Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
- Matt Wilson
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Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Young, post Harvest. Nihilistic, drugged out, electric bliss. Perhaps not as top-tier as After the Gold Rush or even Rust Never Sleeps. Still, sometimes I think this is as essential as he got in the '70s. Which one is your fave and why.
Me, I'm going with Tonight's the Night for the sheer quantity of great Neil: the title track (the first version, especially), "World on a String," "Come on Baby, Lets' Go Downtown," and all of side two do it for me every time.
One choice only.
Me, I'm going with Tonight's the Night for the sheer quantity of great Neil: the title track (the first version, especially), "World on a String," "Come on Baby, Lets' Go Downtown," and all of side two do it for me every time.
One choice only.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
TFA is one of my "pet" Neil albums... but TTN just might be his best, even if he does say so himself. The songs, the performances (especially vocal), the feeling.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
It's a tough call between TTN and OTB, they are the two albums of his I have to have in my music player at all times. Others come and go from the playlist, to be returned to after a time. But when it's an On The Beach kinda night - or, God Forbid, a Tonight's The Night kinda night - they are necessary.
All three show Neil at his most pure, deliberately outside the bullshit of showbiz. MAKING FUN of those showbiz people, to the point that it pisses off his audience who have come to expect a little showbiz in their rock and roll. There are tapes from the Time Fades Away tour - not the tour supporting that album but, the tour on which that album was recorded - that show Neil just hollering abuse at the audience. There's one where, in place of the lyrics to "Last Dance", he's just pummelling them with this relentliess riff screaming "TEEE-DIUM! BORE-DOM!" It does feel like a guy trying to scare off his own people.
And then that fall he does another US tour where he plays NOTHING but his latest unreleased songs, and that REALLY pisses people off. HOW DARE HE come out and play all these new, sad songs nobody's ever heard before? He shouldn't be doing that! I think the more pissed they get, the more he likes it. He seems to relish living in this moment where he's perceived to be destroying himself.
That allows him to make On The Beach as the third work in a row that was that way, and by then, he's no longer aggressively pissing anyone off or getting punchdrunk, he just doesn't CARE. Talk about a vibe captured on vinyl... of side two is just sublime. Low to the ground. like a hovercraft flying a quarter inch above land and holding it there for a long time. None of the cocaine cowboys of Laurel Canyon were ever laid back in quite that way... On The Beach is more like laid out.
All three show Neil at his most pure, deliberately outside the bullshit of showbiz. MAKING FUN of those showbiz people, to the point that it pisses off his audience who have come to expect a little showbiz in their rock and roll. There are tapes from the Time Fades Away tour - not the tour supporting that album but, the tour on which that album was recorded - that show Neil just hollering abuse at the audience. There's one where, in place of the lyrics to "Last Dance", he's just pummelling them with this relentliess riff screaming "TEEE-DIUM! BORE-DOM!" It does feel like a guy trying to scare off his own people.
And then that fall he does another US tour where he plays NOTHING but his latest unreleased songs, and that REALLY pisses people off. HOW DARE HE come out and play all these new, sad songs nobody's ever heard before? He shouldn't be doing that! I think the more pissed they get, the more he likes it. He seems to relish living in this moment where he's perceived to be destroying himself.
That allows him to make On The Beach as the third work in a row that was that way, and by then, he's no longer aggressively pissing anyone off or getting punchdrunk, he just doesn't CARE. Talk about a vibe captured on vinyl... of side two is just sublime. Low to the ground. like a hovercraft flying a quarter inch above land and holding it there for a long time. None of the cocaine cowboys of Laurel Canyon were ever laid back in quite that way... On The Beach is more like laid out.
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- Matt Wilson
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
bobzilla77 wrote:I
That allows him to make On The Beach as the third work in a row that was that way, and by then, he's no longer aggressively pissing anyone off or getting punchdrunk, he just doesn't CARE. Talk about a vibe captured on vinyl... of side two is just sublime. Low to the ground. like a hovercraft flying a quarter inch above land and holding it there for a long time. None of the cocaine cowboys of Laurel Canyon were ever laid back in quite that way... On The Beach is more like laid out.
On the Beach is the second album like that. Tonight's the Night is the third.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
bobzilla77 wrote: one where, in place of the lyrics to "Last Dance", he's just pummelling them with this relentliess riff screaming "TEEE-DIUM! BORE-DOM!" It does feel like a guy trying to scare off his own people..
Ha I wouldn't mind hearing that
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Matt Wilson wrote:bobzilla77 wrote:I
That allows him to make On The Beach as the third work in a row that was that way, and by then, he's no longer aggressively pissing anyone off or getting punchdrunk, he just doesn't CARE. Talk about a vibe captured on vinyl... of side two is just sublime. Low to the ground. like a hovercraft flying a quarter inch above land and holding it there for a long time. None of the cocaine cowboys of Laurel Canyon were ever laid back in quite that way... On The Beach is more like laid out.
On the Beach is the second album like that. Tonight's the Night is the third.
TTN was recorded in 1973 but held back until 1975
- Matt Wilson
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Ah, that's right!
- Walk In My Shadow
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
So y'all wonder what this will sound like?
I voted TTN in the end.
I voted TTN in the end.
Beneluxfunkmeisterlurvegod
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
I don't really know TFA, as I heard it once, a few decades ago, and remember nothing, while On the Beach I heard a few times a few years after it was released, and rather liked. For me, though, TTN was an absolute stand-out, the basic gateway drug into solo Neil. I had been a Springfield fan, but at the time I probably preferred Stills's songs, and after the break-up followed him into CSN, didn't bother with Poco or Neil solo, though some of my fellow studes had them. I somehow managed, though, not to cotton on to the guitars on Cinnamon Girl and Down by the River, and heard way too much of the whiny, acoustic, folky material.
