Customer Reviews

The Complete Guide to the Music of Neil Young

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This book covers all of Neil's commercially releasesd music from Buffalo Springfield through Mirror Ball. Nothing earth shattering here and the book focuses entirely on the music and is NOT a biography but it is a nice little book.

It is not so much something to sit down and read as it is a reference guide. It would be a great reference guide for someone who is still looking to complete a Neil Young collection. Every song Neil released in that period (1966-1995)is listed and briefly reviewed. The book is organized chronologically by date of album (CD) release and has an index which makes it handy.

A compact book detailing Neil's career song by song. Very complete and thorough review. Rogan is a good writer and knowledgable about Neil Young and his famous cohorts. This is a fine companion to your Neil Young CD collection.

As an avid reader of anything about Neil Young, I would rate this near the top of the heap, but that is relatively faint praise. Rogan writes and is edited better than Einarson (The Canadian Years) and David Downing (Dreamer of Pictures)and is less pretentious than Paul Williams (Love To Burn) but in the end,I probably enjoyed those books more. However, because I read those books first that may be partly due to the fact that necessarily this book covers the same ground.

Unfortunately, no one has yet written the definitive book on Neil so we have to make do with what is out there.

This might be a pleasing read-along for the casual collector. Rogan provides short blurbs for each song, including a little background information on each, and quotes from (unsourced) interviews. Many Neil Young fans could write this book in a weekend alone with a stereo and a pot of coffee.

As a "Guide" though, this book is not "Complete". Neil Young has a few unreleased albums (like "Chrome Dreams", which went as far as an acetate) and unrecorded tunes (like "No One Seems To Know"). Rogan's book doesn't cover these. Heavyweight collectors will also be dissatisfied with lack of information on various releases. Not to mention, if I may be so gauche, bootlegs.

And realisticly you can buy a dozen record guides (and read dozens more online) that include writeups of Young's available albums.