Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Although prolific, Neil Young's 21st-century output – of which this is the eighth album – hardly lifts the spirit in the manner of his work from the Sixties and Seventies, a situation exacerbated by his occasional archival releases of concert recordings from earlier eras. Young himself compares Chrome Dreams II to After the Goldrush and Freedom, but one will search in vain here for a song as strong as "Rockin' in the Free World".
Instead, there's a few plodding country-rockers laced with pedal steel and drab homilies, like "Ever After", "Beautiful Bluebird" and "Boxcar"; some lumbering Crazy Horse-style riff-rockers such as "Spirit World" and "Dirty Old Man", which contains the album's best couplet: "It's a battle with the bottle, I win it all right / But I lost a few rounds in the bar last night"; and one " epic", the 18-minute "Ordinary People", which observes outsider functionaries like drug dealers and arms traders as they go about their work, and is almost as stultifying as the long pieces on Greendale, a situation not helped by its sounding like Springsteen covering an Eagles tune. Doesn't he have a hobby he could be getting on with instead?
Download this: 'Dirty Old Man', 'Spirit World'
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments