Neil Young's Harvest

As Neil Inglis points out in his book, most Neil Young fans would not count Harvest among their favorite albums, even though it is by far Young's best-selling album (and the best-selling album of 1972!). I fall into this camp -- I considered Harvest pleasant enough, but much less interesting than Young's more rock-oriented work. It is a tribute to Inglis' book that it inspired me to listen to Harvest again with greater appreciation. "Harvest" is part of the "thirty-three and a third" series of short books (more like long essays) written by critics and musicians about selected rock and jazz albums. Inglis, who is editor of "Sound on Sound" magazine, does a good job of placing "Harvest" in the larger context of Neil Young's career and in the various musical trends in play as the seventies were opening. In his view, "Harvest" was the first manifestation of "Country Neil" -- and an influential album at a time when most rockers still associated country as sell-out music for conservative Middle Americans. He is most informative showing how the Nashville style of recording (as opposed to the Los Angeles style on previous albums) created the sound of Harvest. He has good critical style -- he is a great admirer of both Neil Young as an artist of high integrity and of the album itself, but the book is mercifully free of "fan boy" hyperbole and Inglis doesn't hesitate to be harsh when he feels it is due. I don't always agree with him -- for example, I think he underrates "The Needle and the Damage Done". And he misses the point of "Are you Ready for the Country?" which was Neil Young's raucous, pre-emptive strike at the rock critics of the time who dismissed country music as bland and predictable. But, the point of reading criticism is not to find someone who always agree with you but to find someone who makes you think -- and Inglis certainly does that. On the down side, even though it is quite short, the book is a bit repetitive and even feels a bit padded. Critical comments on the songs are repeated almost verbatim in different chapters. In addition, the book would have benefitted from a listing of all the tracks and the musicians and engineers involved in each one. But, all-in-all a worthwhile, short read for anyone with interest in Neil Young, or the music of the seventies.

This book does a good job of packing in a lot of informative bits, personal opinion, and musical history context -- I'm not sure it helped me re-discover an album I've liked for a long time -- but it is definitely an interesting, cheap and fun read.The author does a good job of helping us understand Young's production techniques (or lack of them) and his attitude toward music making. I liked the musical context he gives us for country-rock and Young's contribution to it. Especially fresh was the author's attitude of the album as not being a superlative Young album. His critical take on the songs at the end of the book is not as enlightening as I had hoped -- it's really the first 50 pages of this 33.3 book that work for me.The author should be credited for pulling in information like how often Young continues to play these songs in concert (context pertaining to Young's own ongoing attitude toward Harvest) and detailed information on the different CD (DVD-A) versions of the album and the merits and faults of each -- definitely helps one consider a new purchase of Harvest in the future.Recommended for anyone who is a music geek or a Young fan.