5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps
I've been aware of Neil Young for a long long time now. In fact the first time I had ever heard of him was in the early 90s just after the release of Freedom & Ragged Glory when they started playing the singles off those albums on Headbangers Ball. That's right, my introduction to Neil Young was on a TV show that was supposed to cover metal. At first my reaction to him was pretty much 'Who the hell is this old fossil?'. But then later as I became more aware of him, especially with his next release being Harvest Moon, the sequel to his massively popular Harvest album, so there were plenty of history lessons about him being written in the music press at the time, plus this whole ridiculous 'Godfather of Grunge' label that seemed to become attached to the poor sod sometime around 1992. But really it was me becoming more aware of his wilder side when I filed away a note in my head to check him out at some point. I ended up buying After The Gold Rush & Weld and although I quite liked them they didn't really blow me away.
The real point came very slowly, not until 6 or 7 years ago when I acquired his work through the beauty of the internet. I discovered that I preferred the stuff he did with Crazy Horse more, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Zuma, Re-ac-tor. For some reason Rust Never Sleeps got lost somewhere, so I guess it's time to fix that.
I like the way 'Hey Hey My My' sandwiches both the beginning and end of the album. I like it when bands do this. It's almost like hearing the beginning again at the end somehow rewards you for listening to the whole album.
I wish more bands would do stuff like this. You have the nice acoustic one at the beginning and you have the grimy electric version at the end of the album. And when I say grimy I mean really f*cking grimy. I thought the guitar sound on Funhouse were something, this takes it to another level of dirt & filth.
Listening to the first half of this album for me was rather something of a disappointment. Knowing the reputation of this album & seeing so many songs on this album on many best of albums & live albums after the first 4 songs I was really beginning to wonder when the hell this thing was going to kick in. Why have I just heard 3 rather dull acoustic songs in a row? Why have I not heard hardly anything of Crazy Horse, what the hell is going on here?
Things pick up a bit halfway through the album with Sail Away which is a pretty good acoustic country ballad but it has a bit of extra oomph!! to it in the same way that Gram Parsons & The Rolling Stones would make a country ballad.
Where things really pick up is on Side 2 of the album. 'Powerfinger', 'Welfare Mothers','Sedan Delivery' & Hey Hey My My (Into The Black). It's like a Neil Young greatest hits album and he really rocks on this half of the album. Powderfinger sounds like an electrified version of something you'd find on the first half of the album, but that extra energy in the song gives this album the lift it needs and suddenly you feel refreshed, almost as if you're listening to a different album. 'Welfare Mothers' is just fantastic, I'm not sure if its' supposed to be a nod to or a parody of Frank Zappa but this song has got Zappa style written all over it and young pulls it off effortlessly.
Sedan Delivery is Neil Young doing punk and is 4.40 of nasty sounding guitars pounding away at you. It almost a shame there's nothing like this earlier on in the album.
That finally takes us into the reprise of Hey Hey My My, this time with those nasty guitars and all it's mentions of John Lydon in the lyrics.
A strange album this one, I'm going to use an old footballing cliché & say this is very much a game of two halves. It's the second half that really grabs you & draws you in, but I think with repeated listens I could begin to appreciate the first half a lot more.
A really enjoyable album if you stick with it.