Neil Young- Harvest

Ok, so it took me until I was in my 40s to hear my first Neil Young Album. I suppose he's such a big part of popular culture that, like many susch people, it's fairly easy to think " I must listen to him more" but never quite get round to it. Anyway,  my sister bought me 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die a couple of years ago and this was listed in it. I intially checked it ou on Spotify and could see pretty much straight away why it's "up there" among the greats.
I love the harmonica on  "Out on The Weekend" and "Heart Of Gold". Some might think the lyrics on "A Man Needs A Maid" pretty sexist on first listen but to me it sounds like the story of a guy looking for love and the "Maid" reference is simply a metaphore. The best track, rather than favourite, is "The Needle And The Damage Done". To call such a song a favourite seems a bit misplaced. The lyric about " Every Junky's Like A Setting Sun" is hugely powerful.
As you can probably tell, I was pretty into this album before I started the blog but it's included here for completeness.

NOAH & THE WHALE- LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

I like this album. Apparently the band come out of a wave of, what the young people refer to as, "Nu Folk". There's not much trace of folk here though, not to me anyway. Lyrically the subjects seem quite traditional "Rock & Roll" territory i.e. romances about leaving small towns, moving to brighter futures and the failures or success that they can bring or nostalgia for those small towns or childhood days. I particularly like the song Give It All Back. A song about being in your first band as a kid. My one gripe actually relates to the singer's voice. The accent of popular culture, especially music, is American so to find someone putting on an American accent is nothing new. However, I just find this singers attempts particularly fake sounding.

In terms the the albums' overall place in my collection, I suspect that this will be something I play occasionally rather than reaching for it on a regular basis. It's certainly not one that I regret buying and I have enjoyed getting to know it a bit better.