Ranking Neil Young's First Decade of Albums | All Music

Neil YoungPhoto by Gary Burden

As we await the latest album from Neil Young ( see announcement for album titled 'Second Song', recorded with the Chrome Hearts) here's Ranking the Neil Young Albums from His First Decade | All Music by Daniel de Visé:

Few artists garner more attention on AllMusic than Neil Young. Trust me: I've seen the numbers.

Back in the '80s, when I was searching out used vinyl of On the Beach and Time Fades Away in Chicago record stores, those records felt like guilty pleasures. Neil Young wasn't widely regarded as a top-drawer artist, like Springsteen or Dylan, although the triple-LP Decade in 1977 made a pretty strong case.

That's all changed now. Fans and pundits have come to regard Young as the standard-bearer for real, garage-band rock and roll, passing the tradition from the Troggs and The Standells and Seeds in the '60s to Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam and Wilco in the '90s and beyond, carrying the torch through the eras of yacht rock, arena rock, prog rock, synth rock, hair metal and disco. All hail the Godfather of Grunge.

Young has been churning out solo albums for nearly 60 years. Some of the later ones are really good. And that poses a problem: Every time Young puts out a Ragged Glory or Harvest Moon, he pushes the old stuff a little further into the past. Time fades away.

As good as those albums are – I also love Mirror Ball – I don't think they hold a candle to most of Young's recordings from roughly the first Decade. In that spirit, let's go back and revisit the early albums: The first 10 solo studio LPs, from Neil Young through Rust Never Sleeps, and the essential live set Time Fades Away.

Here's my attempt at a ranking.

Full review and ranking @  Ranking the Neil Young Albums from His First Decade | All Music by Daniel de Visé.

Also, see:

Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy

"Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night" & "On the Beach"

(See Neil Young 's Ditch Trilogy/Quadrilogy/Quintology/Sextology In Light of "Homegrown" Release: What Might Have Been? )

Neil Young's "Ditch Quadrilogy":
"Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night", "On the Beach" & "ZUMA"

"Every Neil Young Studio Album, Ranked" | UPROXX by Steven Hyden

image credit: Neil Young Album Cover Images via Sugar Mountain | Discography

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Neil Young Albums From Worst To Best | Stereogum
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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time| Rolling Stone
P. 80 - 3 of Neil Young's Albums
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1. Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

 (see Every Neil Young Album Ranked | The Guardian)

More on Neil Young's albums, reviews and commentary.

Also, see more on the origin of the expression "Ditch Trilogy" as applied to Neil Young's 3 albums "Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night" & "On the Beach". Also, see Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy -- Or is it a Quadrilogy? Or Quintology?.

Also, see The Beautiful, Enduring Gloom of Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy | PandoraMusic.

UPDATE:  

• The Essential Neil Young Albums
• Neil Young Albums From Worst To Best | Stereogum  
• The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time| Rolling Stone
• Every Neil Young Album Ranked | The Guardian) 
• Neil Young's albums, reviews and commentary
• Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Times
• Neil Young: Rolling Stone | 100 Greatest Guitarists
• Reviews of 52 Neil Young Albums | Everybody's Dummy 
• Results and discussion of Poll for Favorite Neil Young Studio Album of 21st Century 
• Comment of the Moment: Poll Results for Favorite Neil Young Studio Zero's Album 
• Neil Young on Swedish TV Interview Discussing His Catalog - 2005
• Listening to All of Neil Young's Albums in Chronological Order: His journey, his self-appointed task by Mike "Expecting 2 Fly"

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