If nothing else, Neil Young's career has been determined by its inconsistency. Restlessness has been his watchword, ever since that 1972 declaration that the middle of the road was a boring place to travel and from now on you'd find him residing in the ditch.
Consequently, when Young is good he tends to be very good and when he's bad it's a car wreck. This, after all, is the only man in rock history sued by his own label for producing records that didn't sound enough like him.
Viewed in this way 'Greendale'- a "musical novel" based upon life in a mythical North American town - fits nicely into the Young scheme of things. Narrated in song form, the story follows the woes of the Green family and the destruction of their idyllic rural environment when Cousin Jed shoots a cop called Carmichael.
The ensuing press invasion brings the Greens into direct conflict with the modern world. Grandpa is badgered to death by a TV reporter while his niece, Sun Green, becomes a radical environmental vigilante in Alaska after an FBI agent shoots her cat. Ruminations on the environment, the dying values of small town life and the bullshit of the media ensue.
Musically, the album is deep in 'Zuma' territory, the more subdued side of that record anyway. The acoustics are warm, live and fuzzy, like the album was recorded in a barn. Songs appear to be offcuts from Crazy Horse jam sessions, and are only momentarily interesting. Mostly they serve as sketchpads for Young to spin his homely narrative.
This begins with 60s veterans ruminating on their idealism ('Falling From Above' and 'Double E') and concludes with dreams of saving the world from man-made destruction. Young being Young, this end is to be achieved by any means necessary - "You got to be free - John Lennon said that - I believe in love - I believe in action, when push comes to shove," he drawls on 'Devil's Sidewalk'. Such bitterness flows into 'Leave The Driving' where he invokes hatred of the Internet and the apathy prevalent in a big brother society. It's the best song on the album by a country mile, but hereonin events turn into a bizarre pantomime of primary school proportions.
Highlights include Grandpa Green's complaint that the only TV programme worth watching is 'Leave It To Beaver', the FBI shooting Sun Green's cat in a skit straight outta the Snoop Dogg handbook and the concluding nine-minutes of 'Be The Rain' where a happy-clappy female chorus sings "Save the planet for another day, be the river as it rolls along". Neil sings the part of the female radical through a megaphone.
On paper this sounds more eccentric and interesting than it really is. Unfortunately the attacks on the ills of modern society become increasingly directionless and scattered and eventually come over like an old man shaking his fist against the sky. That Young hides behind his characters means we are never sure of his true beliefs. Certainly, this is not the revealing insight into getting old that Dylan's 'Time Out Of Mind' was. Ultimately it feels like having a long-winded lecture from your elderly uncle.
We should laud Young for taking such risks at this stage of his career but 'Greendale' sounds like the sort of small town you spend your whole life running from. Or the place you go to retire.
