With one of the vastest catalogues in rock music history, it can be a bit daunting to put together a “Greatest Hits” collection for an artist like Neil Young. For the record, this is the first retrospective of Neil Young’s career since 1977’s triple-LP (double-cd) Decade. That’s a twenty seven year gap! It’s also the first single-cd collection that try’s to capture the depth of his long-spanning recording career.
Not to compare the two, but the first noticeable thing on Greatest Hits is that there are a few things missing. Actually, there is a lot missing to it. For one, where are choice Young cuts like “Cortez the killer,” “Walk On,” “I am a Child,” and “The Old Laughing Lady?” There are no songs from his early period with Buffalo Springfield or his time with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. His dark period from 1973-1975 which included such blistering albums “On The Beach,” “Journey Through The Past,” and “Time Fades” are nowhere represented either. In fact, this album which has the songs running chronologically, has a ten year gap between “Hey Hey My My (Into the Black), recorded in 1978 and “Rockin in The Free World, from 1989. Though those ten years do not include some of his best work, there were some cuts on the album “Trans,” one of his most experimental that could have added more depth to this collection. The final song of the CD is “Harvest Moon,” from his 1991 album of the same name. I find it strange that a Greatest Hits anthology would stop thirteen years before his most recently released album. Where is even one track off any of his last bunch of albums, “Silver & Gold,” “Are You Passionate?” or “Greendale?”
After listening to this, you can’t help but think of all the things that are not there. What is the reasoning behind someone putting out such a random collection of a hugely influential artist’s long career? The answer is simply stated on the back of the album in fine print: “Greatest hits inclusion based on original record sales, airplay and known download history.” With no liner notes and a limited edition extra DVD that includes promo clips for “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and “Harvest Moon,” as well as the full length album playing with the visuals, being a record spinning instead of having a good live DVD of Neil Young performing these songs, this whole package reeks of a record company making a few extra bucks.
For the ones who know Neil Young’s majority of works, good and bad, back to front, they (us) might look at this collection as being a greatest misses album, thinking of all the tracks that should have been on there, but in the end it is a good introduction to Young’s work. Fortunately, for us, Neil Young rocks and you really can’t go wrong with too many of his albums, well, pre-1980 and that is a lot of them. So, if you want to get to know Neil Young but don’t know where to start, Greatest Hits is a fine place to start. If you’ve already began your journey into his music, I’d say stick with a copy of his previous “best of,” Decade. Either way you can’t go wrong. |