@thrasher,
Check out #62, 96, and 100 on the list below. #99 is also worth noting in honor of Croz and the Byrds.
Since the link I posted lists a top 100 title tracks, I'll dip into that topic as concisely and coherently as I am able. I suspect the concept of a "title track" evolved out of marketing for early long play (LP) records. I have no hard sources on this, and maybe I should get some, but note how the Beatles' first UK album is labeled "Please Please Me with Love Me Do with 12 other songs". "Please Please Me" is, technically, an abbreviation. Also, side 1 starts with the song Please Please Me, while Love me Do leads off side 2 on the original vinyl.
EMI would have been using these previously issued singles to market the LP, which was then a quite new format, particularly in rock 'n' roll and other pop music (the label of "rock", which we take for granted today, also had yet to evolve in 1963). If my history is right, long players started with jazz and especially classical recordings, where longer pieces of music demanded playback media with increased capacity.
Until thing started to evolve for various reasons around the early '60s, 45rpm discs--and before them, 78s--were the fundamental unit of recorded music on the market. Early albums by popular artists were often, in effect, greatest hits compilations of singles. Therefore, it seems that a "title track" may have originally developed so that record companies could highlight successful, familiar songs in order to sell this novel, relatively expensive thing called an LP record. The Beatles' "Please Please Me" LP is a prime example of this clever strategy.
However, artists such as The Beatles developed the album into an art form all its own, so that within a few years, singles were promoting or previewing albums, not the other way around. Ideas, like the title song, that started as marketing devices began to take on aesthetic and artistic dimensions.
To write about all of Neil Young's title tracks would require a separate post. Yet I haven noted one or two interesting patterns: in terms of sequencing, the title track on a Neil Young album is--with a few notable exceptions--generally either track 2 or track 6. Check the track listings if you hadn't thought about this before. Occasionally, such as on Harvest Moon or SWA, they turn up as track 4. Even more rarely, they serve as opener (TFA) or closing number (H&D, FITR), or both (TtN). Then we have Journey Through the Past: neither the film nor its soundtrack album bothered using the song with the same name.
Neil has occasionally hinted that the convention of having a title track makes it easier to come up with names for the literally dozens of albums he has produced. But it's interesting to note how this all seems to derive from advertising gimmicks, reshaped and subverted to develop a novel art form.
Ironically, the digital age has almost put us back where we started: downloads and streaming have made the marketing of individual tracks economically viable again, whereas it just doesn't seem like a good deal when looking at the expanded capacity of cassettes and CDs. And of course, the ultimate in retro formats, the EP (extended play) has made a come back, particularly among young indie artists with hipster-ish tendencies, but also now with Neil himself due to release an EP of new recordings in September.
The only previous Neil EP I can think of is Eldorado, which I nearly forgot exists. Does anyone know of any others? For most purposes, the success of the LP format rendered EPs obsolete. Record companies tried to use them to promote LPs or deliver an "economy" option when LPs looked costly beside the familiar 45rpm, but that didn't last long.
For all that commodification has done to promote the mass production and distribution of music (and other arts), it's pleasing to see the artists adopt these profit-driven contrivances and actually do something creative and fulfilling with (or in spite of?) them.
Thanks Meta Rocker, as always. Very interesting and something we never considered.
We believe you're correct that the only previous Neil Young EP is Eldorado, which we examined in depth here back in April 2020.
More on 50th Anniversary of Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" with a major essay by Harvey Kubernik .
Also, see GALLERY OPENING: Two Takes On Neil Young by Joel Bernstein & Henry Diltz.
Photo by Joel Bernstein
Also, see Discovering After the Gold Rush: The Story Behind The Album Cover
"After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young
Discovering After the Gold Rush: The Story Behind The Album Cover
Also, at #100 on the 100 Greatest Title Tracks Ever Laid Down On Wax | NPR, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Déjà Vu".
Deja Vu Photo Composites
via Susan Miller
UPDATE Oct 30, 2020: See PRE-ORDER: 50th Anniversary Edition "After The Gold Rush" by Neil Young + BONUS TRACK: "Wonderin'" (Official Music Video)
Does “Don’t Spook the Horse” count as an EP? Or is it a single?
ReplyDeleteEverybody’s Rocking is under 30 minutes, so does it count as an EP? Either way, it’s boring (on vinyl at any rate).
A title track requires enough substance and coherence for there to be a title. Unfortunately many albums use the best song(?) as a title. EP makes things perhaps more challenging. In my own view, many people who now make music have titles that make no sense at all.
