A New Neil Young Blog: Journeys Through the Past

Neil Young (1968)
A new Neil Young blog is on the scene --
Journeys Through the Past.

Journeys Through the Past is a blog about the recorded output of Neil Young and the first review is of Neil's self titled first album Neil Young (1968).

Plagued by technical problems and performance issues, it is a wonder that this self-titled debut sounds as good as it does. However, in the grand scheme of things, this marks the end of Neil Young’s early, more derivative work before his more distinctive and unique sound erupts on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere which would be released some months later. Neil Young follows the same style of writing and performance that Young had been employing both as a solo artist in local clubs and coffee houses and with the band Buffalo Springfield (more on them in later posts). There is a debt to the production standards set by The Beatles but, underneath it all, there is something awkward about many of these particular songs which suggests that despite Young’s love of the Fab Four, this was not a method of working that he was overly comfortable with. Considering The Beatles released the epic and exhilarating “white” album at the same time as Young released this album, it was obvious that they were still upping the ante when it came to studio albums and everyone was still playing catch up.

Welcome and Best of luck Journeys Through the Past!

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