Rust Never Sleeps

by

Neil Young, Neil Young, Crazy Horse and Crazy Horse

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Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps is an archetypal rock album that is simply essential. Split into acoustic and electric sections with the excellent classic songs My My, Hey Hey (Into The Blue) and Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) serving as bookends, it incorporates all of the elements that make Neil Young great into a single, immediate, excellent album. It has been noted that this excellent effort - with its electric/acoustic format - was based upon the groundwork laid down by Bob Dylan on Bringing It All Back Home; and this is true, though the acoustic and electric sides are swapped here. Starting off the album with its absolutely memorable acoustic riff, My My, Hey Hey is a nearly perfect song that has become a Neil Young anthem. The next song is Thrasher, which is one of Neil's best songs in my opinion, and quite underrated - a very personal song about his artistic integrity, this album features one of his most beautiful vocals, and some of his best lyrics. Other acoustic winners include Pocahontas, another perennial Young classic, with its wild lyrics and imagery. Sail Away is a similary beautiful folk song. Things start to heat up with the excellent Powderfinger, a truly astonishing song packing quite a lyrical punch. It's quite an unspoken and political statement such as Neil has not often made since - as are the next two song: Welfare Mothers (with its obvious title), and Sedan Delivery (a song about the drug trade.) All three are excellent. The album closes out with a reprise of the first song, this time in electric form. A slightly lyrically-altered cousin to its acoustic guise, this raw and in-your-face version lacks the polish and precision of the acoustic version, but has a charm all its own. It closes out with one of the electric hard rock jams that make Neil's live shows so great. This is a great album - one of Neil's finest - as it enscapulates all that is great about him - gentle, rolling acoustic songs, imaginative lyrics and stern lyrical statements, hard rocking proto-punk/grunge rockers - and puts them all onto this one great canvas. Musically, it's great; and, lyrically, this is where Neil really started to blossom as one of the finest and most unique voices in rock. Simply put, an essential album all around.

If you're just starting out on your shake-out through Neil Young's back catalogue, you've doubtless read that this album is essential (not least in all the surrounding reviews). I don't disagree, but like almost every Neil Young album it has its fair share of stinkers too. It's feted because it's one of only a couple of albums that weld his acoustic and grungey sides together. This should make it the ideal entry point. Unfortunately, of the 4 electric songs, 2 are criminally poor filler (Welfare Mothers and Sedan Delivery), and another is laughably overrated (Hey, hey, my, my, into the black - a shocking plodder that would be all but forgotten if it didn't namecheck Johnny Rotten and contain THAT line). This only leaves the peerless Powderfinger to seriously entertain you, which it will do for years. Notwithstanding Powderfinger, it's the acoustic set that's worth your attention. Thresher and Pocahontas both contain some gorgeous imagery and - if you keep your wits about you - the former contains some less than diplomatic references to Messers Crosby, Stills and Nash (if you're into the forensic side of things). Sail Away is pleasant enough, while Ride my Llama is the weak link of the set. Which leaves the acoustic version of My, my, hey, hey, which is an improvement on the electric version, but still way overpraised for the same reasons I've moaned on about above. And that's it. 9 songs: 3 essential. I calculate that as 3 stars. I love the man to death, but what exactly is the fuss about?