Tim Pope is the director of numerous highly acclaimed 1980's Neil Young music videos such as "Wonderin'", "Touch the Night", and "Weight Of The World". (Recently, we posted MUSIC VIDEO: "Weight Of The World" by Neil Young, Directed by Tim Pope).
Tim Pope was also the director of the "Cry, Cry, Cry" music video from Everybody's Rockin' -- the 1983 album by Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks.
Neil Young
Frame from ""Cry, Cry, Cry" Music Video Directed by Tim Pope
From YouTube posting:
Everybody's Rockin' is a 1983 album by Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. The album was recorded with the Shocking Pinks (a band made up just for the occasion), and features a selection of rockabilly songs (both covers and original material). Running less than a half of an hour, the music is unlike anything else in Young's career. However, Everybody's Rockin' is typical of his 1980s period in that it bears little, or no resemblance to the album released before it (Trans (1982), a synth-heavy, electro-rock album), nor the one released after it (Old Ways (1985), which is pure country.)
Everybody's Rockin' is Neil Young's shortest album, clocking in at less than 25 minutes. In a 1995 interview with MOJO, Young said that the album was supposed to have included the songs "Get Gone" and "Don't Take Your Love Away From Me" (which later appeared on Lucky Thirteen), but that Geffen, his record company, cancelled the recording sessions. The album was also notable as the first for which Young made commercial music videos - Tim Pope directed the videos for "Wonderin'" and "Cry, Cry, Cry".
The following year, Geffen sued Young for making "uncharacteristic, uncommercial records", because of this record and its predecessor. As a part of the suit, Geffen demanded that Neil repay the $3 million dollars (US) he had received for Trans and Everybody's Rockin'. Neil responded by countersuing Geffen for $21 million dollars (US), charging breach of contract and fraud. Both suits were dropped in 1985. In the Mojo interview Young says "R.E.M. were going to go with Geffen, then they heard I was being sued and everything, they just dropped all contact with Geffen and signed with Warner Bros. instead. Geffen actually lost R.E.M. simply for suing me over Everybody's Rockin'!" Ironically, Geffen was at the time distributed by WBR. [ed: See Reassessing Neil Young's Life on Geffen Records]
Everybody's Rockin was panned by critics and fans at the time of its release.
Neil Young
Frame from ""Cry, Cry, Cry" Music Video Directed by Tim Pope
Frames from Neil Young music video "Wonderin'", 1983
Director Tim Pope
More on Tim Pope: Making "Wonderin'" Video with Neil Young.
Frames from "Touch the Night" -
Neil Young Music Video directed by Tim Pope
Also, see Making of "Touch the Night" Music Video by Tim Pope.
Also, see Tim Pope: Neil Young Music Video Director | PODCAST by Adam Buxton.
Neil Young
Frame from "Weight Of The World" Music Video
Also, see MUSIC VIDEO: "Weight Of The World" by Neil Young, Directed by Tim Pope.
Landing on Water is one of the worst albums I've ever heard. Every song and video from it is shockingly bad. If I played any of this to any of my friends, they would laugh at me.
ReplyDeletehere here but i would really like to hear these songs in a differnt musical setting, acoustic or maybe the horse... they would rock!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The Blasters were doing this better in the day and look at the legacy of Dave Alvin v Neil Young (1990 - now).
ReplyDelete@CK Junior: It seems to me that somehow you're treating Landing on Water as if it's Everybody's Rockin and are also judging the LOW videos as if they are representative of the album as a whole.
ReplyDelete"Every song (and video)is shockingly bad."
I understand if you don't like the album or don't want to like it because that's the fashionable opinion, but have you ever heard the song Hippie Dream? If you consider that song to be "shockingly bad" I simply have to disregard your opinion(s). You can say you don't like it or you prefer a different style from Neil, but objectively, it's not shockingly bad. It's a very well written and constructed song, as good as most of Neil's representative works. If you played Hippie Dream for 10 people who had never heard it or never heard of Neil Young, I'd suspect they wouldn't classify it as "shockingly bad."
@Andy: The legacy of Dave Alvin from 1990-now is nowhere near the legacy of Neil Young from 1966-1980, or even 1989-2003, etc. I know you think Neil hasn't done anything worthwhile in roughly 30 years, but to me, he's continued to release interesting music, and even at his "low points", he has always delivered great live performances. Dave Alvin's career doesn't even remotely stack up to the standard set by Neil Young, and Dave Alvin would probably agree!
