Trans
Released: December 29, 1982
Label: Geffen
(Also known as "Shit, Volume 1&quot

1983 Everybody's Rockin'[C]
Released: July 27, 1983
Label: Geffen
(Also known as "Why The Fuck Is Neil Young Singing This Rockabilly Horseshit?&quot

1985 Old Ways
Released: August 12, 1985
Label: Geffen
(His only "listenable" album of the 80s, but it's real cowpoke shit)

1986 Landing on Water
Released: July 21, 1986
Label: Geffen
(Also known as "Shit, Volume 2&quot

1987 Life[A]
Released: June 30, 1987
Label: Geffen
(Also known as "Shit, Volume 3"...how the HELL did he manage to pull off a BORING Crazy Horse album?)

1988 This Note's for You
Released: April 12, 1988
Label: Reprise
(Also known as "Shit, With a Horn Section&quot

Fortunately, he closed out the decade with "Rockin' In The Free World" from 1999's album "Freedom."

"There's a place downtown...Where the hippies all go...

Huge fan, and I am not bitter that I drove from Denver to Indianapolis to see her only to find that her concert for that evening had been postponed I think anything after "The Bedroom Tapes" is ???????

I'm not saying he didn't like them, but I heard something about making records that were so out of line with what they expected and could market that they'd release him from the contract.

Initially, David Geffen (Geffen Records) was a friend...he has DEEP roots into the whole Neil Young / Eagles / Linda Ronstadt / etc. family tree.

What I have read after the fact is that during this time, Young was more interested in being with his son Ben (who has cerebral palsy). In fact, the whole "Trans" album came out of an interest in alternative communication methods for people with verbal and physical disabilities. I can easily understand that, but it doesn't stand as justification for a decade of half-hearted albums. Young simply lacked focus. Geffen thought he was going to get a bunch of rockin' Crazy Horse albums. Instead, he got all of these ridiculous albums that, in the lawsuit they eventually brought against Young, "didn't sound like Neil Young." This, of course, was the supreme joke to Young. When he finally did release a Crazy Horse album during this period ("Life&quot , it was boring, lacked any good songs, was just one more half-assed Neil Young album.

If you read his biography ("Shakey&quot you walk away with the feeling that while he may be a genius, he's never had less than a feeling of contempt for his fans and many ex-wives / girlfriends / bandmates. He really is quite an asshole. Think in terms of "Spinal Tap"...he can pick up a guitar and rock a stadium, but when you get down to interpersonal relationships, the guy needs to take some classes or something. He's totally clueless.

I guess I just had the sides mixed up.

I'm neither surprised that he's a jerk nor that he's not made many good albums.

I just don't think most people have many good songs in them. For one, song-writing is hard, but I think it - or it seems to - get harder once people have had some success at it or worked at it for so long. The thing is, these guys are out of touch assholes, and it's no surprise - they've been lauded over since they were very young for work they did when they were very young. Many of them exist in a perpetual state of semi-adolescence, but in their lives move away from the experiences of that time which allows them to write songs that others can relate to.

...are the first three, and "Ragged Glory."

I'm speaking strictly in terms of 5-star albums, not albums with a few good songs and a few not-so-good songs.

I still think the first three ("Neil Young," "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," "After The Goldrush&quot are the stuff of legend. The Neil Young mix CD I have in the car is a compilation I made from those albums plus "Country Girl" from "Deja Vu" and "Carry On" & "Southern Man" from "Four Way Street." To me, that IS Neil Young.

"Ragged Glory" followed "Freedom" and to me was the full return of the Neil Young who went out with a bang on "Rust Never Sleeps." I've enjoyed some of his material since "Ragged Glory," but when it comes down to his solo material, it's those four albums, and cherry-picking of everything else.

"Rcokin' In The Free World" marked his re-emergence into the light.

But I will admit I don't put it on when I want to listen to some Neil...

...which is basically the Trans tour. It was amusing. For ONE VIEWING. ONE. Saw it on MTV. Could not believe when it was commercially released on VHS / DVD. The best parts of the concert happened when he wasn't playing Trans material (including that "domo arigato Mr. Roboto what the fuck are you thinking, Neil" version of "Mr. Soul&quot .

I haven't listened to ANY of the music from that decade since it was released, with the exception of pieces of "Old Ways."

Word for word.

Trans was his greatest shits album.

I wasn't a fan of his religion period.

Mark Knopfler on guitar; beautiful back-up singers; and a voice that has never sounded more passionate and convincing.

Some of the lyrics are among his best social commentary, especially 'When You Gonna Wake Up' and 'Slow Train'. He's not preaching the bigoted, hateful things that the Born Again church with which he was associated usually preaches; he's talking about all that's bad in the world (things we as progressives all agree with) and offers God's love as the answer/solution. It's a real New Testament-love-thy-neighbor-turn-the-other-cheek kind of message.

And I'm not even religious at all.

They made some awsome stuff.

But when they tried being "too Blues," they were awful. No. Beyond awful.

If you really want to see eyeballs bulge and veins popping out of necks, say the same to some of the die-hard LZ fans who think EVERYthing they ever did was great just because they are Led Zep.

LZ fan here, and even I will admit that some of their stuff sucks.

Shit, I even listen to Coda.

I love their interpretation of the blues. And rock. And folk.

In my humble opinion, at least it rocked. If I were to cherry pick the best parts of whatever tracks have them on 'In Through the Out Door' , I would be lucky to have enough riffs to make a good 4 or 5 minute hard rock tune...maybe.

I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

and ITTOD is one of my least favorite Zep albums - however the difference between least and most favorite Zep album is pretty small.

I will admit it took me a few listens to get I'm Gonna Crawl...and I have to be in the right mood for Carouselambra...but In The Evening is one of my favorite tunes and I don't care what anybody says - I love Hot Dog.

And even Jimmy isn't fond of All My Love - he called it (derogatorily, in my opinion) "The Hook"...but it's the first Zep song I remember actually hearing. Late 1981 on an AM radio in my 1971 Plymouth Fury III - coming home from class at Mountain View Jr College...I had lived a very sheltered life prior to that...I wasn't sure what to think of it and I didn't pay it a LOT of attention until a bout a year later when I met one of my best friends in the world who turned me onto all things Led Zep. He led (ha! "led!&quot me through all the records and when he got to ITTOD I said "Hey! I've heard that one before!" and we continued getting high and having fun jamming on some Zep.

Maybe ya had to be there.

Interesting story, and I know well what you mean by "had to be there" as one of the great moments in life to be treasured forever. Never forget it.

I didn't hear any of their stuff until like '77 ( except the brutally overplayed 'Stairway to Heaven ) but got to hear all the earlier stuff when we hung out at a friend's older cousin's house to play billiards and party. Heard them all and I was hooked. When we heard of a new LZ album that was coming in '79 everybody was excited, but most other than the die-hards were disappointed when we realized that ITTOD wasn't more of the same. In hindsight it was like I felt when I first heard 'Load' from Metallica; Er well, not really. ITTOD did have tracks I liked: 'I'm gonna Crawl' ( such a deep immersing groove ) and 'Southbound Suarez' ( Jaunty, upbeat and some good jamming )

Cheers

Plant had a good voice, but he was not a blues singer.

The Stones immediately come to mind with "Emotional Rescue". Disco? Really? These are the guys who gave us Exile on Main Street, ferchrissakes!!!

And personally, I love the early works of Elton John. Tumbleweed Connection is an amazing work. Then, 5 years later we get "Don't go breaking my heart"? WTF?

The final nail in my respect for Elton was not the schlock factory that's been his output since the late 70s, but the fact that he performed at Limpballs wedding. Up to that point, I could've almost forgiven him.

(edited for a typo)

Each released half-a-dozen really good albums at the beginning of their career and fell off the earth into the shitpit afterwards. Given that, I can still be more forgiving to Elton John. He always leaned poppy, whereas Stewart presented himself as more of a straight-up rocker. Stewart moving to the US and abandoning his old football/drinking/music mates back in England was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Not even one decent record in 35 years; and that disco tune was beyond unforgivable. Sad and embarrassing.

McCartney has made some truly godawful music in the last forty years as well.

into doing what I call "Lounge Lizard Classics" is a true embarrassment for him.

Or, should be, anyway.

I love, love, love the guy, he's extremely prolific, constantly pushing boundaries. . .but some of those boundaries were there for a reason. Some of his experimental rock stuff is nigh on unlistenable.

Best known for the Top-40 radio crapfest "The Lady In Red".

Also wrote "Much More Than This", which seems to be a justification of adultery. Pretty much unlistenable.

BUT, he also wrote the achingly beautiful "The Head And The Heart", the plaintive, sorrowful "I'm Counting On You", and the masterful, epic-length "Revolution". I have been a fan of his for 30 years now. Just saw him in concert in Toronto on Thursday, for just the second time ever. Glorious experience.

The musical interlude includes a sotto voce narration from Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Pretty good...

but he went downhill with "Let's Dance" in the 80's.

His '70s solo work was mostly pop crap with repetitious licks and insipid lyrics. As bad off as he was in his personal life and addiction, it's a wonder he put out any music at all. He found his way again with the '94 release "From the Cradle" where he focused on his blues roots.

And he never lost it as far as the guitar is concerned.



Bake

Like I said, with his demons it's a wonder he was recording at all. However, a lot of that periods music was just going through the motions.

Everything post Brain Salad Surgery is pretty goddamned bad and gaseous, even by their own admission.

Just don't look at the album cover for too long in that condition, especially not while listening to that track.

That was their segue into overbloat.

and apprently the feeling was mutual. But Greg Lake has an ego that can put Newt Gingrich's in the shade according to everything I've ever read about the guy so maybe Keith was more than slightly justified. Keith and Carl knew the album was an absolute piece of shite and disowned it pretty much immediately.

Emerson was into crazy chord progressions, Palmer was into bizarre time signatures, Lake was ready to kill them both.

KE and CP were hard-core proggers. Lake was not.

More chest hair and gold medallions than the Brothers Gibb.

I haven't been able to get through the last three albums. I haven't even listened to the holiday album from '09 yet (can't bring myself to.)

ETA: To a certain DUer--yes, I know American Doll Posse is brilliant. Please don't explain it to me for the fourth time.

He's a "two extremes" musician.

Most of his Wings stuff. And especially that hideous Christmas song, &quot Simply Having) A Wonderful Christmas Time"

The other ones being Lennon's 'So This Is Christmas' and the song 'Driving Home For Christmas' (forgot by whom).

Last edited Tue May 8, 2012, 10:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Albums 1, 2, 3, and sometimes 4 are epically great.

After that, crap!

AJFA could have been shorter but I did like a couple songs off the $5.98 ep Garage Days Re-Revisited that came out right before AJFA as kind of an introduction to Jason.

But I hate everything after AJFA. They broke the code.

Just sayin'.



Bake

Love the Oz man. BUT lately his stuff is just MEH.

Rock the Casbah? Should I Stay or Should I Go?

WTF?

because, years ago, the team was known as the San Jose Clash (it is now the Earthquakes).

So every time the Clash would score a goal, they'd "Rock the Casbah, Rock the Casbah"!

Come on, admit it, it's catchy as hell.

And of the two, I would take that over Rock the Casbah any day.

I probably wouldn't know about them if it weren't for those songs. I sure never heard of them before those songs.

so I thank them for them.

that we stopped liking any band that got popular.

I don't think it was always true but I know it happened some. I'd like to think that it wasn't us that changed, it was the bands changing to be popular (Yes I am looking at you Lars Ulrich!). I truly don't think we were so shallow as to hate a band JUST because other people started liking them. But I admit it is a possibility.



Lately though I just worry about whether or not I like a band. If some hipsters and juggalos like em too, it doesn't hurt me at all. Fans means money and money means they might survive long enough to make another album and there's always a chance I'll like that one too.

The longer careers go on, the more likely artists are to produce stuff that isn't good. And most artists eventually run out of steam and creative energy, or find themselves unable to roll with the times.

And even on classic albums you get duds. Nobody is perfect, after all. Let it Be is one of my favorite Beatles album, but 'The Long and Winding Road' is in IMO the worst song they ever did.

So many artists have had more than their fair share of clunkers. I chalk it up to needing to fill up an album.

along with Elvis

I found Here Lies Love in the bargain bin.

I want my money back!

Especially the last few albums they made.

They had some GREAT stuff on them, but much of those last albums was total crap.

Especially...


"Number 9? Number 9? Number 9?"

Usually the longer a band sticks around the worse they get.

The Smiths, for example, never put out a bad album because they lasted a very short time. Morrissey certainly dropped a few stinkers in his solo career, however. Bauhaus flamed out before the crap started; Love and Rockets dragged on and on and just got awful.

Pretty much every album after Achtung Baby sucked worse than it's predecessor. I really didn't even like Achtung Baby all that much, to be honest.

First three albums? Sucked. Their golden era really started with a string of amazing material - "Music For The Masses", "Songs Of Faith And Devotion", "Violator", and "Ultra" were also amazing . But then they put out the crap fest known as "Exciter" and went away. But then in the last decade the two albums they released - "Playing The Angel" and "Sounds Of The Universe" were again amazing and Dave Gahan even put out a couple of good solo albums -and '09-'10 tour ranks among the best shows I've ever seen live.That's my two cents.

