1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 151. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969)

 

This is the second Neil Young album after going solo from Buffalo Springfield, and it lays out the range of styles that we can pretty much expect from Young going forwards. Cinnamon Girl (probably the best-known track on here) is typical of his work with Crazy Horse, chuntering onwards with a simple refrain over which Young lays down an early version of his characteristic acid-guitar, not quite as fractured and grungy as in later tracks. The same thing closes the album with the lengthy track Cowgirl In The Sand, three verses held together very loosely with meandering guitar solo work.

Other tracks are either very country rock (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere) or the kind of gentler folk/country that will characterise albums like After The Gold Rush, for example the classic murder ballad Down By The River. Although Young employs his high vocal range for many of these tracks, it’s not as thin as it sounds on later albums, nor is his guitar soloing as outre, so overall it’s a relatively “safe” Neil Young album compared to much of his stuff. For me, I like the grungy sketchy stuff, so it’s not as good as some of his work, but there are some tracks on it that stuck with me – I had to wait out the whole 10 minutes of Cowgirl In The Sand, for example, rather than go and do something I was supposed to be doing. And that’s got to be a compliment.