One of the greatest and most infuriating thing about Neil Young is his steadfast unpredictability. He clearly follows his internal muse wherever it leads, and gives no fucks about his audience’s expectations. His career has been marked with all manner of commercial highs and lows, and it always seems like his popular successes are less about his compliance to the mainstream than the simple happenstance of his whims momentarily matching the taste of the mainstream. Over the last decade alone, he’s released a laid-back folk-country disc (Prairie Wind), an impressionistic solo-electric album (Le Noise), a political rock opera (Greendale), two different versions of an anti-war protest album (Living With War and Living With War: In The Beginning), a live album with CSNY (Déjà Vu Live), a sequel to an unreleased album from 1977 (Chrome Dreams II), and a concept album about the potential of electric cars (Fork In The Road).
And while it’s that spirit of individuality that’s made him a vital and important force over his six decades in the recording industry, the same quality makes it easy for listeners to dismiss an album like this out of hand. It’s understandable, as it’s difficult to describe this record without sounding glib: “Neil Young’s new disc reunites him with his longtime backing band Crazy Horse, and consists entirely of covers of classic folk songs (and one doo-wop standard). Stephen Stills contributes backing vocals.”
So, while that is a completely accurate description of Americana, it doesn’t really tell you anything about what the album sounds like, or why it’s worth listening to. And man, it’s worth listening to. In fact, it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite Neil Young albums.
The album kicks off with a minute of scattershot electric guitar that slowly moves from distorted riffing to a coherent chord progression. And as the song comes into focus and vocals swell, it’s suddenly recognizable as Stephen Foster’s “Oh Susanna”. While it’s not the gently-swinging singalong arrangement we’re all familiar with, generations of campfires and cowboy movies have burned the refrain so deeply into our culture that it’s impossible to not have a flash of realization, even when the backing music is on the verge of shaking to pieces.
Which is exactly what much of this record sounds like. A bunch of guys in a room, grooving on songs they know by heart, and the tension of seeing how far they can push the boundaries of the music without losing the tune. Neil and Crazy Horse stomping around, commemorating their country and its ideals by deconstructing classic american music and remaking it in their own image. Taking songs everyone knows, and making them sing again.
And while that’s what the album is about, it’s also about Neil Young playing guitar. Neil’s carefully controlled method of strangling the notes out, playing around the melody without losing his grip on the song, moments of calm that suddenly turn to a roar as one chord flows into another.
It’s very much of a piece with Neil and Crazy Horse’s records of an earlier era: not just because the rough-hewn ambience recalls the sound of Zuma and Rust Never Sleeps, but also in the way these traditional songs of America’s development and expansion nod to the themes of those earlier albums. These readings of “Wayfarin’ Stranger” and “Tom Dula” are close cousins of classics like “Thrasher” and “Danger Bird”, and they’re wrapped in the according sheets of tight-wound distortion and deliberate feedback.
The standout tracks? Well, all of them. “This Land Is Your Land” is perfectly suited to this style of impromptu performance, “Clementine” manages to shed new light on a song that’s been largely relegated to kids’ parties and Huckleberry Hound cartoons, and the honky-tonk singalong “Gallows Pole” simply sounds like a freewheeling aside from a world-class bar band. The version of “High Flyin’ Bird” might just be the definitive rendition; the sweeping guitars, Neil’s lead, and the swelling backing vocals are a perfect fit for the lyric of desolation and yearning. Even the rag-tag take on “Get A Job” is so good-spirited and fun that it works perfectly in this context. Each tune builds on the one before it, and while I’m not sure how well any one track would work separated from the others, it functions perfectly as an album.
It’s a solid, rocking Neil Young record. A portrait of America through its songs. A collection that resurrects classic music through affectionate re-interpretation. And mostly, it’s an opportunity for a great time-weathered band to relax, stretch out, and create a profoundly lyrical noise.
Americana is now available from Reprise Records on CD, or as a digital download. A Blu-Ray edition will be released on July 24th.