Looking for Neil Young on the beach
You can find copies of Neil Young's loose and ragged classic 'On the Beach' on vinyl but it takes some doing.
Mine - the one I sold to Jerry (!) 15 years ago or so ago because I thought I was DONE with vinyl and that CDs were better - well, that one is still out there (not at Jerry's but somewhere!) and its got my name on it! But I recently replaced it. It took me months to find one that didn't cost $50, but I did. So can you if you keep on looking....
I could kick myself for selling it in the first place. One of the great almost lost albums of the 1970s, 'On The Beach' was pulled from vinyl release in the early 1980s, only a few years after its release, and didn't get a CD treatment until 2003. Why Young wanted to pull it still a bit of a mystery.
The follow-up to 'Harvest,' Young's sweet and accessible crowdpleaser of a country rock album, 1974's 'On The Beach' was the Anti-Harvest: slow, brooding, raw - nothing like Harvest and disappointing to many of the fans Young picked up with Harvest. Maybe that was why he made this his next release and why he ultimately pulled it. In any event, by the early 1980s it was gone, gone gone. Young had decided to pull it and it wasn't until 2003 that a new gen could experience 'On The Beach' first hand.
The album's cult following developed a lively and prominent constituency. Jeff Tweedy and the Waco Brothers have covered tunes from the album. In fact, the whole album has been
covered by various folks; you can find one set of covers at
http://covermesongs.blogspot.com/2008/02/full-albums-neil-youngs-on-beach.html
So, if you want to hear the originals, you've got to hear Young's 'On The Beach.' Called by Rolling Stone at the time of its release 'one of the most dispairing albums of the decade,' it was not a commercial success at the time. But over the years it became one of the most desired albums not released on CD - until 2003 when it was finally back on the market.
I am not alone on my high regard for this record. The 65th record on Pitchfork's 'Top 100 Albums of the 1970s,' 'On The Beach' is one of those great records that stands up to repeat listenings, over and over again. It is full of great moments, classic lines of lyrics, and musical quotations as well....For example, Young based his guitar motif in 'Ambulance Blues' on Bert Jansch's 'Do You Hear Me Now.' It is a lot of fun to listen to, moving to listen to, too, relaxing and invigorating, a structuralist dichotomy of poignant blues.
Get 'On The Beach,' relive the summer...
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