NEIL YOUNG "storytone"

[CRAZY-HORSE]

NEIL YOUNG "storytone"

if you take into account CSNY,Stills-Young Band,Buffalo Springfield
his movie soundtracks and his solo output alone and with Crazy-
Horse this one is somewhere around #50 in his studio releases
since 1966....now thats pretty prolific by anyone's standards...
the problem is, when youre that prolific you are bound to make a
few hiccup's on the way...
this album, comes in two versions, a single disc which features the ten
tracks recorded with Orchestra's and others with a Big Band.
the other version contains that disc plus another disc of the same songs
recorded solo by Neil, some piano tracks,some acoustic guitar tracks and a few of
those that also include his harmonica...
i cannot decide which disc works best overall, because some tracks work better with
the Big Band,others best with just Neil solo...
the problem i have with this album is that there is little variety in the melodies.
subject matter for the most part is also predominantly single themed.
most of it relates to his wife and the things he regrets, others apply an
environmental theme, sometimes the two themes overlap....
lyrically, its pretty good....
musically,its pretty boring....
vocally,Neil sounds uninspired like he's going through the motions...
all up though, its not very good,very average for Neil Young infact, but that
said, it is an improvement on his last five or six releases....
i will give Neil Young one last chance to redeem himself with his next album,
if he fails to impress my again...i will give up on Neil Young and stick with my
back catalogue of his material

album rating: 1.5

from the album:

the full album for anyone interested....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDQbJP0PxUM

[Jerome]

I still rate Harvest as his best work ever and I am not too impressed with some of his releases, but I will say this for the man - he's not lazy and he's willing to try different things - some work, some don't. That's life.

My favourites

Harvest
After the Gold Rush
Prairie Wind
Unplugged
Harvest Moon

[CRAZY-HORSE]

if i had to reco NY albums to someone who's never heard of him, your five picks would probablu be the ones Jerome.

NY is what i term a "musical drifter"....never in one place long, but occasionally passes through again", and i think that sums him up perfectly.

[SteveO]

I can't argue with your Top 5 guys! Neil has such a large catalogue...I would add his first two albumNeil Young because Ry Cooder plays guitar on it and I also like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, first album with the great Crazy Horse band..... Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl in the Sand and Down By The River have always been long time favourites of mine, Also I DO like Le Noise...his experimental rock album!

[CRAZY-HORSE]

I have just got to work and had Storytone on in the car again. .
Its grown on me a bit since yesterday and I like it a bit more now.
Its passable,nothing great on it but more in line with a real Neil Young album.

[SteveO]

Neil has a lot of good live albums..this one stands out!!!!..from A Treasure with The International Harvesters ...great stuff!




[video=youtube;T5TLFNXG810]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5TLFNXG810[/video]

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Yes,"a treasure" is a treasure SteveO,

[Music Head]

below is the allmusic review
they gave it 3 of 5 stars
anything had to be better than that Jack White mess
only heard the first disc of this so I can't compare the versions
if the second is just acoustic Neil, I would probably prefer this one
I like the orchestra tracks which are 7 of the 10
the save the planet one is a borderline like
didn't care for the big band number or the stupid car song
I come out of this with a 1.8
surprised I like it better than CH

Storytone arrived at the end of a year that already saw another new Neil Young album -- that would be A Letter Home, a collection of folk covers
recorded at Jack White's Voice-O-Graph direct-to-vinyl recording booth at Third Man Records -- which itself was only the tip of the iceberg that
was Neil's 2014. That spring, Young launched a high-end digital audio system called Pono, which was followed by the summer news that he was
divorcing Pegi, his wife of 36 years, an event that led to a fresh feud with David Crosby that then led to Young saying he would never play with
CSN again and, if that weren't enough, Young also published his second book, Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars, just prior to the release
of Storytone. That'd be enough to sustain a few years for most artists but we all know perfectly well that Neil Young isn't like most artists.
He thrives on this kind of chaos and, appropriately enough, Storytone is fairly messy -- which is quite an achievement for an album recorded in
large part live in front of a full orchestra. Young does indeed croon over those strings, often rhapsodizing about the powers of new love or
pleading to save the Earth, although he sometimes gets restless and rolls out a swinging big band. This means Storytone sometimes plays like a
hybrid of Harvest at its most florid and the bloozy swagger of This Note's for You -- a curious combination that doesn't seem quite as extreme
on the album's second disc, which houses nothing but solo renditions of the record's ten tunes, but the very fact that there's a reverse image
of the album strengthens the impression that Young isn't much in the mood to keep things simple. Which is odd, because all the original songs
here are relatively simple, built to withstand simple arrangements -- they sound fine when Young supports himself with no more than a guitar,
piano, or ukulele -- and they don't buckle underneath the weight of an orchestra. Versatile they may be, but they're united by Young's aching
sincerity. He's earnest whether he's taking a stance against fracking, romanticizing his old car, or singing about new love with the dewiness of
a teenager. The open-heartedness is sweet if somewhat adolescent, a feeling not helped by the preponderance of 2014 headlines about Young's love
life, but even without that tabloid gunk, songs like "Glimmer" have an optimism that sounds just a shade disarming coming from a former cynic
facing 70. But that's one of the glorious things about Neil Young: he surprises and by delivering this big, sloppy valentine to everything he is
and everything he loves, he's not being neat but he is true to himself.

think this was my fav:

[video=youtube;j_l7V6EyCd4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_l7V6EyCd4[/video]

[CRAZY-HORSE]

I did revise my initial thoughts and said it was better on the second listen so 1.7-1.8 is okay now