Neil Young Albums ReviewsIn 2004 Rustie, Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova posted a series of articles on his experience listening to all of Neil Young's albums in chronological order. Here is one in the series. For a complete listing, see Albums in Order reviews.
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:51:36 -0800 (PST) In the fall of 1986, I had the opportunity to attend one of the shows in the Rusted Out Garage tour; in fact I saw the show that was broadcast live over pay-per-view television and on audio through participating radio stations. I had a heads-up about the audio broadcast and I was successfully able to set up my hi-fi vcr to record the audio portion of the concert while I attended the show. I had good copies of several new or unreleased songs several months before the album in which they appear would be released. I liked the new songs and anticipated the release of the next album; the first with Crazy Horse since re-ac-tor.
The basic tracks on several of the songs were recorded live in concert on the ROG tour, then various overdubs were added in the studio, a technique Neil had used for Rust Never Sleeps. I found that for the most part, I liked the raw live versions I had from my radio recording much better than the final album tracks. Take Around The World, for example: I thought it was a good rockin’ tune live. The added spoken parts found on the album (not in my concert recording), you know the part that goes “hey, what’s that you’ve got on…” was IMHO superfluous and actually detracted from the effectiveness of the song for me. I do like most of the album overall though. Mideast Vacation is somewhat disturbing; “I was Rambo in the disco, I was shootin’ to the beat” creates an image that really bothers my peace and love sensibilities. A throwaway tune on the album, Prisoners Of Rock And Roll, has for some reason become a Neil Young and Crazy Horse staple. I’d rather see them perform Inca Queen or Around The World myself, but no one ever asks my opinion about Neil setlists… I didn’t know it at the time of release, but a couple of the songs were from a while before Life was released. Cryin’ Eyes dates back to 1977 when it was performed with the Ducks. While visiting the Rock Hall Of Fame in 1997 with a bunch of fellow crazy Rusties, I saw a lyric sheet for Long Walk Home that was dated in the early 70’s. Filling out the album was We Never Danced, a song Neil wrote for the movie Made In Heaven; the track was a collaboration with Jack Nitszche. I believe it had been quite some time since Neil had worked with him. I always liked this track, especially since the one in the movie features a female singer instead of Neil.
Life was Neil’s fifth and last album of all-original music for Geffen records. The difficult relationship had come to an end. Check out the cover of the album and see Neil behind bars with the number 5 in hash marks visible. I think Neil was very glad to get back to Reprise and away from Geffen. I don’t know what Neil thinks of this album, but I very much enjoyed listening to Life today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Life
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat