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gengelcox's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Neil Young is one of those music artists who I’ve listened to a lot, sometimes even whole albums, but never was a fan. He appealed to me slightly more than Bob Dylan, with whom he shares many attributes: great songwriter, imperfect vocals, with a high standard deviation in quality material (oh, that will get the Dylan lovers to hate me; sorry, Bobheads, but it’s true). In Young’s case, as Inglis describes here, that’s an obvious choice: Young preferred live recording with all its imperfections over meticulous studio work. The latter was a trademark of the supergroup he was an on-again, off-again member with Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. For his solo work, however, Neil called the shots. Sometimes those shots hit center, like his biggest hit, “Heart of Gold,” recorded in one day in Nashville. Others, like the orchestral bombast of “A Man Needs a Maid” didn’t even come close to the target. Yet he chose both of those songs to be a part of his album, Harvest. If ever there was a poster child for an artist who had trouble knowing when he had something good versus something bad, Neil’s your man.
The pleasure of reading a book like this today, about an album made 50 years ago, is I have access to most of the songs talked about in the book, including rare takes and live versions, through streaming music services. I could pop up old Buffalo Springfield songs like “Mr. Soul” and “For What It’s Worth” and remind myself what those sounded like, then move over to CSN and CSYN songs, then finally to Neil’s solo work. When Inglis talked about the fact that James Taylor played banjo on “Old Man” and that he and Linda Ronstadt sang background on “Heart of Gold,” I could listen to both of those songs and hear for myself. And it’s that kind of thing that I love in these 33 1/3 books; discovering something I never knew before about these songs I’ve heard all my life.
Growing up, I tended to like more electronic, progressive, hard rock bands than the folky country-tinged stuff, i.e., Rush and Styx rather than CSYN and the Eagles. But simply listening to album-oriented rock stations, one got exposed to the full range. Later, after I escaped the countryside, I could go back and listen to that with a new attitude. I would have hated Harvest as a 16-year-old; while I can’t say it’s my new favorite album at 56, I do have a new appreciation for it after reading Inglis’s book, as well as a couple of songs beyond the hits I favorited on Apple Music.
crankyoldqueer's review against another edition
2.0
This book was such a disappointment in comparison to the other 33 1/3 books I've read. Every other volume I've read in this series was lyrical, rich, and personal, one good writer's unique love poem to the album. This volume reads like a book report on the topic, "Explain the history and significance of Neil Young's 'Harvest' album." Sure, it gets that job done, but I suspect there isn't much in here you won't also learn on Wikipedia, and the heart just isn't here. Unless you are determined to read every volume in the 33 1/3 series, this book is very, very skippable.
tlockney's review
3.0
I love the 33⅓ series, but this one left me scratching my head to some degree. There's a lot of great background info and details on the work that went into this great album, but there were times where I wondered if the author is really a Neil Young fan or just a critic.
brandonjones05's review against another edition
3.0
If I'm reading a magazine review of an album it's perfectly acceptable if the author isn't in love with the album but if I'm going to read an entire book on an album I'm expecting the author to love the album. Not sure why 33 1/3 so consistently goes this route, but I don't care for the approach.
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