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Neil Young - American Stars 'N Bars Audio CD

A fair review of the Neil Young "American Stars 'N Bars" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Neil Young reviews here, or go back to the Neil Young tabs.

Neil Young Band: Neil Young
Title: American Stars 'N Bars
Rating:
Release Date: 2003-08-19
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Old Country Waltz - Crazy Horse, , Neil Young 2: Saddle Up the Palomino - Crazy Horse, , Neil Young 3: Hey Babe - Crazy Horse, , Neil Young 4: Hold Back the Tears - Crazy Horse, , Neil Young 5: Bite the Bullet - Crazy Horse, , Neil Young 6: Star of Bethlehem - Crazy Horse, Neil Young 7: Will to Love - Crazy Horse, Neil Young 8: Like a Hurricane - Crazy Horse, Neil Young 9: Homegrown - Crazy Horse, Neil Young 10: Like a Hurricane [Multimedia Track] - Neil Young

Neil Young's Most Underrated Album
Not even the artist himself has made any grand claims for it, and, given the low-key performances that make up much of the album, it's easy to see why. AMERICAN STARS 'N' BARS is Neil Young's most underrated album ever. However, it does feature two of Neil's best rockers of the 1976-78 period, "Bite The Bullet" and "Like A Hurricane", both of which sound like a mutant hybrid of hippie-country-folk-rockers Buffalo Springfield and pro-law-enforcement hard rocker Ted Nugent, with a huge helping of Montrose (another band featuring a pro-law-enforcement member, Sammy Hagar), thrown in. This CD deserves a wider hearing than the original album got.


Controversial Stars-n-Bars
The first half of the album leans toward the country side as in, Hold Back The Tears,Hey Babe,Saddle Up The Palomino,with help from Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt doing their sweet thing on harmonies. Critic's talking about Neil Young's Stars-n-Bars, calling it a thrown together commercial hodge-podge,and maybe they're right, the bottom line is that it work's and this recording will stand the test of time as a Neil Young classic showcasing the amazing versatility of this great artist. On the rock flip side this recording features,the Young classic rocker, Like A Hurricane, the grinding,Bite The Bullet, and the smokin', Homegrown. . . not bad for a throw together,a remastered Neil Young essential,and a wild album cover included.


Excellent record !!
There is a nice mix of country and rock including some mesmerizing back up vocals. I have listened to this record 4 times straight and can't get enough of it. A must have for classic rock/Neil Young fans. .


A Hundred Percent


And a folk singer. Neil Young is a rock singer.

And a poet.

And on this album you don't get one part poet, one part folk, one part rock. You get 100% of all of that.

Fusion of cultures and styles works really well not when you mix them in well-measured parts, but when you are fully committed to every single one of them. And on this album Neil is fully committed to country, and to rock, and to poetry. So while country seems to dominate most of the songs here, this is as much a country album as it is a rock album. It might be a very surprising comparison, but this 100% commitment to all the different styles reminded me of one of my all-time favorite albums - Cornershop's "Woman's Gotta Have It".

I am a rock person, not a country person, and yet "American Stars and Bars" was instantly appealing to me; moreover - i will never listen to country music the same way again.

Oh, and this record happens to have "Like a Hurricane" on it, too.

P. S. Yes, the cover art is one of the worst ever. But look well at the whiskey bottle - there's subtle humor there, which you just gotta love.


Not a complete loss, but a loss just the same
Love that solo. A few interesting songs: Like a Hurricane blows everything else on this album off the map and is easily one of Neil's best guitar showpieces. . . Bite the Bullet and Homegrown are also good, I suppose. But you get the feeling Neil was on cruise control here. I guess he spent most of his artistic chips on the Ditch Trilogy (and After the Gold Rush, for that matter), and really wouldn't win them back until 1979's Rust Never Sleeps. He was in the midst of his country period here, and I'm no country fan, so perhaps that's why I can't get into the record's constant country gimmicks (pedal steel, fiddle, 2/4 bassline, etc. ), and Neil had temporarily forgotten how to write a decent lyric (Hurricane excepted). The one big experiment(Will to Love) just so happens to be awful. The rest is insubstantial at best (Saddle up the Palomino; The Old Country Waltz; Star of Bethlehem) and borderline torturous at worst (Hey Babe; Hold Back the Tears). It's not as bad as Comes a Time or most of the '80's albums, but it's bad just the same. .


You can see a complete list of all Neil Young discography, or go back to the Neil Young tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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