Decade

I bought this 2 CD-set for Neil's Greatest Hits and some that maybe should have been. Not at all disappointed with "Helpless, "Heart Of Gold", "Ohio", and the rest of the more familiar ones. As an interested but not deep fan, the Buffalo Springfield stuff and several other selections might take some time.
My initial take on my first NY collection is that he didn't go into the studio to "write a hit". He had the words and music which wee going to connect with a very large number of fans, anyway.
Young is a classic folk-rock stylist, instantly recognizable.
Some of the more melancholy. drug-life reflections have little resonance today - drugs took away lives? It was terrible judgment (and perhaps powers-that-be who looked away because they didn't want to stifle...creativity) that claimed so many young lives.
I don't care for the handwritten notes on all the tracks. That's for a preface or exit statement. I'd like to know Month and Year of recording and have the session personnel in bold print.
Much has been written on the poor sound quality. My aging sound sytem might not lend to objective criticism. The acoustics come through without a hitch.

I really enjoy this CD. It has great cuts from Neil with CSNY, Neil as a solo and duet artist, and Neil with Crazy Horse, so it's excellent in that respect. I've been a casual Neil young fan and I have a whole new respect for him after buying this album. I think it's a great purchase and I would highly recommend it.

How can an album as important as this one be allowed to remain in it's current state of "not yet remastered" disrepair? Forcrisake, every other chunk of trite music out there from the 70's and 80's has been remastered. Either Neil is going to launch the mother of all box sets, or someone has just gotten very lazy.

The music would be a fine introduction to early Neil Young, but the fidelity sounds like an old car radio playing through your friend Larry's coat. Every track that is available elsewhere sounds better elsewhere. (Compare "Like a Hurricane" on this album to the one on "American Stars n Bars," which is HDCD in standard release.) If you simply must have some of the oddball cuts it doesn't look like you have much choice. Actually, the smart thing to do would be to wait until Young's back catalogue gets the audiophile treatment.

Spanning Neil Young's career form 1966 to 1976 (and leaving no stone unturned), Decade is an epic collection of songs, a glorious encapsulation of one of the greatest discographies ever recorded. As an introduction to the wonderful world of Neil, it can't be beat; every one of the eclectic artist's passions is on full display here, from the apocalyptic electric guitar workouts of "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl In The Sand" to the soul-shaking folk introspection of "Old Man" and "Heart Of Gold." As such, every facet of Young's genius can be found somewhere on this record. One listen to the artist's lopsided, circuitous evolution, from the acid-dream folk rock of his early days with Buffalo Springfield to his tenure as the surreally bitter poet laureate of the post-Vietnam era, should convince anybody that Neil Young was a unique and compelling artist, an inspired madman howling from a dark and gorgeous dream world.

Ahem. The music found herein is simply fantastic. These two discs are saturated with masterpieces. Aside from the aforementioned tracks, we've got dreamweaving classics such as "Expecting To Fly" and "Broken Arrow," as well as the tortured sonic soundscape of "Cortez The Killer." The spooked psych-soul of "The Old Laughing Lady" slams headlong into the crunching rock anthem "Cinnamon Girl," birthing the tortured outrage of "Southern Man" and "Ohio" in the process. And then there's the quiet apocalypse of "After The Gold Rush," the mournful haze of "Sugar Mountain," the raw sting of "The Needle And The Damage Done," and the mangled death funk of "Tonight's The Night (Part 1)." Sure, these songs (most of them, anyway) can be found on albums that you should already have (such as Harvest, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and Tonight's The Night), but Decade is still a worthy purchase for the simple reason that before you buy it, "Like A Hurricane" and "Campaigner" won't be in your collection. After you buy it, they will be. Plus, collection or not, its sounds great to listen to these 35 songs in this order.