Neil Young is one of those artists who, when I'm not actually listening to his stuff, I tend to think is fairly boring and uninspiring, but whenever I do put one of his records on (I only have Harvest and On The Beach), I really, really enjoy it. (I'm particularly thinking of an end of summer melancholy evening walking down St Kilda Road, feeling really broken down and tired, listening to On The Beach and completely digging it.) And the same thing has come into play in listening to this greatest hits, much of which is new to me; the disc really hammers home how frickin great the man is. It's fiery and ragged and delicate and real - really quite incandescent.
The extended jams are great - I especially like "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Like A Hurricane" - but the more tender moments are also wonderful (I'm gradually coming round to believing that Young's original version of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" may be better than the Saint Etienne cover, which is iconic in its own right as far as I'm concerned...well, they're très different, obviously)...not that extendedness and tenderness are necessarily mutually exclusive, in principle or here in fact. Also, hearing the Harvest cuts in this context has made me reevaluate them a bit, and positively at that, realising that they're not quite so blandly middle of the road after all (finding myself singing along to "Old Man" and then - the kicker - "Heart of Gold" - was a bit of a giveaway...I already knew that "The Needle and the Damage Done" was something else).
I don't know if all great music necessarily ages well; for mine, greatness doesn't have to be 'for the ages', and greatness in the moment is greatness nonetheless. But, in any case, the music on this disc speaks pretty clearly to me.
