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) At the time this came out, Neil's struggles at home caring
for Ben were not apparent to me. He did seem to be sort of
low profile, not touring etc., especially after being
named artist of the previous decade. But at least he was
issuing a new album every year.
The most telling thing on this record I think is the item
on the album sleeve that without translation I could not
understand. The little prayer in latin which, translated,
reads:
Anyway, Neil got back with Crazy Horse to make this album.
It has some good tunes. Opera Star kicks it off; kinda
fun, kinda rockin, definitely Neil. Surfer Joe and Moe The
Sleaze; great rock and roll. Then there's T-Bone. Well, I
admit that I kind of like it. But I think of it as mostly
an instrumental with a few (very few) lyrics tossed in. It
hits a groove it's ok. Southern Pacific was fantastic, I
thought Motor City was hilarious and Shots very good
except that the sound effects got to me after a while. I
do have one road story about this album.
I was in England with my Air Force flight crew. The
navigator had a relative in the country he invited to
visit with him. There was a cassette player in the car we
were riding in and I popped in Neil's latest re-ac-tor.
The song that hit it biggest amongst my buddies (a nod to
the old American Bandstand here) because it 'had a good
beat and was easy to dance to' was Rapid Transit. I do
love the tune, though I admit that the stuttering is a
little hard to take at times. But re-ac-tor's a pretty
cool album. I had no idea when this first came out that
this would be Neil's last album on Reprise for the next 7
years...
I very much enjoyed listening to Reactor today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: re-ac-tor
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not
change,
the strength to change what I can and the wisdom
to know the difference."
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat