release date: Jun. 27, 1995
format: cd
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,54]
producer: Brendan O'Brien
label: Reprise Records - nationality: Canada / USA
22nd studio album by Neil Young was promoted as a collaboration of Neil Young and Pearl Jam, however, all tracks except track #8, "Piece and Love" (written by Eddie Vedder) were written by Young, and the album is basically a Young studio release with Pearl Jam (without Vedder) as his backing band; however, Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien was brought in to produce the album to add some of the Pearl Jam-energy to this Neil Young album. Not surprisingly, the style is highly influenced by grunge rock exemplified by Pearl Jam.
The album was generally met by positive reviews and made it to number #6 on the Canadian albums chart list, number #5 in the US, and to number #4 in the UK.
Apparently, the recording sessions were a bunch of studio sessions with Young and Pearl Jam playing around recording takes as they got along without any pre-written material.
I have never really liked this particular album, and mostly think of it as murky and simply without a distinct vision. It's basically just jam session material and without a single great song.
The album is not recommended for anything but background noise and / or for collectors only.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, NME 4,5 / 5 stars ]
