Neil Young
Mirror Ball

“Mirror Ball” was released in 1995, and it was the album that cemented Neil Young's prominent role in the 90s music scene.

During that period, Young had inaugurated the alternative scene, popularizing Sonic Youth among the general public and inspiring the grunge movement, which was the dominant musical phenomenon at the time. The epithet "Godfather of Grunge" was established by the influence acknowledged by the most important bands of the period – from Dinosaur Jr to Afghan Whigs – and by the famous mention of his verse in Kurt Cobain's farewell note. Young himself contributed to composing one of the most moving depictions of that era with the twilight “Sleeps with Angels”, a masterpiece that updated the dark works of Neil from the mid-70s in the Babylonian America of the early 90s. It was not surprising, then, that for the next step after that venture, “Mirror Ball”, the loner from Ontario co-opted Pearl Jam as the backing band. The band of Gossard and Vedder has always kept Young's electric works in their stylistic compass, also retaining the Youngian aesthetic impressed in their imagery. This was particularly evident with the release of “Vitalogy”, a poignant requiem that stood to grunge as “Tonight’s the Night” did to the Woodstock movement. The result was a joyful and inspired work, certainly oriented in the heart of the 70s (after all, the "supergroup" was one of the icons of that decade, and Neil knows a thing or two about it), reinterpreting the guitar rock archetypes of paradigm works like “Zuma” and “Rust Never Sleeps”.

The initial “Song X” immediately indicates what the sonic coordinates of this latest musical adventure will be: a layer of feedback envelops the melodic structure between powerful riffs and driving solos. The subsequent “Act of Love”, “I’m the Ocean”, and “Truth Be Known” are grunge songs in every sense, with that unmistakable signature sound of thick and distorted guitar. Nothing new under the sun, but certainly great rock tracks. Special mention for “I’m the Ocean”, whose swirling pace recalls certain elements of Pearl Jam’s “Versus”, particularly thanks to Jeff Ament's pulsating bass lines. Lyrically, this piece also defines one of the extremes of the work, painting a dark and heroic American epic like “Powderfinger”, with emblematic verses like “Homeless heroes walk the streets of their hometown /Rows of zeros on a field that's turning brown/ They play baseball They play football under lights They play card games / And we watch them every night” or “I'm not present, I'm a drug that makes you dream / I'm an aerostar I'm a cutlass supreme In the wrong lane /Trying to turn against the flow I'm the ocean /I'm the giant undertow”. On the other hand, the classic rock and roll numbers “Downtown” and “Peace and Love” are much lighter, filled with references to rock's golden age and the hippie era, or the concluding “Fallen Angel”, an organ and vocal ballad that showcases Neil's famous falsetto. The best of the work comes at the end, with “Throw Your Hatred Down”, a brand-new “Rockin’ in the Free World”, Neil’s biting attack on American gun legislation, and the long, drawn-out “Scenery”, which renews the pattern of “Cortez the Killer” in a murky ride, its lyrics evoking Cobain-like phantoms of death and celebrity. “People my age / They don’t do the things I do” sighs Neil in “I’m the Ocean”, and “Mirror Ball” confirmed how Young always had an extra gear. What the Neil Young-Pearl Jam joint venture perhaps lacked was the ability to go beyond the classic Youngian guitar rock styles, the courage to dare, which had made “Ragged Glory”, “Weld”, and then the subsequent “Dead Man” true milestones of the Canadian's mature discography. “Mirror Ball” is an "illustrated reader" of the myths of a rock icon for young generations raised on bread, Nirvana, and flannel shirts. Even though it sounds exactly as one would expect, the tricks used by the old magician from Ontario enchant once again.