Inspired by the Tull thread - Neil Young Rankings

[saucyjackstl]

Over my life I have owned 36 (37 if you add the Live Rust Never Sleeps). With other live and bootleg recordings, I wanted to stick to studio albums. The cult classic category is one where there was a unique time and/or sound that appeals because of that uniqueness and specificity. For those music lovers that haven't heard the first 6 on this list, I highly recommend investigating. All things Neil Young get better with age, so it takes a few listens.

Must Have
1 On the Beach
2 Harvest Moon
3 Are You Passionate?
4 Harvest
5 Rust Never Sleeps
6 Freedom

Great
7 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
8 After the Gold Rush
9 Prairie Wind
10 Zuma
11 Long May You Run
12 Tonight's the Night

Cult Classics
13 Time Fades Away
14 Trans
15 Mirror Ball
16 The Monsanto Years
17 Storytone

Good
18 Ragged Glory
19 Living with War
20 Neil Young
21 Life
22 Sleeps with Angels
23 Comes a Time
24 This Note's for You
25 Greendale
26 Landing on Water
27 Old Ways
28 Hawks & Doves
29 Peace Trail
30 Fork in the Road

Stinkers
Everybody's Rockin'
American Stars 'n Bars
Le Noise
A Letter Home
Re-ac-tor

Never Owned
Broken Arrow
Chrome Dreams II
Americana
Psychedelic Pill
Silver & Gold

[JKL2000]

Strange that you like Landing On Water and Trans but think Re-ac-tor is a stinker. I like all three.

[Trane]

Didn't we do this on the" What's So Great About NY?" thread ?

=================

anyways

Great but not perfect (a perfect NY album doesn't exist)
Live Rust (& the RNS film)
Rust Never Sleeps
Everybody Knows
On the Beach

A notch below
Zuma (inconsistent)
Ragged Glory
Psychedelic Pill
Decade
Arc/Weld

Ok, but not great
Tonight's the Night
Time Fades Away
This Note's for You
Mirror Ball
Greendale
Monsanto years
American Stars 'n Bars
Re-ac-tor
Debut (fucked up production on this one)
Goldrush & Harvest (yes, this low... don't like the country feel on most of these tracks)

The rest: is simpoly not my thing

[Joe F.]

American Stars n Bars a stinker? Not in this house.

[Joe F.]

Top 5 NY albums for me:

On the Beach
Zuma
After the Gold Rush
Tonight's the Night
Everybody Knows this is Nowhere

[pb2015]

Love the first album. His art-rock record.

Broken Arrow is underrated.

[Dave (in MA)]

3 Are You Passionate?

I'm not going to agree or disagree with anyone but I'm going to guess this won't be on anyone else's top 10.

[arabicadabra]

In no particular order:
Debut
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
After The Gold Rush
Harvest
Comes A Time

That's all I've ever wanted to hear - the "I PRACTICE" albums....

[gryphs also]

Not going to go through the whole catalogue because that would take forever, but two statement IMHO:

a) Everyone Knows This Place Is Nowhere needs to be in the Top 5 or the opinion should be disregarded (remember...IMHO).

b) I have to include boots and Young Man's Fancy is a big favourite of mine.

[Tim47]

Are you Passionate - Yea, I thought that was a strange choice for the top tier.

[spacefreak]

Must Haves

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
After the Gold Rush
Zuma
On the Beach
Harvest
Rust Never Sleeps
Tonight's the Night
Ragged Glory
Arc/Weld