This song had been considered for "Harvest" but, thankfully, was saved for this.
"Revolution Blues" is far and away the best track on the album, about Charles Manson and the mindset of those like him. It's black humor was not appreciated at the time, especially the line "I hear the Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars, but I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars."
"For the Turnstiles" is a stripped-down, banjo-laced swipe at the record company execs who "pimp" his (and others') music.
"Vampire Blues" is about the oil crisis that afflicted the world at the time; Neil assumes the persona of an oil magnate "sucking blood from the earth...I'll sell you twenty barrels worth." Again his satire is apparent in the line "Good times are comin', I hear it everywhere I go...good times are comin', but they sure are comin' slow."
"On the Beach," which kicked off the second side of the vinyl, is the first of three deeply medatative songs that close the album. Each is about the price of fame, in its own way, and Young does a good job keeping from falling into self-pity.
"Motion Pictures (For Carrie)," as the title suggests, is about his actress girlfriend Carrie Snodgrass (their relationship collapsed soon afterwards, however).
"Ambulance Blues" is an all-encompassing epic, along the lines of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." It covers topics from Richard Nixon to Patty Hearst to the general public who are just "pissing in the wind."
Final assessment: Buy this album NOW.
Free Music Review: On the Mark
Hit: 5 Stars
This is Neil at the very top of his game. His personal life a mess, with a wake of heartbreak, loss and destruction floating up on the beach like the human shipwreck he was at that point, Young managed to craft his most disturbing music of his career during the period that began with EVERYBODY KNOWS thru RUST, with TONIGHT, BEACH and ZUMA being the incendiary crucible of his soul.On the heels of the bleak TONIGHT, OTB came as a disturbing re-assessment of whether the struggle was worth the cost. "An ambulance can only go so fast." Indeed. Jimmy McCollough's book paints this period in Young's life as epochally bizarre, the recording involving Rusty Kershaw as something that was part Outer Limits, part Charles Barkowski, part Raymond Chandler, all laced with chemicals, liquids and the undertow of California that had just recently generated Charles Manson. Young's a long, long way from the kid in the schoolyard in Winnipeg of "Don't Be Denied". Here he stands on the beach of a failed marriage, deaths of friends and employees, shattering of professional partnerships, observing the sky about to rain. Never in all of his works would he sound this haunted. His own ability to destroy loved ones casts a scared pallor in "Vampire Blues". The epic "Ambulance Blues", on the heels of a momentary breath of release of his cinema fantasy poem, creates a psychologically disturbing film worthy of Polanski, Hitchkock, Demme.
The songs were coming at lightning speed for Young. The myths surrounding his public performances were growing taller, scarier, more intense with every word of his appearances. The truth was even more frightening. One can best understand this period in his life by seeing "Ambulance Blues" at one end of the tunnel and "Will to Love" at the other, with "Danger Bird" charting the flight. But at the end of this CD, Young had painted a masterpiece. If you were to own only 1 CD of Young's, this is it. Mitchell had painted BLUE as a woman on the verge of a breakdown. Young broke down on the beach and sent us the postcard.
One program note: I've enjoyed the Japanese bootleg of this disc for years because of its inclusion of live sets from this period: in concert, the disturbing quality of these songs was relentless. This is the reason Young has the reputation he has.
Free Music Review: On the Beach
Hit: 5 Stars
Okay, I may have found my new favorite Neil Young record, or maybe it's my second favorite to After the Gold Rush. Eh, who cares? It's excellent, and an easy 5-star. Shame on Geffen for leaving this one unreleased for so long!!
It's hard for me to pick a favorite on this one, which is interesting because I'm certain of what the best song on every other Neil Young album I own is. The debut? The Loner. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere? Down by the River. After the Gold Rush? Southern Man. Harvest? Needle & the Damage Done. Tonight's the Night? Title song. Zuma? Cortez the Killer. Rust Never Sleeps? Powderfinger. In this case, though, I'm split between three: Walk On, See the Sky About to Rain and Vampire Blues.