"Take my advice
don't listen to me"
@ Topanga good points. It's a personal opinion when I play Black Jack David, King of California & 11,11 to me his music is more relevant. Live, you're joking have you seen Dave Alvin, Phil Alvin & The Gullty Men & Women Live? Of course there's no comparison 1966-1979 but from then on? Make that 25 years
ReplyDeleteHey, I respect Dave Alvin but I just don't generally enjoy the style of music he plays. I've never been a fan of rootsy, bluesy stuff, and most of his music just sounds too similar to me to truly enjoy. I'd say his range is very limited, but I admit I've never immersed myself in his music, but that's just because I can't get into it.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's all just opinion and personal preference, but to me, Dave Alvin is a fringe artist who plays fun blues swing music with a croaky (bordering on parody) voice. It is what it is, but he and Neil are on different paths and there's no need for comparison year by year. Neil Young's body of work is awe inspiring and wildly varied, Dave Alvin has his lane and plays to it...
And I guess I'm delusional, but I thought "The Visitor" was a very good album. Sadly, it appears Neil has pretty much lost his fan base as I think the album only sold a few thousand copies, but again, it was/is a good album. "Carnival...Carnival....Carnival"...
"Take my advice
don't listen to me"
TD I admire your stoic support of what I see as Neil just releasing poor quality music.
ReplyDeleteI had a comment here at some point that got devoured by cyberspace. I guess that's what I get for trying to post on mobile. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI, for one, am glad we take some time here to give a bit of attention to the "lost years". These videos are a true artifact from a very different point in Neil's career. I wish Everybody's Rockin' had been fully realized, as Neil planned before Geffin shut the sessions down, but the idea was a lot of fun and we shouldn't shit on it for being more whimsical than profound. Payola Blues and Kinda Fonda Wanda have always given me a laugh and, though I hadn't thought of this before, a poster of the Shocking Pinks cover would be a great collection piece.
LOW has at least one side of very good material: Hippie Dream, Violent Side, Pressure, I Got a Problem, Touch the Night. The production approach is heavy-handed, overpowering, and--as our oft-quoted anonymous record exec says--"claustrophobic". So ol' Neil went too far again. Is he ever not reaching into excess? Isn't that part of the creative process? You go too far and see what's like when you get there.
I hear that same spirit, too, from The Visitor. To amplify on Topanga's comments, I actually feel that Neil and the Real were working with generally better material in '17 than Neil was in '86. Yet in The Visitor, I hear echoes LOW. I mean that in the best possible light, and I know full-well that such a statement, particularly if left unqualified, could be grossly misconstrued. If you want concrete examples, the urgent rhythm and toy piano of Fly-by-Night Deal remind me a lot of some of LOW's more successful moments (Pressure Springs to mind). Children of Destiny, too, with its contrast between blazing electric guitars and soft choir and strings (and, again, that insistent beat) could be heir to LOW's more socially aware moments, namely Violent Side and People on the Street. Repeatedly, Neil and the real show an openness to fresh musical ideas and quirky sound combinations (toy piano, calliope; on Change of Heart, we have what sounds like mandolin and a chorus that consists partially of whistling). When I say that The Visitor reclaims some aesthetic territory from LOW, this is what I'm talking about: a spirit of musical adventure, an outward-focused gaze, and a (com)passionate artistic search to explore and express both oneself (the artist) and us (the humans) in novel ways. Someone took a look back at Landing on Water (and other variegated projects), sorted the wheat from the chaff. Jettison the problematic aspects, both superficial and deeply embedded, of Landing on Water but hold on to the good instincts that fueled the parts that did work or had potential. Combine those with refreshingly dynamic and imaginative songwriting, and you get the most effective parts of The Visitor.
@Topanga.... as to your comments regarding the sales of The Visitor, I pre ordered the vinyl and it sold out before mine was shipped. Mine won’t arrive until Saturday.
ReplyDeletePeace
Thanks Dan. I think there are quite a few vinyl junkies out there and they seem to be willing to wait to hear the music. I have a feeling however that there were very few vinyl copies made, probably well fewer than 10,000 copies, but I could certainly be wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe loose sales numbers I quoted were based on the fact that the "album" charted very low and only stayed on the charts for the one week. It was a very poor commercial performance.
I hope you get the vinyl soon and I hope you spin the heck out of it! Enjoy...
"Take my advice
Don't listen to me"
ReplyDeleteThanks TopangaDaze, I will spin at will come Saturday...... oh by the way, I do listen to you.... every time you post here on Thrashers. I always enjoy your perspective.
Peace.
I think that the website will be updated often when we'll enter in the payment period. I think that I'll subscribe for one year and I'll see.
ReplyDeleteSo Tired.