In his solo career spanning almost 50 years, Neil Young has never been afraid to veer off the beaten path. After practically defining the hard rock sound with 1969’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” he released the piano-based “After the Goldrush” in 1970. He’s part country-rock, part rockabilly, part electronic, and part grunge. And though he’ll play greatest hits sets when he tours, Neil Young does not care what anyone else wants when it comes to his studio sessions. The results are admirable, yet questionable.
On “Storytone,” Young’s 39th studio album released Nov. 4, Young presents each song in two ways. Side one features solo arrangements with piano and guitar, and side two features orchestra and big band accompaniments of the same tracks.
Young is gentle and reflective on the acoustic side, with themes of love and friendship and the places he’s been. But he is far from at his best in this work.
Album-opener “Plastic Flowers” sounds a little too much like the classic “After the Goldrush,” both lyrically and in terms of composition. Too many lyrics sound uncharacteristically blunt, like on the blues-shuffle “I Want to Drive My Car.” The lyrics never really get past the song’s title; Neil Young really likes his car.
The most egregious lyrics, however, are on “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” Young has always been an environmentalist, but this song sounds like self-parody. He sings “Damn the dams, save the rivers / Starve the takers and feed the givers / Build a dream, save the world / We're the people known as earth.” To put it bluntly, these lyrics are stupid. There’s not an ounce of subtlety or poetry, and he doesn’t even sing them with anger or conviction.
“I’m Glad I Found You” is a beautiful ode to Daryl Hannah. Musing on his new-found love, Young sings “It’s not that we got anything new / It’s not that it’s any better or worse / The way life treats us is a blessing and a curse / I’m glad I found you.” The man proves he can still turn a phrase and the whole song is performed with heartwarming earnesty. It’s one of the highest points on the album, but on one of Young’s better albums it would be an afterthought.
One constant with Neil Young is his voice. It has barely changed, still running the gamut from creaking highs to grumbling lows. That said, the second side of “Storytone” is a disaster. At best, the added accompaniment doesn’t detract from the original songs.
Then, there’s “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” If the solo version is Neil Young self-parody, the orchestral version is Neil Young performing Disney music. It’s excessive, full of flourishes and dramatic string swells. It’s a mistake.
The same can be said for “Say Hello to Chicago,” a restrained blues song when played solo. Neil Young just sounds wrong in front of a big band. The huge horn section is jarring — nothing about it fits. It doesn’t even sound like a Neil Young song.
“A Man Needs A Maid” sounds like Young molding the sonic potential of an orchestra to his own unique ends. On “Storytone,” however, he just takes tired clichés from big band and crooner music and injects nothing into them. There’s not even any irony to make this more palatable; the glitz and glamour is laid out with a straight face.
If “Storytone” is approached as a single side, just the solo version, it passes for a late-era Neil Young record. Songs like “I’m Glad I Found You” make it worth listening to once or twice. But the second side is best ignored or forgotten. It’s a series of failed experiments, much like Young’s mostly-forgotten mid-1980s works.
Kudos to Young for doing whatever he wants on his albums. He probably had fun working with the different sorts of backing groups. For a listener, however, it’s painful, and it makes the album a tremendous disappointment. Hopefully, in the future, Young will stick to working solo or putting out rock music with Crazy Horse. Knowing him, anything is possible — for better or, in this case, for worse.
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