But by gob, when I first heard TTN (Clive played it for me, insisted I paid attention), around the time punk broke, I had the full-on art experience; it took a couple of listens, as I spent the first one readjusting my earspectations, but I was sold.
so I voted TTN
But by gob, when I first heard TTN (Clive played it for me, insisted I paid attention), around the time punk broke, I had the full-on art experience; it took a couple of listens, as I spent the first one readjusting my earspectations, but I was sold.
so I voted TTN
Last edited by Rayge on 10 Apr 2018, 15:11, edited 1 time in total.
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- naughty boy
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
I don't have to pretend to like this stuff any more.
Matt 'interesting' Wilson wrote:So I went from looking at the "I'm a Man" riff, to showing how the rave up was popular for awhile.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
I voted TTN - OTB is quite fucking special, but TTN truly is a peak for him. It's the most Neil thing that ever Neiled.
If you make recorded music, it's the type of peak experience that it is easy to become obsessed with - there's a whole "cart before the horse" side to what we do (people polishing, editing, correcting, fixing, doctoring things obsessively, unnecessarily and REFLEXIVELY) and here comes one of the great forces of his time (in 1973 terms...Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie would be apt comparative analogues) going so deeply and deliberately and aggressively in the other direction...and it's not some artsy fartsy, unlistenable, niche little curio (Metal Machine Music?) - it's "my go to Neil" for a lot of people. I know my own feelings about how and why we make records are MASSIVELY influenced by this particular triumph. In no hyper literal or pedantic way would anyone attempt to stage that particular strike of lightning a second time, but...maybe it throws the "aiming for competence" vs. "permitting magic" dichotomy into sharper focus as a sort of northern star.
Yeah, I already ordered the live album.
If you make recorded music, it's the type of peak experience that it is easy to become obsessed with - there's a whole "cart before the horse" side to what we do (people polishing, editing, correcting, fixing, doctoring things obsessively, unnecessarily and REFLEXIVELY) and here comes one of the great forces of his time (in 1973 terms...Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie would be apt comparative analogues) going so deeply and deliberately and aggressively in the other direction...and it's not some artsy fartsy, unlistenable, niche little curio (Metal Machine Music?) - it's "my go to Neil" for a lot of people. I know my own feelings about how and why we make records are MASSIVELY influenced by this particular triumph. In no hyper literal or pedantic way would anyone attempt to stage that particular strike of lightning a second time, but...maybe it throws the "aiming for competence" vs. "permitting magic" dichotomy into sharper focus as a sort of northern star.
Yeah, I already ordered the live album.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Bent Fabric wrote:not some artsy fartsy, unlistenable, niche little curio (Metal Machine Music?) .
I've listened to, or perhaps more accurately, voluntarily shared a space with, MMM on several occasions, feeling it fading in and out of my consciousness and occasionally delivering a beauty rush, and definitely think it has its place in my world (as does Neil's 'Arc'). I would tentatively suggest that it is because I'm not a musician, and a record-lover, rather than a music lover (I also listen to spoken word material, EPs of steam trains climbing big gradients and albums of wind in the overhead wires ) that I can say this.
But, having said that, agree with every word of what you have to say about TTN.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Rayge wrote:Oy!
Yeah, I considered qualifying my use of MMM as a comparative referent/shorthand (and I could have just as easily used Two Virgins or its two followups for similar/identical purposes). My overriding point was that seldom does such aggressive "not giving a fuck" translate into the widespread affection that TTN has acquired over time.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Walk In My Shadow wrote:So y'all wonder what this will sound like?
I voted TTN in the end.
Really looking forward to getting this.
As much as I love Time Fades Away and Tonights the Night I would have to go for On The Beach, it has a bit more light and shade, but all three are indispensable.
- Matt Wilson
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Yeah, I ordered it as well. I'm sure it'll be good but not as good as Tonight's the Night.
Does anyone own the new Original Release Series Discs 5 - 8? Newly remastered (for CD, the LP version of this box came out a few years ago) versions of the Doom Trilogy, and Zuma. Been playing it for the past week, along with the Waits remasters.
Does anyone own the new Original Release Series Discs 5 - 8? Newly remastered (for CD, the LP version of this box came out a few years ago) versions of the Doom Trilogy, and Zuma. Been playing it for the past week, along with the Waits remasters.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Matt Wilson wrote:
Does anyone own the new Original Release Series Discs 5 - 8? Newly remastered (for CD, the LP version of this box came out a few years ago) versions of the Doom Trilogy, and Zuma. Been playing it for the past week, along with the Waits remasters.
I would just to have a clean copy of TFA. But that ridiculous high price for the set keeps me from buying it.
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Three great albums
but I went for TtN
.
but I went for TtN
.
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- Matt Wilson
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Re: Neil Young's 'Doom Trilogy'
Walk In My Shadow wrote:Matt Wilson wrote:
Does anyone own the new Original Release Series Discs 5 - 8? Newly remastered (for CD, the LP version of this box came out a few years ago) versions of the Doom Trilogy, and Zuma. Been playing it for the past week, along with the Waits remasters.
I would just to have a clean copy of TFA. But that ridiculous high price for the set keeps me from buying it.
Now that I've got the remastered Time Fades Away, it's a clean copy of Journey Through the Past which is my holy grail.
Not that it's a good album or anything...
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