As much as the suits at Geffen would have disagreed with me at
\nthe time, it was almost natural for Neil Young to eventually record
\nan album with more than just overtones of ’50s doo-wop music. But
\none wonders why Young, himself one of the godfathers of grunge
\nmusic, wouldn’t hit the target closer to the mark with
\nEverybody’s Rockin’ \/ Neil And the Shocking Pinks<\/i>.<\/p>\n
This album first came to my attention back in 1983, in the good
\nold days when my parents had cable and I didn’t have the monthly
\nbill for the service. HBO used to have a program on, “Video
\nJukebox”; one of the featured videos on one episode was
\n“Wonderin’,” a wonderful example of how time-lapse photography can
\nbe used. It was a decent song (although not the first taste of Neil
\nYoung I had ever experienced), and I found myself smiling through
\nit. (Side note: I’ve never seen the video since then.)<\/p>\n
“Wonderin'” is one of the highlights of
\nEverybody’s Rockin’<\/i>, and shows that Young did have his feet
\nfirmly planted in his musical past, all the while pushing the
\nenvelope with some of his ’80s work. But the unheralded gem off
\nthis one is “Mystery Train,” a song that captures the spirit of the
\nold days of rockabilly truer than one could imagine. Bringing
\nimages of Gene Vincent and early Elvis Presley to mind, Young plows
\nthrough this number with gusto, making every note count.<\/p>\n
Too bad that not every song on this incredibly short album (the
\nten songs clock in around a half-hour in length) has that kind of
\ndetail paid to it. “Betty Lou’s Got A New Pair Of Shoes” seems to
\nstagnate thanks to a lifeless saxophone line running through the
\nsong, while “Rainin’ In My Heart” has the feel to it like it was a
\nwarm-up song from the
\nHarvest<\/i> sessions.<\/p>\n
But Young does manage to keep things interesting, for the most
\npart. “Jellyroll Man” takes a little time to warm up to, but proves
\nitself to be a worthy track. Falling into the same category are
\n“Kinda Fonda Wanda” and the title track. (Fact is, if you’re not
\nbig into rockabilly or you’re not very familiar with this genre, it
\nwill take a little longer for you to appreciate the finer moments
\non
\nEverybody’s Rockin’<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
Of course, this album just marked another one of Young’s musical
\nphases that he’s gone through his entire career; fifteen years
\nlater, he has yet to do another album in this vein. I kind of hope
\nthat Young has another one in him — though I do hope he learns
\nfrom the few mistakes he made on
\nEverybody’s Rockin’<\/i>. If anyone could provide Generation X
\nwith a “Rockabilly 101” course that would be fun to be a part of,
\nit’s Young.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6058],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36140","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-neil-young-neil-the-shocking-pinks","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36140"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36140"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}