Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Americana
(Reprise Records)
There are songs your mom sings to you when youâre growing upâsongs like âClementineâ and âSheâll Be Coming âRound the Mountain.â You generally forget about these songs by the time youâre old enough to turn the radio dialâŠunless, of course, you happen to be Neil Young.
Joined by his longtime backup band, Crazy Horse, Young has collected an albumâs worth of these classic folksongs to release Americana. When asked about the strange song choices, Young said, âAlmost every one has to do with people getting killed, with life-or-death struggles. You donât hear much about that; theyâve been made into something much more light. So I moved them away from that gentler interpretation. With new melodies and arrangements, we could use the folk process to invoke the original meanings for this generation.”
In theory, itâs a good ideaâŠbut then again, so is communism.
This album just did not live up to the standards of a typical Neil Young album. Adding a distorted guitar part to any of these songsâwhich seems to be Youngâs general formula to making a concept albumâdoes not make them rock songs. It doesnât even make them listenable; if anything, it just detracts from the simplistic way in which these songs were written, in order to complement the simple messages they convey.
Neil Young is an incredibly talented artist, and his creativity has been the driving force in every endeavor heâs launched himself inâBuffalo Springfield, CSNY, his solo projects, etc.âand that is probably what ended up hurting him in this circumstance. Thereâs only so much you can do with âThis Land is Your Landâ before listeners just get irritated.
