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Rating: Look, there are still some of Young's albums not reviewed here on Debaser... So let's take the chance, since I'm listening to it at this moment... Are You Passionate was released in 2002 and doesn't differ from the immediately preceding albums, Silver & Gold, Looking Forward (with the renowned CSNY) and if we want, even Road Rocks (live), in the sense that it doesn't add anything extraordinary to its author's career, who, in these end-of-the-millennium years, years of reunion & revival, proceeds very calmly as if taking the well-deserved rest after the demanding Year of the Horse tour (from which the '97 double live album).
Until - something certainly not new in his life - he gets a whim, a sudden urge, we might say, and decides to set aside new trials with Crazy Horse and do a session with Booker T & the MG's to the rhythm of rhythm & blues, rhythm & soul, basically he gets into some sort of rhythm whatever it may be... Let us state that Neil and Booker T had already given excellent performances on stage in the early Nineties ('93 if memory doesn't deceive me, I recall a remarkable unreleased track from that occasion). This new venture into a semi-alien territory yields the band slightly retro-flavored tracks, undoubtedly infused with that rhythm, but in the long run, they don't turn out to be that attractive and brilliant... as if to say, they have a certain banality, and this also applies to the lyrics... Neil & Booker T could have serenaded a lovely lady playing these tracks down in the courtyard, if you know what I mean.
But let's try to be a bit more direct. So, the tracks that do justice to this album are: "Goin' Home", "Are You Passionate?", "She's a Healer", "Let's Roll" and "Mr. Disappointment". In the second tier as a last resort "You're My Girl". The tracks that don't do justice are the remaining 5.
Beware though: "Goin' Home" comes from previous sessions with Crazy Horse, and indeed has a completely different vibe and can be said to be quite out of place on this album.
In conclusion: 3 stars for the good tracks and the rhythmic spirit, which was certainly missing for some years, and after all, Are You Passionate? is a good album to listen to when you don't need to pay much attention to what you're listening to, for example, I find it excellent in the car, far from being a bad and unpleasant album. After this, Neil conceived the concept of Greendale and went in a whole other direction... yet continuing on one hand to maintain a certain level (at least in my opinion) and on the other to fuel debates for & against his more recent production... but those are other stories already reviewed.
Tracklist and Lyrics
06 Are You Passionate? (05:08)
Are you passionate?
Are you livin' like you talk?
Are you dreamin' now
that you're goin' to the top?
Are you negative,
In a world that never stops,
Turnin' on you?
Turnin' on me?
Turnin' on you?
Are you loving it?
Can you ever get enough of it?
Is it everything?
A love that never stops,
Comin' to you?
Comin' to me?
Comin' to you?
Once I was a soldier,
I was fighting in the sky,
And the gunfire kept
comin' back on me.
So I dove into the darkness,
And I let my missles fly.
And they might be the ones,
That kept you free.
Once I was a prisoner,
I was riding in a truck,
Cleaned up for public display.
I looked at those around me,
And when they looked at me,
I let them see my soul that day.
Are you scared of it?
Do you wish that it would stop?
Does it bother you
when you hear your spirit talk?
Well I'm right with you,
Yes I'm right with you.
It's working on me,
It's working on you.
It's working on me.
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