Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Ragged Glory

So, commenting on Neil Young in the '80s is a bit complicated, it seems that musically his story during that period follows a bit the example of almost all the great rock veterans. People like him, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and so on, found themselves amidst a decade of fleeting trends, bands, and plastic music, and perhaps, among the likes of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and company, they felt like fish out of water.
In Neil's case, there were severe personal problems as well, such as having two children both severely handicapped, and artistic ones, like having a record label that demanded releases when he had nothing to say musically, consumed as he was by the aforementioned family issues. Geffen even went so far as to sue him for making records that were "not Neil Young-like." Thus, he found himself in the midst of a whirlwind of continuous style changes, from the raw hard rock of Re-Ac-Tor, to the electronics of Trans (which nonetheless had a purpose, as it was an attempt to communicate with his deaf-mute and brain-damaged son), to the playful rockabilly of Everybody's rockin', to the dusty country of Old ways, to the rhythm'n'blues of This note's for you. It's best to draw a merciful veil over Life and Landing on water; it would be better if they had never been released.

1989 was a year of sensational rebirth for all the aforementioned artists, Bob Dylan with Oh mercy, Lou Reed with New York, Neil Young with Freedom, an album that marks his return to rock'n'roll, but it is with Ragged glory the following year that Neil once and for all puts things in the right place.
An album of exciting beauty, pure adrenaline, recorded entirely live and thus not without some technical imperfections, but rock doesn't have to be about perfection, rock is a matter of feelings and moods, and it is especially this way that this album must be listened to and experienced.
There isn't a single weak moment in this album which moreover cements him as the putative father of the Seattle grunge generation (so much so that Pearl Jam and Kurt Cobain would become great admirers of his, as well as friends). The highlights can be found in "Love to burn," "Over and over," and "Love and only love," long rides where Neil makes his Old Black scream with feedback and distortions as we are used to hearing him live.
His companions on this adventure are the reunited Crazy Horse, which means Billy Talbot, Frank "Poncho" Sampedro, and Ralph Molina who, on their part, go all out and prepare the road for the 1991 tour, which would later be immortalized on a double CD titled Weld, and which would turn out to be one of the most energetic and noisy live albums of recent years.
A song destined to become a classic is definitely "Mansion on the hill," a great track that has since become a staple in his electric concerts.

Interesting detail. The album was recorded in a barn equipped as a recording studio, and it is said that Neil wanted the arenas where the following tour concerts took place (which by the way had Sonic Youth as a supporting band) to smell of horse manure, to convey the idea of where the album was recorded. The barn in question was in California and, towards the end of one of the sessions, there was an earthquake that occurred just as the band was ending a piece with one of those long feedbacks and it made that noise even more impressive. "Wow! We were riding the earthquake!".