Dez Reviews Neil Young's 'Storytone,' 2014

I guess at this point Neil Young can do whatever the hell he wants. He's made a career out of strange left turns, but by all accounts, 2014 has been very active and one of his strangest years. Earlier this year was the covers album recorded in a vintage Voice-O-Gram, A Letter Home. He's also got his (second) autobiography coming out later this month. And now this record of...whatever this is. Some songs here are recorded with a 92-piece orchestra with lush (often maudlin) arrangements. Then he's got some tunes with a big band with horns a-blarin'. There are also a couple of bluesy songs played with a more traditional rock band. In the grand scheme of Neil things, this will be looked back on as a curio, kind of like Everybody's Rockin' or Old Ways. In fact, this record best fits with his perverse genre jumping during the 80's.

And some of these lyrics don't really fit the setting. "Who's Gonna Stand Up?", another one of his environmental diatribes, sounds strange with a lovely 92-piece orchestra backing lyrics like "end fossil fuel/draw the line/before we build one more pipeline" and "end fracking now/let's save the water." (Then, in typical Neil fashion, he follows this anti-fossil fuel anthem with a tune called "I Want To Drive My Car," which includes the refrain "I gotta find some fuel/I gotta find some fuel"). He sings of environmental concerns, he sings of lost love, he sings of new love, he sings of cars, he sings of playing music in Chicago ("Say Hello To Chicago"). It comes across that these songs were written on the spot about whatever happened to cross Neil's mind that day. There is no rhyme or reason to this record, really.

There are a few keepers. "Plastic Flowers" is nice, and a more subtle and more effective environmental song than the aforementioned "Who's Gonna Stand Up?" I kind of like the simple, bluesy groove of "I Want To Drive My Car." The orchestra actually is quite effective on the lovely, lush "When I Watch You Sleeping," easily the best song on the record. In fact, it is one of the prettiest songs he has ever recorded.

Storytone is available as a double disc deluxe set where the second disc features all of these overblown songs in basic, acoustic demo form. It's quite a contrast. "When I Watch You Sleeping" remains the best of the lot in demo form too.

** out of *****

ABOVE: One of the things that keeps me coming back to Neil's music is that even in failure, he's still interesting