TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT is dedicated to Young’s guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, who died shortly before this recording was made, and the title cut details that very subject, but the darker moments here are leavened by a generous share of self-parodic humor and general Neil Young loopiness. Sad, tender ballads like “Borrowed Tune,” (itself not without humor) rub shoulders with hearty rockers like “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown.” Several tunes find Young and Crazy Horse exploring hard-edged country-rock with their collective tongue stuck firmly in the cheek, as on “Roll Another Number.” Young’s voice reels sadistically and purposefully out of tune, cutting through the arrangements like strategically placed barbed-wire (and providing a template for the work of Will Oldham/Palace two decades later). Sardonic, taunting, mercilessly self-deprecating, often downright funny, TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT is no gloomfest, but a multi-faceted, full-bodied classic.

Young’s first solo record is quite a bit different from the sound he would later develop–not that anyone could ever know what to expect from this mercurial visionary. This album, though, is a bit artier and less spontaneous-sounding than most of Young’s catalog. That’s not to say that he hadn’t already developed a gift for writing unique, captivating material. He’d already shown that ability with Buffalo Springfield, and NEIL YOUNG is full of great, idiosyncratic tunes. The most well-known cut here is the most traditional rock-sounding tune, “The Loner,” but even here Young sings of disaffection and isolation, over an arrangement that shifts between distorted guitar and elegant string section. “The Old Laughing Lady” is probably the most Springfieldish song here, and along with the country flavor of some of the other tunes, provides a link to Young’s past. The piece de resistance is the closing acoustic epic, “The Last Trip To Tulsa,” a surreal, Dylanesque number that showed Young already blazing his own trail in the world of rock poets.

Neil Young’s second album yielded several of his most enduring hits (including the title tune, “Cowgirl In The Sand,” “Cinnamon Girl,” and “Down By The River”) and firmly established him as a solo artist of the first rank. Though it’s impossible to narrow the catalog of Young and Crazy Horse down to one representative document, this is about as close as you’re likely to get. This was Young’s first collaboration with the Horse, and it’s still one of that group’s defining recorded moments. As in much of Young’s subsequent work, the feeling of despair moves unabated through the album, which runs the emotional gamut from laconically desperate to psychotically desperate. Despite the gloom, the heavy electric riffing on “Cinnamon Girl” and “Cowgirl In the Sand”–two surrealistic odes to an idealized muse–is cathartic and invigorating, easily as riveting as the guitar onslaught of anyone from the Stooges to the Velvet Underground.

With steel guitars, fiddles and lots of acoustic guitars, this low-key folk-rock album harks back to Young’s great AFTER THE GOLD RUSH-HARVEST period, and if it doesn’t measure up that’s only because of the ridiculously high standards the earlier albums set. Taken by itself, COMES A TIME is a fine collection, anchored by the timeless wonderment of the title song; a cover of Ian & Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds,” and the nearly indescribable “Look Out For My Love,” which is either a love song, a threat or both. COMES A TIME also features “Lotta Love,” which was released simultaneously by Nicolette Larson and was a major hit for her. Larson doesn’t sing on Young’s version, but her background vocals distinguish much of the rest of COMES A TIME. Crazy Horse puts in an unusually low-key–but typically warm and ragged–appearance on two songs, “Look Out For My Love” and “Lotta Love.”

After spending the 1980s going through stylistic changes, Neil Young released FREEDOM, a more straight-forward rock album that was no less lyrically complex despite its appeal to a broader piece of the mainstream. Playing with an assortment of musicians versus a set back-up band like the Stray Gators or the Shocking Pinks, this 1989 release is pure Neil Young. Like any great songwriter, Young populates these songs with memorable characters. “Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part 1)” is like a mini-Robert Altman movie with criminals and crooked cops rubbing shoulders with producers and artists whereas Rommel, oil riggers and televangelists populate “Someday.”
Although Frank Sampedro is the only participating member of Crazy Horse, Young still manages to get a big guitar crunch on the predominantly stripped-down “Don’t Cry” and a ferocious cover of “On Broadway.” The subtler moments are also captivating, whether it’s a duet with Linda Ronstadt on the folkie “Hangin’ on a Limb” or the slow-burn, Spanish twang of “Eldorado” that occasionally burps up a bit of heavy distortion. Young’s indictment of the Reagan ’80s comes in bookended versions (one live acoustic, one electric) of the anthemic “Rockin’ in the Free World” that howl with righteous indignation.

Neil Young’s sequel to 1972’s HARVEST found him reuniting with the Stray Gators and inviting along a few other famous friends. Unlike Crazy Horse’s sonic bludgeoning, the Gators’ light playing featured ethereal-sounding pedal steel and harmonies that caressed like a gentle lover. This was the perfect compliment for Young’s songwriting, which was fueled by romantic notions of courtship and deep thought. Young and Nicolette Larson harmonized and became the lovers of “You and Me,” whereas Jack Nitzsche’s string arrangements made for a nice contrast in “Such a Woman,” a bold-faced declaration of love. Other insights into the normally cranky iconoclast’s sentimental side include the delicate touch of the title track, which leaves an image of slow-dancing in a dark corner. Fast approaching 50, Neil Young also used HARVEST MOON to reflect back on his life, particularly in the biographical “One of These Days,” and “From Hank to Hendrix,” a twangy sequel to “My My, Hey Hey (Out of The Blue).” Young also continued his commitment to the environment by including both a protest against man’s destruction of nature (”War of Man”) and a live tribute to the forest and jungles recorded at a Portland, Oregon performance that included sounds of the Brazilian rainforest (”Natural Beauty.”)