Neil Young Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John Mendelsohn

Critical Essay by John Mendelsohn

On the basis of the vast inferiority relative to his altogether spectacular Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere of the two albums he's made since teaming up with Crosby, Etc. (and thus insuring that he'd never again want for an audience), it can only be concluded that Neil Young is not one of those folks whom superstardom becomes artistically.

Harvest … finds Neil Young invoking most of the L.A. variety of superstardom's weariest cliches in an attempt to obscure his inability to do a good imitation of his earlier self….

[On Harvest] Neil's lyrics dominate the listener's attention far more than befit them. Neil's verbal resources have always been limited, but before now he's nearly always managed to come up with enough strong, evocative lines both to keep the listener's attention away from the banality of those by which they're surrounded and to supply the listener with a vivid enough impression...
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