Neil Young Album Poll

First Annual Favorites from Rust@Death

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UPDATED: Best Neil Young Albums statistics

 As a point of reference for the FUNHOUSE reviews, here are the results of the Rust@Death

list's "First Annual Favorite Neil Young Album Poll," as published in Broken Arrow no. 55,

from May, 1994 (compiled by Thrasher):
 

Rust Never Sleeps - 35 points

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - 32 points

Tonight's the Night - 26 points

Ragged Glory - 25 points

After the Goldrush - 24 points

Freedom - 23 points

On the Beach, Zuma - 21 points

Decade - 16 points

Time Fades Away - 13 points

Weld - 12 points

Harvest, Live Rust - 10 points

Trans, Harvest Moon - 8 points

Comes A Time, This Note's For You - 7 points

American Stars 'n' Bars - 6 points

Hawks and Doves, Unplugged - 5 points

Re-ac-tor - 4 points

Neil Young, Old Ways, Eldorado, Arc-Weld - 3 points

Landing On Water, Arc - 1 point

Journey Through the Past, Everybody's Rockin', Life - 0 points

 

It's sort of interesting to compare the Billboard chart position with the survey results. Not surprisingly, there is little correlation between the Billboard position and current "popularity". "Harvest" being the most obvious example where a #1 hit album is not even in the RUST top five.

 

The other interesting observation is the inverse correlation between Neil's poorly regarded (at the time) 70's and 80's material and their Billboard position. 70's material like JTTP (#45) and TFA (#22) did fairly well chart wise yet were critically regarded as "bad" Neil albums. On the other hand, "bad" Neil albums of the 80's like TRANS went Top 20, while Reactor went to #27.

 

Another point of interest (hey Randy are you listening?) is that Comes a Time is Neil's 2nd highest charting album at #7, even ahead of RNS which only went to #8. Yet CAT was ranked only #16 on RUST. So go figure? On the other hand, with only one post-79 album making the top 5 (Ragged Glory), RUST has a definite preference for the early-Neil.

 

BTW, anyone who has the latest info on Billboard stats for '92 and forward stuff like H. Moon, please let me know.

 

Finally, it should be clearly evident that album sales, critical acclaim, and popularity on RUST are not the truest measure of how great (or not so great) Young's work really is. It's all relative, afterall.

 

Thanks. It's been fun. Looking forward to a great '94 on RUST - the best music/artist list on the INTERNET!

 

Compiled by Thrasher


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UPDATED: Best Neil Young Albums statistics


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