Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Barn

LA RECENSIONE

Written quickly, stolen, for an album that should be enjoyed spontaneously as it was composed. At this point, they probably don't even listen to each other anymore, the musicians: so many are the years that the brushes, the breaths, the strums add up with the peace and naturalness of muscle memories. America has tried to make country-rock an epic/representative genre of its identity, like their folk (which, however, remains something else). Internally, they even succeeded. Externally, to a European, for example, the genre almost always sounds at least a bit fake, a bit of a façade, a bit of empty star-spangled arrogance. Neil (Canadian by origin) has always been, for me, the exception that confirms the rule. His improbable voice, his artistically precise rockish ineptitude on the guitar, and his enviable pen are the arrows in the quiver of a white man crossing the plains with alert eyes and dusty boots, to transform over time, drugs, and millions into a kind of rich, grumpy old rockstar with an obsession for engines. That is to say, a rockstar ultimately sincere because vulgar and contradictory, opposed to a Don Henley or any sideburned moron from Nashville. With his flaws, his obsessions, and his annoyances, aided by the battered machines of Crazy Horse, who even resurrected an ancient member to replenish the sparse ranks of the formation, with all this, with his ugly out-of-tunes left with rock nonchalance, Young the old produces his best album since Psychedelic Pill, which is like visiting your grandfather and listening to the usual stories, the rants against old politicians, because in the end, calmed and relieved, he passes something beautiful to you, like shaving with the blade and brush or the vineyards where to buy good Raboso.

Written quickly, stolen, for an album that should be enjoyed spontaneously as it was composed. At this point, they probably don’t even listen to each other anymore, the musicians: so many are the years that the brushes, the breaths, the strums add up with the peace and naturalness of muscle memories. America has tried to make country-rock an epic/representative genre of its identity, like their folk (which, however, remains something else). Internally, they even succeeded. Externally, to a European, for example, the genre almost always sounds at least a bit fake, a bit of a façade, a bit of empty star-spangled arrogance. Neil (Canadian by origin) has always been, for me, the exception that confirms the rule. His improbable voice, his artistically precise rockish ineptitude on the guitar, and his enviable pen are the arrows in the quiver of a white man crossing the plains with alert eyes and dusty boots, to transform over time, drugs, and millions into a kind of rich, grumpy old rockstar with an obsession for engines. That is to say, a rockstar ultimately sincere because vulgar and contradictory, opposed to a Don Henley or any sideburned moron from Nashville. With his flaws, his obsessions, and his annoyances, aided by the battered machines of Crazy Horse, who even resurrected an ancient member to replenish the sparse ranks of the formation, with all this, with his ugly out-of-tunes left with rock nonchalance, Young the old produces his best album since Psychedelic Pill, which is like visiting your grandfather and listening to the usual stories, the rants against old politicians, because in the end, calmed and relieved, he passes something beautiful to you, like shaving with the blade and brush or the vineyards where to buy good Raboso.