The most important thing about Neil Young’s new album is how fast it was cut.<\/p>\n
Talk to a major label honcho today.\u00c2\u00a0 It’ll crack you up.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re on a GLACIAL pace.\u00c2\u00a0 They want you to cut demos.\u00c2\u00a0 Co-write.\u00c2\u00a0 Work with different producers.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, even when your album is finished, they plot a release date with more thought than Rumsfeld and the President employed deciding when to invade Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, by time the music reaches the public it’s so homogenized, so bland, so OVER that that people shrug and ignore it.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if it does hit, no one takes it seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be like going to couples-counseling with someone you broke up with two years ago.<\/p>\n
One hopes to make music that will last forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Ironically, you can only do this if you forget the future and do what feels right now.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, we’re all just a blip in the history of the world, so the music is inherently evanescent, and it’s best to treat it that way.<\/p>\n
And, once a record is finished, the marketing campaign is ALSO plotted and executed with more aforethought than Rumsfeld, et al, employed.\u00c2\u00a0 There are electronic presskits.\u00c2\u00a0 Videos.\u00c2\u00a0 Appearances on MTV\/"The Today Show"\/ET.\u00c2\u00a0 Articles about the record in every publication known to man.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s carpet-bombing of the worst order.\u00c2\u00a0 And, consumers hate the major labels for it the same way the Vietnamese still hate America.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Iraqis too.\u00c2\u00a0 God, if only labels were paid for their exposure campaigns rather than the music they released…THEN they wouldn’t be in the economic doldrums.<\/p>\n
Instead of all this b.s., one should just put the record up on your Website for everybody to hear.\u00c2\u00a0 When it’s FINISHED!\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re lucky, listeners will care, and you can create some new music when the inspiration arrives, and they’ll be interested in that.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, if he weren’t Neil Young his record label wouldn’t let him release this record.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it comes too close on the heels of the PREVIOUS ONE, "Prairie Wind".\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to maximize profits.\u00c2\u00a0 Have the CD in the marketplace when the movie goes to DVD and cable.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want to confuse the customer.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to keep it easy, feed it to them like pabulum.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t respect listeners, play to the lowest common denominator, one step above mental retardation.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want to leave anybody out in your endless sales effort.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though by time you get done flogging the record to every known human being, over and over, NOBODY wants to have anything to do with the act EVER AGAIN!<\/p>\n
Neil Young’s been coasting on his reputation for eons.\u00c2\u00a0 Those remakes of Harvest…creepy.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, "Greendale" was a return to form, it made one hope.\u00c2\u00a0 But the story was so HOKEY!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happens when you lack inspiration.<\/p>\n
Neil’s inspired now.\u00c2\u00a0 You can HEAR IT IN HIS MUSIC!<\/p>\n