release date: Feb. 25, 1972
format: cd (1989 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,02]
producer: Neil Young & Elliot Mazer; Henry Lewy; Jack Nitzsche
label: Reprise Records, Germany - nationality: Canada
Tracklist: 1. "Out on the Weekend" (4,5 / 5) - 2. "Harvest" (4 / 5) - 3. "A Man Needs a Maid" (3,5 / 5) - 4. "Heart of Gold" (5 / 5) - 5. "Are You Ready for the Country?" - 6. "Old Man" (4 / 5) - 7. "There's a World" - 8. "Alabama" - 9. "The Needle and the Damage Done" (4 / 5) - 10. "Words (Between the Lines of Age)" (3,5 / 5)
4th studio album by Neil Young is another essential release by Young in his early solo career. The style is more laid-back with its country rock / folk rock, and the studio personnel on the album were The Stray Gators (Ben Keith, Jack Nitzsche, Kenny Buttrey, Spooner Oldham, Tim Drummond) with backing vocals by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Linda Ronstadt, and two tracks feature The London Symphony Orchestra. The album was made without the Crazy Horse members, which underlines the fact that it's more folk than rock.
The track "The Needle and the Damage Done" is Young's experience with drug addiction in the aftermath of several friends' and artists' deaths as results of heroin abuse. It's also a remark to Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse, who had a serious drug abuse, and Young also wrote the song as a warning. Whitten died later in November that year.
The album is naturally enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". I don't find it as great as his two previous albums, but having said this, Harvest is still near essential.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]
