Top 3 Neil Young Albums

Do I like Neil Young? Yes. Do I like all, or almost all of his work? No, of course not. Surely even the biggest Neil Young fan doesn’t. Still listening to Fork In The Road or This Note’s For You? In-fact for every good album there are almost as many stinkers. But because of the good albums you can overlook the stinkers because, well he’s Neil Young and he does what he wants to do in his own erratic way.
So Here are my top 3 Neil Young albums:

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
Young’s second and the first with Crazy Horse. Only seven songs on it, four of them of decent country-folk but the focal points are the opener Cinnamon Girl and the two long songs that are Cowgirl In The Sand and Down By The River with there improvised jamming. I never get tired of Neil Young’s lead and Danny Whitten’s rhythm guitar interplay on Down By The River.

On The Beach
Tonight’s The Night is often cited as one of his best not just out of the so called ‘doom trilogy’ but out of everything. It’s alright but for me On The Beach is much better. It’s mainly a downbeat album in minor keys, like the excellent title track that has the lyric - ‘I need a crowd of people but I can’t face them day to day.’

Ragged Glory
After a long run of dud albums in the 80s Young gets back with Crazy Horse, cranks up the volume and in 1990 released this loud rocking album. Yes this is an electric guitar record with Young thrashing out solos on his trusty black Gibson and Crazy Horse Doing their minimalist backing band thing, but there are great songs there with loads of catchy choruses.
It’s the album from Neil Young that I play the most.