Neil Young fans have never had it easy. For well over 30 years now, their hero has taunted and teased them with moments of era-defining genius, alongside confusing, mediocre, sometimes even pitiful work. He has changed musical direction and political shade so often and in such cantankerous ways, you'd be forgiven for thinking he wanted to shake off his devotees. And he's conducted a singular and unwinnable war against the evil CD, ensuring that a clutch of his albums have remained frustratingly unavailable.
No more. 'On The Beach', at least, is the most welcome reissue in years, the album long claimed by aficionados as one of Young's finest. They were right, too. Released in 1974, 'On The Beach' found Young at his most vituperative. His guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry had ODed on heroin, his marriage had disintegrated, his son had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Most pointedly, there was a black disillusion with the hippy idealism and rewards of superstardom which had sustained him previously.
It's a nasty piece of work. "Good times are coming, but they're sure coming slow," he growls on 'Vampire Blues', one of a clutch of stunted 12-bars where Young's defeatist mood is matched by the torpid, sloppy brilliance of his playing. On the mighty 'Revolution Blues' he assumes the role of a Manson figure, slaying his fellow stars in their canyons. It's the one time on the record he sounds remotely happy.
'On The Beach' emerges, then, as a potent indictment of '70s LA rock while being one of its highpoints. Essential (10) - certainly much more so than the three other newcomers to CD. 'American Stars'N'Bars' from 1977 is decent enough: a dashed-off , countryish collection with Young at his most amiable, a first go at 'Like A Hurricane' (the versions on 'Live Rust' and 'Weld' are much better) and a preternaturally horrid cover. (7)
Much less endearing, 'Hawks & Doves' (1980) sees Young following the brilliant, punk-fuelled 'Rust Never Sleeps' with a characteristic act of self-sabotage. Where 'On The Beach' saw him flourish in adversity, new setbacks - his wife fighting a brain tumour, a second son found to have cerebral palsy - see him retreating into sketchy acoustic songs where the rage is internalised, suppressed. When it isn't, the targets are curious; 'Union Man' ridicules the musicians' union. And a bunch of patriotic - jingoistic, even - songs leave an unpleasant image of Young as a Reaganite convert. (5)
'Re*Ac*Tor', from 1981, reconvenes Crazy Horse and grapples with rock again. But the music is gruelling and uninspired, and Young's lyrics are at best inane, at worst risible ('Motor City' is a guyish, moronic attack on Datsun cars). The work of a man evidently preoccupied with anything but music, and with only the grisly, accidentally avant-garde 'Shots' worth hearing, it's hard to think of worse albums in Young's vast and bewildering canon. Crazy Horse's Ralph Molina called 'Re*Ac*Tor' "a one-legged turkey." That's about right. (3)
But, for 'On The Beach'...
