Neil Young - Le Noise Acoustic Sessions (2010)

It's been a while since I've posted any of Neil Young's music. I've been moving chronologically through his 1980s stuff, and I plan to continue doing that. However, I've been distracted by some other music, especially because I'm trying to prioritize the posting of recent home concerts. That said, I want to step out of my usual chronological progression and post something he did from 2010 because I just came across it.

In 2010, Young released the album "Le Noise." The title is a word play on the name of the producer, Daniel Lanois. Personally, I think the album is just good, not great. Ironically, given that the album is named after the producer, much of the problem is due to the production.

It turns out that Young originally planned for it to be an all acoustic album. Only two of the songs, "Love and War" and "Peaceful Valley Boulevard," ended up being recorded in that form. Instead, he played most of the songs with a distorted electric guitar sound, but no bass, drums, or other instruments. As one reviewer at rateyourmusic.com said, "The sound of this album is just... not very engaging. It's basically just the same massively distorted guitar sound on every track."

On the same day that Young released the album in 2010, he also released video footage of him playing each of the songs from it. Most of the versions on video are exactly the same as the ones on the album, although there are some exceptions, such as the way he merged the songs "Walk with Me" and "Sign of Love" together.

But years later, he released a longer versions of the same video, with extra songs. This version is much more interesting, and the music from it is presented here. Three of the extra songs, "For the Love of Man," "Twisted Road," and "Born in Ontario," would be released on his "Psychedelic Pill" album in 2012. But that album was done with his band Crazy Horse, and the versions there are very different. I like these better. There also is an interesting solo electric guitar instrumental (anyone have any idea if it has a name?!) that came to an abrupt end due to a blown amp or some similar technical problem.

The extra songs also included a version of one song on the album, "Hitchhiker," done with solo electric guitar just like the album, but without the crazy amounts of reverb and echo added to it. This version is far superior, in my opinion. So I've replaced the album version with this version, and included the other version as a bonus track for completists.

But perhaps most crucially of  all, this longer video contains two versions of the song "You Never Call." This song still hasn't been officially released, although it appeared in the film "Neil Young Journeys" in 2011. What's frustrating is that it's possibly the best song out of this bunch! It's a moving tribute to his friend and producer L.A. Johnson, who died in early 2010. Two versions of this song were included, one on acoustic guitar and the other on organ. I've moved the organ version to be one of the bonus tracks.

Finally, I'm including a song here that isn't actually part of the Le Noise extended video, but should have been, "Leia." In typically perverse Neil Young fashion, he played this song in most of the concerts for the album (which also, perversely, took place before the album was released), and then didn't include it on the album either. It also remains unreleased, and it also is one of the better songs. Plus, it's played on piano, which is welcome relief to the monotonous solo electric guitar sound of much of the album. I found an excellent sounding version from a concert bootleg and stuck it in the middle of the album.

The official "Le Noise" album is rather short, at 38 minutes long. This album, if you don't count the bonus tracks, is an hour and four minutes long. Personally, I think this makes it a stronger album. If you were to remove a couple of the solo electric guitar tracks from the released album and keep all the extra songs, I think it would make an even better album that would still have a good album length. But I'm leaving all those in so people can make up their own minds.

01 You Never Call [Guitar Version] (Neil Young)
02 Walk with Me - Sign of Love (Neil Young)
03 Leia (Neil Young)
04 Someone's Gonna Rescue You (Neil Young)
05 Love and War (Neil Young)
06 Angry World (Neil Young)
07 Hitchhiker (Neil Young)
08 Peaceful Valley Boulevard (Neil Young)
09 Rumblin' (Neil Young)
10 For the Love of Man (Neil Young)
11 Twisted Road (Neil Young)
12 Born in Ontario (Neil Young)
13 Instrumental (Neil Young)

Hitchhiker [Echo Version] (Neil Young)
You Never Call [Organ Version] (Neil Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15193997/NeilY_2010_LeNoisAcoustcSessions_atse.zip.html

The cover art picture is a screenshot from the "Le Noise" video. It's similar to cover of the "Le Noise" album, since he was standing in the same room in both cases.