Walk On is probably the most familiar number, being included on Decade. It's a rant against the world. Neil was pissed off during the recording of the album, and here he lashes out at the tabloids, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Geffen Records, Crosby, Stills & Nash and his newfound stardom. It may seem like a three-minute pop song to those not familiar with Neil. But he likes irony, so it's far from. See the Sky About to Rain is another environmentalist tune a la After the Gold Rush. Similar to that song, you can tell two things: a disaster just happened, and another is on the way. Most would rage away on a song like this. But Neil, accompanied by just organ and pedal steel, proves he's a master of understatement, among many other things. Vampire Blues is (obviously) a blues song, with Neil's snarling chorus "I'm a vampire, babe". Lyrically, the song seems to be about high gas prices, something that's especially relevant today. The closing Ambulance Blues has the best lyrics on this album, very vague and hard to follow but well written and obviously angry, as the famed "Pissin' in the Wind" (a reference to Blowin' in the Wind, perhaps?) line proves. Though I disagree with its pro-Manson lyrics, Revolution Blues is a good rockin' tune, and if you know Finu Lanu you know he likes good rockin' tunes! For the Turnstiles is also good lyrics though I find banjos a headache. The lengthy title track is also cool - in fact the only mistake is Motion Pictures, a song that gets nowhere fast. But this one's great. It took me ages to find a copy (even while it was out on CD, mind you!), glad I finally did!
Free Music Review: It will change you in the middle of the day
Hit: 5 Stars
I knew an omadawn once named Eddie, from Ennis he was, who pronounced ambulance abumbulance and who never tired of telling anyone who'd listen that the last track on this curiously covert Neil Young album was his favourite song of all time. "Abumbulance Blues," he used to insist, ceaselessly, "sure there's divil the bit to bate it." I often wondered if Eddie only pretended to be the village oaf. Not that Ambulance Blues isn't a good song, it's a brilliant song, an epic song, with stupendous acoustic guitar and some of Neil's best lyrics AND vocals, but for me the high note here has always been For the Turnstiles, a song often singled out by irate listeners as being particularly unlistenable to on account of Neil's painfully screechy delivery. Not so sez I. During the 1980s I worked for a spell in the laundry of a prestigious German loony bin and to pass the time waiting for the huge dryers to let out I would sing this song in an even screechier caterwaul than Mister Young's and each and every time I finished mine daffy und batty mitarbeiters would stop their folding und pressing und ironing und start up with what I invariably took to be a generous round of applause. "Feelin dank," I'd say, "feelin dank, yiz are all too kind." In any event something about that mad little ditty got well and truly wedged in me gulliver, where I can happily hear it to this day. Overall though der whole album ist eine colossally underrated werk off Youngkraft und der cover ist totalish wonderbar all on its own, what with Shakey there in his yellow shirt staring out to sea, his big beach boots beside him, the crash-landed chevy, also yellow, the yella umbrella and chairs, the almost palpable absence of sunshine, the newaspaper and of course them cans of Coors. All in all the very picture of not exactly mellow yellow and indeed something of a brooding flipside to the witty cover of Supertramp's Crisis? What Crisis? At any rate when you're in the mood for something sublimely moody and you've just accidentally snapped your only copy of Tonight's the Night in half--don't ask--you could do a lot worse than a trip to this out of the way little beach.Free Music Review: A look into Neil's tortured soul
Hit: 5 Stars
On The Beach is one of three albums Neil Young recorded during perhaps the darkest period of his life as he was struggling to move forward following the overdoses of both fellow Crazy Horse bandmate Danny Whitten and road crew member Bruce Berry. While his following album Tonight's The Night is the critical and fan favorite from this period, On The Beach is a true portait of man trying to deal with the turmoil placed upon him. In fact, the mood here makes Tonight's The Night almost sound celebratory.
The only upbeat song here is the leadoff track "Walk On" which was a minor hit single. After this the album is a very somber affair. Neil's guitar is all about mood here as his loud high-pitched solos when playing with Crazy Horse are seldom heard. While the strong tracks "For The Turnstiles", "Motion Pictures", and "See The Sky About To Rain" musically sound similar to his country tinged songs on Harvest, it's the melancholy tone of both Neil's voice and lyrics which distinguish them from his previous work. Although there are three songs here with the word blues in them, the tone of each track is very different. "Vampire Blues" is a very raggedy track which totally contradicts the song's "Good times are coming" lyric. "Revolution Blues" comes closest to Crazy Horse in spirit and includes acompaniment by David Crosby and bassist Rick Danko and Levon Helm from The Band. "Ambulance Blues" is a long acoustic song which find Neil's voice bouncing between depressing and hopeful throughout the track. Rusty Kershaw's fiddle playing and Neil's harmonica also add to the dour mood of this track. However, it's the slow title track which is the album's centerpiece and certainly one of the best songs that Young has ever written. Neil's voice is so emotional here, it's as though he's crying. The band's performance, which includes Graham Nash guesting on piano, complements the song perfectly. One of his finest works and along with This Note's For You his most underrated, On The Beach is a timeless document by one of the best singer/songwriters in rock history. Highly recommended.