ReplyDeleteThe person who reviewed "El Dorado" for Uncut magazine called it "the greatest guitar album ever made." I would title that EP "Big Dark Monster Wave of Despair." Or perhaps "No Mercy."
Think about some great novels- the titles resonate with so much depth from the story. Louise Erdrich's "Love Medicine" or "The Sound and the Fury" and on and on. At their best the "title" is a cue to the depths of the story.
I’ve never been interested in these so called GREATEST lists, as they are merely an exercise in opinion. And as the old saying goes, everyone has one (opinion that is). If you ask one hundred people to list their 100 favorite “anything”, you will simply get 100 different lists. I honestly don’t find it of much interest. Ranking any creative endeavor neither adds or subtracts from its intrinsic value. It simply reflects individual taste of people who make lists. It may be of value to people who need validation for their personal taste, but that’s about all.
ReplyDeleteThe same could be said for awards for artistic endeavors as well. Art is not a popularity contest, it’s a deep and personal reflection coming from a creative person. Art doesn’t need recognition to exist. Nor does it even need to be acknowledged to exist. Just my two cents.
Peace 🙏
I agree with you Dan, except I do believe there is far more than opinion when it comes to making judgments about good and bad art. The lists are silly.
ReplyDeleteThanks for picking this up, thrasher!
ReplyDeleteI should note that I initially linked the top 100 article only for the sake of trivia, and because it synchronizes interestingly with our golden jubilees for AFTGR and Deja Vu, not because I take these lists very seriously. If anything, my ramblings deconstruct the "title track" concept, and should make clear that I look at the entire concept as being rather tenuous or contingent.
@Abner, I'm not entirely hung up on whether or not titles, and indeed title tracks, "make sense" in intellectual terms. Who can accuse I Am the Walrus or Lucy in the Sky of "making sense"? For that matter, what of the abstract and expressionist paintings of Kandinsky or Franz Marc? There's a rich tradition in literature and other art forms of trying to touch different aspects of the human brain, in various ways, apart from the logical, rational intellect we as humans like to pride ourselves upon. Literalism, I dare say, is the death of imagination and creativity in humans, leading directly to religious and ideological fundamentalism. But that's another conversation entirely.
Looking back at your comment, I think you may have meant "sense" in a more relative way: that the titles don't seem to compliment or shed light upon the music in some cases. Even then, I don't think that's a new condition, and I could probably name examples from within Neil's own catalogue of ambiguous or confusing titles. Either way, please forgive me if my digressions have misunderstood or mischaracterized your intentions.
Tim Rice, the lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar, had a wonderfully pointed observation on the labeling of music: when it came time to market Superstar, the record execs were concerned about what rack it should go in at record stores. The Who had popularized the "rock opera" label with Tommy, so they jumped on that momentary trend. But as Rice reflected (in typically pithy English fashion), "you could call it a plate of egg and chips" and it would still be the same music. The point being, the labels we put on music are mostly born of the need to instantaneously communicate and market to a broad audience the ideas and sounds contained within that music. The only logic one would expect to find, then, behind most labels would be one geared toward moving units.
Admittedly, I'm giving the most (over)simplified and cynical take possible, but I would maintain that labels and titles typically give only a very broad, inevitably reductionistic sense of the content within.
~Om Shanti
Folks on here dissing the Shocking Pinks?!?
ReplyDeleteYikes.
I'm hoping the "New Normal" that we are all being herded into doesn't include more of THAT.
I believe there was one officially released US EP by Neil and that was
ReplyDeleteHarvest in a so-called "Jukebox" release. See https://www.discogs.com/Neil-Young-Harvest/release/3880062
There are one or two more EPs - at least according to Discogs - but they are either non-US releases (like Eldorado!) or promo/test pressings. So Harvest may actually be the only official US EP release. Someone is sure to prove me wrong though!
Meta-Rocker, you did not misunderstand me. Clearly a large topic. I am quite aware of the forms of art you mention. Yes, to make the larger point "make sense" would have to connect at the least literal levels but I think they do. You might look at it this way, if there is no sense in which they make sense, then there is no reason for that title (whatever it is). And this seems like a bad idea. And reductionist is unclear, a title might be an attempt to expand past the available content to something wider and broader (but grounded in the work). This is certainly true of many novels.
ReplyDeleteAbner, Right: all those forms or “schools” of art have their own internal logics and aims, which authors, artists, etc. are nonetheless constantly expanding, subverting, testing to their outer limits.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of (post)structural linguistics, I suppose one could say it reduces to the lack of one-to-one correspondence between signifier and signified, hence all the “slippage” of meaning and understanding in both artistic expression and everyday communication.
