Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Return To Greendale WARNERS
Fan-polarising album recorded live in 2003, also as deluxe box set with documentary.
This considerably weighty set has attained near-mythical status among Neil Young fans. Some love it, some hate it. Not sure why anyone would want to do the latter; the subject matter may deviate a little from the usual Young template, but the songs all carry the same clout and passion you’d expect.
Greendale was a highly ambitious project: originally a studio album recorded with Crazy Horse, a tour, a film, a book and a graphic novel from DC Comics imprint Vertigo, conceptualised to recount the story of the Green family, who for generations have lived in the fictional California seaside town of Greendale. In this, Young takes on the role of a sonic narrative storyteller such as Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits, detailing the minutiae and travails of life in small-town America – greed, brutality, corruption and environmental disaster all take their part in a highly moral audiovisual soundscape.
is part of Young’s ever-sprawling Performance Series, with the 10-song set reissued as a two-CD/two-LP live album.
