Here's a comprehensive review of the “Sleeps With Angels” album and all videos of Neil Young and Crazy Horse from 1994.
From Music Tap by Dw Dunphy:
Even the most ardent supporters of Sleeps With Angels, the 1994 set from Neil Young and Crazy Horse, admit that it is a bleak album. It likely would have been even without the implication that the title cut was influenced by the suicide of Kurt Cobain.Full review of the “Sleeps With Angels” album and videos of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on Music Tap by Dw Dunphy.
The song has little to do specifically with him, but more about his generation. The rest of the album has no deep ties to the alt-rock cohort, other than to assure that where it seemed they were going, Young and company had already been. This was their way of saying, “We hoped it would have turned out different for you.”
Here’s another word to consider: “exhaustion.”
What does that mean, exactly? Think back to the 1990s. There was a sense in the air – mostly illusory – of a return to basics, of honesty, stripped-down, and legit. People saw in the music of the day a rejection of the big hair, big eye-makeup, big everything that the culture had wrought. Those bands that merged pop hooks with classic rock and punk’s DIY ethic and simplicity were striking a blow against the hair metal heroes passing out in their million dollar swimming pools, very much in the same way that punk’s first wave struck out against the coke-fueled hedonism of disco and the acid-tinged wandering of progressive rock. It seemed that, once again, the voices of youth and dissenters could be heard. Even if the “message” frequently was complete gobbledygook, as a lot of the era’s lyrics were (Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter” is an example of a sound looking for a statement, failing, and going for it anyway), this was a declaration of being.
Also, see more on Kurt Cobain and Neil Young.
Kurt Cobain and Neil Young
For me, Sleeps With Angels is the last truly great album of Neil's career, though Greendale comes close. Sleeps With Angels is also the last Neil album produced by David Briggs, so make your own conclusions from that.
ReplyDeleteIt's a album that I've revisited in times of sorrow. You recently brought up 9/11, this is the album I listened to in the days after that tragic day. When my mom passed away 10 years ago, Sleeps With Angels helped get me through that rough few weeks. Like much of Neil's greatest work, there's sorrow but still a window of pure hope throughout the whole record.
Plus, it's a real unique sounding Crazy Horse album, with so much different instrumentation and somewhat odd songs. Neil hasn't written a song quite like "Safeway Cart" before or since. Just a great album from beginning to end.
Tickets to the Cap Theater with Promise of Real and Tower Theater Solo are up on Neil's website!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSuperb record. Top 5 of NY's. So spooky and cool. Any record with Change Your Mind is going to be mind blowing. Still remember buying the CD in around 2002 at University.
ReplyDeleteI always get sad listening to that album. There is a real sense of hopelessness to it. The title, memories of Kurt, and just listen to My Hart.
ReplyDelete"When dreams come
crashing down like trees
I don't know what love can do
When life is
hanging in the breeze
I don't know what love can do
If that doesn't bring you down I don't know what will.
I'd compare 'Sleeps With Angels' to Bowies 'Scary Monsters' and Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'. Truly brilliant albums that were the final peaks of brilliant careers and they'd definitely be my three desert island disks, even though they are actually very similar to each other. They are all slow grinding tortured cynical summaries of the dark side of life. I'm the type of person that feels better when I listen to how bad other people have it I guess.
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