Arc [Live]

Neil Young, Crazy Horse | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 12, 1991)
• Original Release Date: November 12, 1991
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Reprise Records
• ASIN: B000002LRQ
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,732 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 12-NOV-1991

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FANTASTIC, February 4, 2005

By 

Jeffery A. Zienty "quacka1" (chandler, az United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Arc (Audio CD)

Just great. Put this on when some rock jerk tries to sell you on the next big thing. File next to Metal Machine Music. Noise is what rock and roll is all about. Neil shows it's an art form all by itself. Just wonderful!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Who said psychedelia is dead?, April 20, 2004

By 

Don Schmittdiel "running_man" (Clinton Twp., MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arc (Audio CD)

Let me begin by putting to rest the rumor that, despite its similarity to `Revolution #9' from the Beatles White Album, if you record the disc onto tape and listen to Neil repeating, over and over, "I wanna love ya" backwards, you will not, I repeat will NOT hear Neil, sounding like SCTV's Bob McKenzie, saying "Take off, you Hoser!".

That being said, what else can I say about this "compilation composition", as Neil calls it? I'm not sure there was any real "composition" preceding it, save snippets from `Hurricane', `Love and Only Love', and `Welfare Mothers', but it is, definitely, a pile of something. What Neil has apparently done is to take his extended song endings, inspired by his tour mates SonicYouth, and manufactured a 35 minute seamless montage of ... song endings. Since it appears that only the above mentioned 3 songs are the source songs for this `pilation', there is some repetition. To create a 35 minute pile, Neil had to glean song endings from a variety of performances of the same three songs. Lyrically we have from `Hurricane', "I wanna love ya" and "Once I thought I saw you, in a crowded hazy bar"; from `Love and Only Love' we get (predictably) "Love and only love"; and from `Welfare Mothers' Billy Talbots "No more pain..." mantra. Aside from Talbot's single take, the verses are repeated more times than you will be inspired to count.

Is it any good? Well, ask yourself, if you've seen the video `Weld' (the film produced during this same tour) whether you enjoy the extended song endings offered there, or do you find yourself wishing Neil would wind it up already and move on to the next song? If you haven't seen the video, ask yourself if you enjoyed George Harrison's experimental `Wonderwall' album, or the `Apple Jams' disc in his `All Things Must Pass' box set. If you did, and you're `into' unconventional, rather psychedelic, distorted electric guitar meanderings, then you're like me and you should get your hands on this disc, and perhaps some therapy!

The sheer fact that Neil was able to produce such an album and `get away with it' reinforces the aura surrounding his accomplishments. In a small and odd way, it helps to round out his body of music, much like `Revolution #9' revealed to us the extremes in the mindset of the Beatles. Not sure if it's good for what ails ya', but you will possess a deeper appreciation for the artist Neil Young. Three stars only because that's dead in the middle, and I have no idea what to rate this.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love and only love..., May 30, 2002

By 

John Nordstrom - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arc (Audio CD)

Okay, this one isn't for everyone. Yes, this is one long noisy track filled with feedback, gutteral guitar rumblings, and occasional snippets of song verses. But what feedback and what rumblings!

Comparisons to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music aren't really on the mark. MMM is virtually structureless (at least to my ears), while Arc most definitely has structure. Eruptions of pure bass explosions fade into soft passages (Neil singing "I want to love you" over and over again) which crashes into cymbals and drums and feedback. And then the bass explodes again. The passage that begins at around 26:30 where Neil hints at picking up the pace, then drops into a Peter Gunn thing at around 28:30, then just explodes into a desperate frenzy ("No more pain!") at about 32:00 before the piece fades out in gentle bass rumbles and high note glissandos is probably my favorite section of Arc.

I listen to Arc quite a bit. Probably more than any other Neil Young album I have, though I do like Ragged Glory and Freedom quite a bit, as well as his early stuff (really do need to get Decade someday). I tend to listen to Arc when I need to shut out the world around me and concentrate, like when I'm writing or coding. As a matter of fact, it's high on my list for headphone music at work (another favorite choice is Mozart's Requiem, particularly the version conducted by Colin Davis). It's not just ambient music though, and I do like to occasionally listen to it attentively. Don't get Arc expecting songs in any conventional sense, but do try it if you are at all musically adventurous.