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Getting the band back together for the first time since 2003, Neil Young corrals Crazy Horse through Americana, a collection comprised primarily of old folk songs -- not the weird, forgotten ones scholars have excavated, but the familiar ones taught in elementary schools from sea to shining sea. Ornery git that he is, Neil doesn't follow his own concept to the letter, finding a way to shoehorn the Silhouettes' rocking doo wop classic 'Get a Job' and the British commonwealth anthem 'God Save the Queen' into Americana, their presence suggesting a possible political component to the record. Electric thermal storage heaters. Or perhaps those were the songs Young felt like playing that day. With an album as ungainly as Americana, either concept is possible and any clarity is crushed by the Horse's heavy-footed stomp. Here, once again graced by the presence of guitarist Frank Sampedro, who sat out 2003's rock opera Greendale, Crazy Horse stumble and lurch as they pound the same three chords they've been bashing out for 40 years, time not adding acumen but rather eroding whatever finesse they ever possessed. Always garage rock primitives, Crazy Horse sounds downright amateurish on Americana, as if they woke up one morning and couldn't remember how to play their instruments. Each cut plays like a first take, none worse than 'Get a Job,' where the band struggles mightily to achieve some semblance of swing and misses. Sometimes, this cacophony can be oddly compelling, particularly when a children's chorus -- the better to underscore these songs' origins, perhaps -- are brought into the mix, inevitably leading to everybody tripping over each other. It all winds up as an ungodly mess: Crazy Horse do, as Young asserted they would, make these songs their own, but by doing so, they've made them so nobody else would ever want them.
Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream |
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1 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 05:03 | ||
2 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 05:42 | ||
3 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 08:13 | ||
4 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 04:15 | ||
5 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 03:01 | ||
6 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 06:47 | ||
7 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 05:30 | ||
8 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 05:38 | ||
9 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 05:26 | ||
10 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 03:07 | ||
11 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Neil Young | 04:08 |
Country: USA (Crazy Horse), Canada (Neil Young) Genre: Rock, Folk Rock. Psychedelic Pill Uploaded Turbobit Zippyshare 2012 - Americana Uploaded Turbobit. Amazon.com: Americana [Blu-ray]: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Reprise. Americana is the first album from Neil Young & Crazy Horse in nearly nine years. Neil Young's latest studio record, his first with Crazy Horse in nine years, isn't so much a covers collection as it is a concept album in the vein of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads.
Americana | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | June 5, 2012 | |||
Genre | Rock, hard rock, country rock, folk rock, Americana | |||
Length | 56:50 | |||
Label | Reprise | |||
Producer | Neil Young, John Hanlon, Mark Humphreys | |||
Neil Young chronology | ||||
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Crazy Horse chronology | ||||
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Americana is the 31st studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released on June 5, 2012.[1] The album was Young's first collaboration with backing band Crazy Horse since their 2003 album, Greendale, and its associated tour.[2] Damages watch season 4.
- 5Charts
Background[edit]
American Songwriter quoted Young as saying this about the tone and intent of the album:
Every one of these songs [on Americana] has verses that have been ignored. And those are the key verses, those are the things that make these songs live. They're a little heavy for kindergarteners to be singing. The originals are much darker, there's more protest in them — the other verses in 'This Land Is Your Land' are very timely, or in 'Clementine,' the verses are so dark. Almost every one has to do with people getting killed, with life-or-death struggles. You don't hear much about that; they've been made into something much more light. So I moved them away from that gentler interpretation. With new melodies and arrangements, we could use the folk process to invoke the original meanings for this generation.'[3]
Critical reception[edit]
Professional ratings | |
---|---|
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
Robert Christgau | A[5] |
Entertainment Weekly | A–[6] |
The Guardian | [7] |
NME | 5/10[8] |
The Observer | [9] |
Pitchfork Media | 6.1/10[10] |
Rolling Stone | [11] |
Slant Magazine | [12] |
Spin | 7/10[13] |
Americana received strongly polarized reviews from music critics. It holds an average score of 68 out of 100 at Metacritic, based on 31 reviews.[14]Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune gave the album three-and-a-half out of four stars, writing that 'Americana reveals the hard truth inside songs that have been taken for granted.'[15] Dan Forte, in Vintage Guitar, said 'this may be his best since Rust [Never Sleeps].'[16] Johnny Dee in his review for the magazine Classic Rock remarks how 'Young has picked every song apart, reworked melody and lyrics and made them his own', making them better for it.[17]
In a mixed review, Michael Hann of The Guardian found the album 'impossibly pointless' and felt that some songs exhibit 'sloppiness' and 'unnecessary lengths'.[7]NME reviewer considers the album 'largely comprised of sub-standard covers of folk songs.'[8]
Robert Christgau named Americana the best album of 2012 in his year-end list for The Barnes & Noble Review.[18]
Track listing[edit]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | 'Oh Susannah' | Stephen Collins Foster; arrangement: Tim Rose | 5:03 |
2. | 'Clementine' | Traditional; arrangement: Young | 5:42 |
3. | 'Tom Dula' | Traditional; arrangement: Young | 8:13 |
4. | 'Gallows Pole' | Traditional; arrangement: Odetta Felious Gordon | 4:15 |
5. | 'Get a Job' | Richard Lows, Earl Beal, Raymond Edwards, William Horton | 3:01 |
6. | 'Travel On' | Traditional; arrangement: Paul Clayton, Larry Ehrlich, David Lazar, Tom Six | 6:47 |
7. | 'High Flyin' Bird' | Billy Edd Wheeler | 5:30 |
8. | 'Jesus' Chariot (She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain)' | Traditional; arrangement: Young | 5:38 |
9. | 'This Land Is Your Land' | Woody Guthrie | 5:26 |
10. | 'Wayfarin’ Stranger' | Traditional; arrangement: Burl Ives | 3:07 |
11. | 'God Save the Queen' | Thomas Augustine Arne; medley arrangement: Young | 4:08 |
Personnel[edit]
- Neil Young – vocals, guitar
- Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse Band
- Billy Talbot – bass, vocals
- Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
- Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro – guitar, vocals
- Additional personnel
- Dan Greco – orchestral cymbals, tambourine
- Americana Choir – vocals
- Pegi Young – vocals on 'This Land is Your Land'
- Stephen Stills – vocals on 'This Land is Your Land'
Charts[edit]
Weekly charts[edit]
Chart (2012) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canadian Albums Chart[19] | 2 |
U.S. Billboard 200 | 4 |
U.S. BillboardTop Rock Albums | 1 |
Neil Young And Crazy Horse Americana 2012 Rarity
Year-end charts[edit]
Chart (2012) | Position |
---|---|
Canadian Albums Chart | 42[20] |
US Billboard 200 | 182[20] |
US Rock Albums Chart | 52[20] |
References[edit]
- ^Andy Greene (19 March 2012). 'Neil Young And Crazy Horse to Release New Album 'Americana' on June 5th'. Rollingstone.com. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
- ^Tomas Franta (23 January 2012). 'Neil Young se na novém albu znovu spojí s Crazy Horse'. Rockandpop.cz. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09. Retrieved 29 March 2012.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|dead-url=
(help) - ^'Great Quotations: Neil Young'. Great Quotations: Neil Young. American Songwriter. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
- ^Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. 'Americana – Review'. Allmusic. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
- ^Christgau, Robert. 'Neil Young With Crazy Horse/Rhett Miller'. Expert Witness. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 19 June 2012.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|deadurl=
(help) - ^Anderson, Kyle (June 15, 2012). 'Americana review - Neil Young & Crazy Horse Review'. Entertainment Weekly. No. 1211. New York. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^ abMichael Hann (31 May 2012). 'Neil Young: Americana - review'. The Guardian. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
- ^ abHoward, Tom (June 1, 2012). 'Neil Young & Crazy Horse - 'Americana''. NME. London. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^Woodcraft, Molloy (June 2, 2012). 'Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Americana – review'. The Observer. London. The New Review section, p. 30. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^Berman, Stuart (June 1, 2012). 'Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Americana'. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^Rob Sheffield (2012-07-05). 'Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Americana, Reprise'. Rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
- ^Cataldo, Jesse (June 3, 2012). 'Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Americana'. Slant Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^Bevan, David (June 7, 2012). 'Neil Young & Crazy Horse, 'Americana' (Reprise)'. Spin. New York. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ^'Americana by Neil Young & Crazy Horse Reviews and Tracks'. Metacritic. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
- ^Kot, Michael. 'Album review: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, 'Americana''. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
- ^Forte, Dan (September 2012). 'Rev. of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Americana'. Vintage Guitar. p. 120.
- ^Dee, Johnny (July 2012). 'Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana'. Classic Rock. No. 172. p. 100.
- ^Christgau, Robert (January 14, 2013). 'The Dean's List 2012'. The Barnes & Noble Review. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved January 19, 2013.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|deadurl=
(help) - ^Canoe inc. (2012-06-20). 'CANOE - JAM! Rush: Rush's 'Angels' flies up the charts'. Jam.canoe.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-12-08. Retrieved 2015-06-04.Cite uses deprecated parameter
|dead-url=
(help) - ^ abc'Listings'. Archived from the original on March 13, 2013. Retrieved March 21, 2013.Cite uses deprecated parameter
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(help)
Crazy Horse Neil Young Tour
External links[edit]
- Americana at AnyDecentMusic?
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