Customer Reviews
STRANGE...
This album is odd. Thats all that I can say about it. Neil Young doing electronica? Like years before electronics was popular? It's just weirdness. How did he even get the urge to do this thing? I think somebody must have given him some machines, and he was like, "check it out, I can do anything!"
I can't say that the album is a failure though. If you dig the likes of bands such as The Flaming Lips (I always thought of that band as very Neil Young sounding. . . and I would imagine that the band maybe copped some of their style directly from this album. . . )listen to The Lips album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and compare to Neil's TRANSFORMER MAN from this album (prolly the only track on this album that actually works, and done better on his unplugged album) It's Neil Youngs voice, only filtered through machines. Again, strange. Most of the songs are like that. . . including an electronic version of his classic song MR. SOUL, but besides the two tracks mentioned the sound gets very old fast, and at some points is so primitive that it hurts.
Besides that there are a few somewhat ok songs that don't go over the top in electronica, the best song on the album being the nine minute final track LIKE AN INCA, which is completely out of place with the rest of the album, but it's good to have if you somehow find yourself with this album.
A curiosity at most. Some interesting stuff, mostly just repetitive, early electronics used very much over the top. Hard to even consider this a Neil Young album. . . 3 stars.
quite a bizarre album, but Neil's passion and quality songwriting can't be denied
That said, "Trans", which was originally released in December of 1982/ January of 1983, is a pretty bizarre album any way you look at it, and it's an album that you can't easily summarize. Neil Young has become notorious for the abrupt genre-hopping he has done, particularly throughout the '80s.
The majority of "Trans" finds Neil going in a highly-synthesized direction, definitely New Wave-ish, but tracks such as "Computer Age" and "Sample and Hold" also have a distinct Europop feel. On all six of the album's 'high-tech' tracks, Neil used a vocoder to give his vocals a computerized effect--it's generally very effective, but the downside to it is that, frequently, the lyrics are incredibly hard, if not impossible, to decipher just by listening. This is atypical Neil Young stuff for sure, but you can tell he wasn't joking around. It's become well-known among fans that Neil Young was experiencing great frustration in the early '80s at his inability to communicate with his son Ben who was a quadriplegic suffering from cerebral palsy, and you can very much detect this theme on "Trans" in the lyrics to several of the songs, as well as with the back cover which shows what appears to be an electronic variation of a human heart. The difficulty in merely making out the words that Young is singing is a drawback, but still, "Computer Age" is atmospherically arresting and extremely catchy; the ominous "We R In Control" is powerful; and "Computer Cowboy", though a bit sluggish, is also highly effective. The ominous, robot dating service-themed "Sample And Hold" is also undeniably catchy, although the "Trans" CD I have contains the 8+ minute version which does drag in spots. On the down side, "Transformer Man" does sound quite thin and off-the-mark; and the stiff, robotic remake of "Mr. Soul" doesn't work very well and is pretty pointless.
What makes the album as a whole even more strange is that there are also three additional tracks, with 'regular' Neil vocals, that seem to have come from an entirely different project. Two of them are relatively conventional pop-rockers--the ballad "Hold On To Your Love" is wonderfully tuneful and uplifting; and the album-opening "Little Thing Called Love" is an irresistibly catchy confection with a somewhat tropical flavor, and notice at the end of the bridge the appearance of the very same acoustic guitar riff that would later re-emerge as the main riff on the song "Harvest Moon". The edgy, looping, 9+ minute album closer "Like An Inca", despite the slightly distracting, rattling acoustic guitar strumming (come on Neil, what the heck), is otherwise excellent, with a great harmonized chorus, a commanding lead vocal from Neil, and highly memorable, mysterious lyrics; the song, which bares an uncanny resemblance to Steely Dan's "Your Gold Teeth", is also interesting because it's basically structured in typical 'epic Neil' style, but Neil's usual 'mad soloing' is replaced by sliding leads and fluid guitar soloing that Neil obviously didn't (and couldn't) play.
With the exception of "Mr. Soul", Neil doesn't deliver any of his trademark noisy guitar soloing here. Don't get the wrong idea though--even with the abundance of synthesizers/ electronics on the album, there are still a lot of guitars. There are prominent, crunchy guitars on "We R In Control" and "Computer Cowboy", plus smooth double-tracked guitar on "Computer Age".
All in all, "Trans" is definitely a worthwhile record from Neil Young, thanks to his obvious passion and his consistently high quality songwriting.
Trans is Neil's Most Under-rated Work
If you don't like this, you're not the real deal Neil fan.
. You can see a complete list of all Neil Young discography, or go back to the Neil Young tabs
|
