Neil Young - Le Noise (full album video stream)

Neil Young delivers Le Noise to U TUBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMLe8Zza-g&feature=channel



Neil Young
Le Noise (Le Film)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU5B53b9ntQ&feature=channel

The first few seconds of “Rumblin’,” the last song on Le Noise, are unlike anything else on any Neil Young album. That's really something to say about an artist this many years into a career (and yes, you can say that a lot of it is due to Daniel Lanois, who produced the album, but still, it's a Neil Young album). Le Noise is a sonic assault, at times brilliant, at times frustrating. The lyrics, on the other hand, and the rather easy sentiments in many of the songs, keep this album from being the triumph that many are claiming it is.

“Walk with Me,” “Hitchhiker” (the electric version on Le Noise, I like, by and large, better than the acoustic version I heard from the early 90s), and “Rumblin’”, are excellent, and “Peaceful Valley Boulevard” (even as it lyrically feels like a mash up of a bunch of songs he’s done a million times: “War of Man,” “It’s a Dream,” “Ordinary People,” etc), “Angry World” and “Love and War” are sticking around, as average, latter-day Neil Young songs. And “Sign of Love” is OK enough, though it might fall off my playlist at some point.

So far, only "Someone's Gonna Rescue You" has fallen off my portable media player (which is NOT an ipod, by the way). I wonder how differently that song might have turned out if NY had had the thought that, no, in fact, sometimes no one's gonna rescue you, and had written THAT song instead. How much more complex his thinking might have been. He's just such a positive guy these days (when he’s not angry about mother earth or world governments or the fact that war kills people). And his hope often sounds rather easy. Same with parts of “Peaceful Valley Boulevard” . . . maybe there’s no one who’s going to save the world. Maybe there never is. Maybe we just sort of muddle along.

As for the production, the electric guitar sounds like something they dredged from a swamp. In other words: excellent. The effects on the vocals are mostly not overbearing, and at times helpful in filling out his rather thin, wobbly delivery. My only real problem with the production is with what’s not there. A band. A band would be nice. But more than that, some sort of percussion would have really filled most of these songs (especially the weaker ones) out.

Listening to Le Noise, my strongest reaction is that I hope Neil Young works with Daniel Lanois again, and that he brings a band with him next time. I vote for Crazy Horse.