REVIEW: Neil Young, Silver & Gold (Reprise)
- Matt Fink
It's a relatively rare rock phenomena to maintain lasting artistic or commercial relevancy past the age of 50. No matter how great a particular artist once was, it seems that by the second decade of a career, there is usually very little left in the tank. The original rockers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino have avoided this conundrum altogether by basically curtailing the artistic end of their recording careers in the early 60's, leaving themselves to tour endlessly and repackage re-recordings of their previous chart toppers, thereby, leaving their legacy intact. The second generation rockers have suffered a similar, albeit, altogether worse fate: that of the supposed continuance of their artistic musings with fewer and fewer rewarding breakthroughs with every album. Bob Dylan was in such a creative rut that the Shakespeare of rock took to doing cover albums and only released one collection of original material in the entire 90's. Paul McCartney may be responsible for some of the greatest songs in the rock canon, but the muse has largely left him cold, with Sir Paul being reduced to amateurish classical composing and cover albums, as well. The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and David Bowie have had their moments over the last 25 years, but all have albums in their discography that would probably been better left in the can. Then there is Neil Young.
Having maintained a nearly unparalleled artistic consistency, he has fared better than almost any other rocker who started a career in the 60's. Over 30 years and 27 albums, Mr. Young has set himself up as true rock royalty by always allowing himself to go in whatever direction he wanted and not allowing himself to complacently live off the royalties to Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps . Sure, this constant reinvention has produced some baffling oddities, like the techno album Trans and the rockabilly set Everybody's Rockin', but for those who've been willing to tough out his artistic wanderings, it has been a rewarding ride. Similar to Van Morrison and Tom Waits, what makes Young able to maintain the ride on the artistic peak is an unquestionable understanding of what his music is all about and an amazing ability to consistently twist these intangibles into something new and vibrant. Through all the characters he has played, from the love weary traveler in Harvest to the drunken ranter of Tonight's the Night, the core of his music has always stayed intact. For all the times he has strayed from center, he has seemingly been able to return to his musical heartland at any time he wants.
It has been four years since Neil Young released his last album, the solid yet somewhat underwhelming Broken Arrow, and rumors of a new, stripped down successor in the vein of Harvest and Harvest Moon has been rumored for some time. Four years is an uncharacteristically long time between albums for Young, but being a bit of a perfectionist, he continued to delay release until he thought Silver & Gold was fully realized. After working with Stephen Stills on the forthcoming Buffalo Springfield retrospective, the album hit another revision as Young gave Crosby, Stills and Nash free reign to pick whatever tracks they liked off his project for inclusion on their reunion album Looking Forward. Young ended up contributing four songs to the CSNY collaboration and went back to the studio to finish up with what he had left. And what was left is pretty darn good.
Young had intended to make this his first completely solo album, but in the end found himself bringing in friends like Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham and Donald "Duck" Dunn, to add pedal steel guitar, pump organ, dobro, drums, and bass to go with his acoustic guitar, harmonica and piano playing. Taking a break from his partners in dissonance, Crazy Horse, has yielded more focused and polished results in the past, making albums that were less spontaneous and ultimately less fun than those collaborations, but more pensive and poignant, all the same. So while there are no 8-minute guitar epics, you still get the feeling this is the real Neil Young, stripped to the core and vulnerable, a little less angry but every bit as sincere.
Young opens with the shuffling folk ballad "Good To See You," which sounds so much like a cousin to his classic "Comes A Time" that you'd almost swear it was an outtake from those recording sessions. The beautifully finger-picked title track, which was actually written around 1982 and has been performed live for years, is another great example of Young's mastery of the love ballad, turning potentially trite sentiments into the masterstrokes of a true troubadour. Touching on themes that are all too universal nowadays, Young reflects on the good times before his parents divorce in "Daddy Went Walkin'," which almost sounds too lighthearted to be dealing with such a weighty topic. The potentially maudlin "Buffalo Springfield Again," which honestly had the potential to be a self-aggrandizing disaster, is one of the rare moments where Young seems to be comfortably nostalgic about his tenure with the country-rock pioneers. "The Great Divide" sounds a little more similar to the quieter moments of his work from recent years, with the escapist themes wrapped around underlying pump organ and sweeping pedal steel guitar touches. Young introduces the latest in a long line of mythical characters with "Horseshoe Man," a piano ballad dedicated to the one who "fixes heartbreak everywhere." Linda Rondstadt and Emmylou Harris make a cameo on the stark "Red Sun," which soaks up the rural landscape as a satisfied ode to married life. The soaring pedal steel and lively drumming of "Distant Camera" make for one of the more hummable tracks, as there really aren't all that many toe-tappers here. Hypnotic echoing drums and piano serve as perfect accompaniment for the hopeful wanderer in "Razor Love," another track that Young wrote in the early 80's and had intended for his straightforward country opus Old Ways , but instead was pulled from the closet for inclusion here. The plaintive understated minor chord changes of "Without Rings" serves as a fine coda for what is, all in all, one of the most satisfying and focused Young albums of the last 20 years.
Had Silver & Gold been released 10 years ago, instead of Harvest Moon, it would have seemed like something of a revelation, but having come off a relatively stable period in Young's recording career, he will just have to be satisfied with it being his folkie statement for the new millennium. Conversational but never morose, multi-textured but never disorienting, in the end Silver & Gold may be the more worthy successor to 1972's Harvest, the album that made Young a household name. As with all his greatest work, each listen reveals the nuances of a true master working in a medium he all but created. Though Silver & Gold is nowhere near as sonically varied as After the Goldrush, Rust Never Sleeps , or American Stars & Bars, it makes up for any lack of diversity with the impressive cohesion of the song cycle and the magnitude of the quality of the songcraft. There might not be anything here that a dedicated Young fan hasn't already heard, but while the majority of his contemporaries are out on the road, rehashing the brighter spots of their recording careers, Young is arguably still at the summit of his. After all, Neil Young doesn't have to re-record his, or anybody else's, hits. He knows the elements that make a great Neil Young song, and when he wants a reminder of what one sounds like, he can always sit down and write a few more.