I think the first album is their best, and the "see you" single that came right after it is THE best thing they've done. I'd say the "golden era" was from the first record through 101. Everything else has been a coda. Yes, "Violator" was excellent, but I thought "Songs of Faith and Devotion" was a serious misstep. Like some of their earlier albums, the song writing wasn't at fault, but the production and arrangement were lacking. "Ultra" was a serious return to form, and then "Exciter" came out and I stopped giving a shit. How they could follow up a great record with such a shit record his beyond me. I saw them live in '98 and was underwhelmed. Dave Gahan solo? ehh... I saw him live for free, so it was worth it, but I wouldn't buy the records.

but the rest of it did nothing for me. New album later this year, or so the rumor mill says.

The complete shit that is the song "meat is murder" puts a stain on the entire album. As for The Cure, they've always had highs and lows. I was a huge fan but stopped buying the records regularly at Blood Flowers - it just wasn't very good, but I wouldn't say it stinks. One thing they have going for them now is that the live band is consistently good.

but I'm the only person I know that does, so you're probably more objectively correct than I am. The rest of that album is fookin' brilliant, however -- "Rusholme Ruffians," "Barbarism Begins at Home," "Headmaster Ritual," all were complete masterpieces.

I only like The Cure up to Fascination Street. After that it got really boring. Not necessarily bad, but boring. Agreed on the live part; they're still a solid stage act.

Especially that horrible cover of Simon & Garfunkel's 'The Boxer'.

And I do like his version of "The Boxer," but what makes it cool is one voice is the crooner Bob, the other the raspy Bob

I absolutely love a lot of the older stuff, but later on he made some absolute shit.

He had some great stuff after the Beatles and a lot of crap as well.

Metallica really fell off after the Black Albumn.

They were my favorite band before that.

I never really understood Syd's music. Roger always spoke to me and I felt the band fizzled under Gilmour. To me, The Wall was the culmination of their work.

Wish You were Here was the culmination of all their work and widely regarded as their best. By the Wall, Waters insisted in writing the lyrics AND music for the whole albumn. There was a marked drop off in music quality in the Wall. The one song on the Wall Waters didn't write the music for... Comfortably Numb.

But I have to admit...I even love a decent portion of his unlistenable crap.

Most of his post-Beatles stuff is pretty lame.

Interesting footnote though: Having grown up on the Beatles, and more recently having listened to a lot of Paul McCartney's solo stuff, and most of John Lennon's- when I go back and listen to the Beatles now, I can very much tell what each of them contributed to any given song.

Any other Beatles fans experienced this?


On Edit: And PS- I also agree with a lot of the artists mentioned upthread: Much of Ozzy's solo stuff, especially post Speak of the Devil; Zappa had over 70 albums, and some of them were crap; I didn't like Pink Floyd's reunion stuff at all (and very little of Roger Waters' solo stuff)

notably for his 'Wonderful Christmastime'. Even by the standards of modern Christmas music - which isn't my favourite genre at the best of times - it is exceptionally awful.

Glass in an acquired taste. You have to be really into minimalist music. Steve Reich is another example of the genre.

I heard Glass live playing some of his latest piano music. It was absolutely unlistenable. It broke all the basic rules of harmony that he normally follows and sounded like a two-year-old banging out random notes. Everybody was also pissed off 'cause they'd brought CD's and albums for autographs and he refused and ran out the back door.

I saw his opera Satyagraha on PBS last week and it was marvelous.

and very moving piece. I liked his Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack quite a lot too.

His really early stuff had a lot of interesting and sophisticated rhythmic and structural ideas, but was a little too austere. Then, over the next ten years, he welded those ideas onto a more varied and appealing harmonic framework, and produced lots of wonderful music (including Satyagraha, which I love as well). But ever since Koyaanisqatsi, I've felt like his default approach to writing music is "Make stuff that sounds like Koyaanisqatsi." Similar arrangements, same chord progressions, and all of the tricky shifting and interlocking meters are replaced by triplet arpeggios. Just lazy.

I remember reading about them in Thrasher magazine in the 80s and wondering who they were. They were solid all the way through "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", which I must have listened to a million times. Everything since then has been pretty much awful.

I'd also add Butch Walker; his Marvelous 3 stuff and his first solo album "Left of Self-Centered" are excellent, then he switched to making indie pop music which I find unlistenable with very few exceptions.

Early stuff was wonderful .... and the live album was great.

then ... they had money problems and went commercial.

The Doors, with "Touch Me Babe" horrible sappy shit music.

Early hard funk Kool and the Gang, with songs like "Jungle Boogie", "Funky Stuff", "Hollywood Swinger", and then they went super-commerical pop with songs like "Celebrate", now a wedding reception standard.