Comment of the Moment: Anticipating Neil Young's album Le Noise

As word begins to trickle out that Neil Young's upcoming album Le Noise has the potential to be another career highwater mark, anticipation continues to build.

Already, pre-orders for Le Noise by Neil Young are ranked at #18 #9 on Amazon.com Bestseller listing. With still over 2 weeks before release date, a pretty remarkable achievement to be in Amazon Top 10 listing based on pre-orders alone.

Even more startlingly, some are even suggesting the album to be a Grammy contender before its actual release?!

Which brings us to the Neil Young Comment of the Moment from "Imagination never sleeps": Neil Young's Le Noise by kdovoric :

Neil Young has been most successful at polarizing his listeners, either by jettisoning preconceived notions of his work, or buttressing popular opinion of him as the ultimate 70s troubadour-cum-grunge riff-maniac. It is this very polarization that will doubtless keep him relevant and permanently on the rock radar, as much for all of his latter-day foibles ('Chrome Dreams II') as for his a feats of inspiration ('Living with War', “Fork in the Road”.)

The easy notion at which to arrive is simply to stipulate Neil's canon into two rigid philosophies: The rockers (Horse present or in absentia), and the dreamy, Ben Keith (rest his gentle soul)-laden reveries (read the much under-appreciated 'Prairie Wind.') This, as most die-hard Young fans will staunchly attest, is too simple; even with the practically inaugural 'After the Gold Rush,' Neil's shaky voice and trebly and insect-like guitar set him apart from the West-Coast AOR rock glitterati.

Hence comes yet another seemingly distracted set, “Le Noise”, its name a droll pun on Neil’s prestigious new production partner’s own handle. Given Daniel Lanois’s pedigree, it will be interesting to hear the swampy, echo-atop-echo dirge of said producer’s signature providing a sonic landfill for Neil’s long-enduring love affair with exhuming relics from his storied past.

Superlatives will, of course, be parceled out like Halloween candy; remember the hubbub circling Lanois’s and Bob Dylan’s “Oh Mercy”, that most un-Dylan of Dylan LPs? The legendary rocker-meets-legendary rock producer trend seems to evince no sign of ebbing, as Brian Eno’s similar collusions with David Byrne (the second one), and – before him – Paul Simon will verify. Yet, such a pairing is a savvy move on Neil’s part (aren’t they all?), ensuring credibility in the Application Era while consciously decimating the patterns into which has slipped during the last decade since 2001’s “Are you Passionate?”

Thanks kdovoric!


Neil Young and Producer Daniel Lanois with Le Noise crew

(Merci Jacques-Eric from Purple Words on a Grey Background.)

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