These ambiguities are both a frustration and an asset in art, since they demand expansive, sometimes speculative thinking and seem to conspire against pinning a text to any singular, definitive meaning, allowing each reader/listener/viewer to connect with it in their own way and maybe to participate in the construction of meaning(s).
The point about reduction is possibly best illustrated with a brief example: on a can of soup, does the name on the label adequately convey what the soup tastes and smells like? Even the pictures nearly universal to food packaging rely on reference, that the prospective buyer is familiar with that kind of food and can make the connection between the image and some prior referent. In this way, titles and labels are the best possible shorthand to introduce something, but by their design don’t and can’t encompass the full content of that thing.
yes, I agree with what you are saying.The notion that a title could capture all content is hopeless. we probably have some disagreements on language, semantics, and ambiguity. There are a priori conditions for the possibility of meaning- the very possibility of communication- and too much ambiguity will contradict these conditions. I approach these issues from the background of analytic philosophy and contemporary cognitive science.
ReplyDelete@Richie Cruz, Nothing against Shocking Pinks from me. I did overlook it on the title tracks post, but not on purpose. One of those records that has to be taken for the harmless fun it is, and a shame it got cut short by Geffen. Granted, Neil wouldn’t have had such success if every record sounded like that, but in the context of his whole, varied catalogue, it works as a whimsical diversion, particularly for those who appreciate ‘50s r&b.
ReplyDelete@Abner, Interesting... my approach is channeled more strongly through literary studies and the arts generally, which all comes with assumptions of its own. So I tend to get much of the philosophy second hand, both as a tool of lit crit and because art itself often formulates and expresses philosophy in (imho) more accessible and organic ways. More organic to me, anyhow, though I can see how others might find it the other way around.
ReplyDeleteOne of my interests is with reader-response theories, which should (theoretically) have common ground with cognitive sciences, and offers a whole range of nuanced positions on how authors and audience can collaborate to produce a text’s meanings.
I really enjoy your commentary and ideas- all of my "disagreement" is entirely friendly and for the purposes of learning. Great getting to know you- I look forward to more of your comments.
ReplyDelete@Ian, well said.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I wouldn't want every Neil album to be like Everybody's Rockin, but it is a fun little signpost on the Neil highway. Nowhere near his greatest work, of course, but Neil was sure having fun playing those tunes with that band, so it's all good with me.
And to call that music boring? Please. Not everything Neil does is gold, but he's NEVER been boring.
@Richie, Yes—love the album cover, too, in all its stylized excess. I hope the Archives eventually showcase the Trans/Shocking Pinks combo shows. Those must have been a surreal ride, with Neil ostensibly embracing the contrast of styles.
ReplyDelete@Abner, thanks and likewise. Think of it as a dialectical process, socratic call and response centered around a mutual connection to NY.
~Om-Shanti.
@ ALL - well, as we often say here, thanks for everyone's insightful contributions -- once again demonstrating that Neil fans/rusties are some of the most knowledgeable, passionate and articulate music fans out there.
ReplyDelete@ Metam Rocker - yes, the "dialectical process, socratic call and response centered around a mutual connection to NY" is what we've been struggling to achieve here all along.
It's literally taken decades to get there it seems. The discussions ebb and flow as folks migrate in and out of the extended rust community.
we're honored and humbled to make these connections. oddly, as the Great Unraveling/#BigShift continues, the bonds grow tighter.
Thanks, thrasher. Re: "great unraveling/big shift" or, as Richie puts it, being herded toward a new normal, I'll let Pete Seeger do the talking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHSnUqzyiGM.
ReplyDeleteMaybe my invoking Pete will undermine my previous resistance to left/right political labels in the eyes of some, but I think the message--like Pete himself--ultimately transcends those boundaries, whether people realize as much or not.
Good night and thanks all for the contributions.
~Om-Shanti
honestly, the socratic process is not for me any longer, and no more dialectics. Good solid empirical and so, answerable, questions. Aesthetics is open to this process.
ReplyDeleteI always thought the Shocking Pinks album was really fun. "Jelly Roll Man" is so incredibly idiotic that it is good.
Hope everyone is well.
@Abner, The dialectic/socratic thing was a bit facetious on my part—not something I’d say to anyone who didn’t have a background with philosophy. I can sympathize with your thirst for veracity in these times.
ReplyDelete