Customer Reviews

Lucky Thirteen

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Neil Young put together this compilation album in 1993 as a buy-out from Geffen Records. To Neil's credit, he did some manuevering to create a salable product, at least for his own loyal fan base. Unfortunately, the Geffen years were Neil's least prodigious, and some of Neil's choices for this project are wide open for second-guessers like me and you.

The Geffen years included Young songs copyrighted between 1982 and 1988, one year shy of the landmark 'Freedom' CD (Geffen must not be living right). 'Lucky Thirteen' opens with two songs from his 1983 release 'Trans', 'Sample and Hold' and 'Transformer Man'. While the extended version of 'Sample and Hold' (originally offered on the European import version of the album) is nice to have, 'Transformer Man' can be found on three other Young discs and two video releases. An unreleased composition from the 'Old Ways' sessions, 'Depression Blues' follows, a nice but unspectacular acoustic track. Two tracks from the officially released 'Old Ways' disc are also included, 'Once An Angel' and 'Where Is the Highway Tonight'. 'Once An Angel' is easily the better track chosen from this collection of acoustic country compositions.

Twice on this CD Neil wisely dips into some live material that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day. The 'Old Ways' tracks are split by two live recordings of Neil and The Shocking Pinks on their 1983 tour. Captured live in Dayton, Young offers two unreleased compositions, the rockabilly 'Get Gone', which fits in well with other retro-rockers from the 'Everybody's Rockin' disc, and 'Don't Take Your Love Away From Me', a pure blues-rock number in the same vein as 'After Berlin' from this same time period.

Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. In the mid-1980's, Young produced two of his weakest efforts. From 'Landing On Water', released in 1986, we get the synthesizer driven 'Hippie Dream', which ironically lowballs the era and mindset that spawned Young's own career, with 'Wooden Ships' taking an undeserved broadside, and 'Pressure', which sounds like an adrenalin-laced bad Devo imitation. Young barfed on 'Landing On Water' with 'Life', and despite returning Crazy Horse to the studio, Young remained in songwriting misery. 'Around the World' and 'Mideast Vacation' are only mediocre by Young standards.

Numbers 12 and 13 return to the live recording strategy, and work well. Neil's last official production with Geffen was 'This Note's For You', a quality work that signaled Young's return to form. We're caught by two catchy tunes from the road, the first being the unreleased 'Ain't It the Truth', a song Neil first performed with his band The Squires in 1964. It's a nice little rocker with obvious historical interest for Young fans. We also get a live version of the title track from 'This Notes For You', an energetic protest number skewering commercialism, recorded in the World Headquarters for Commercialism, Hollywood, California and ending up on this all-too-commercial disc for entirely commercial reasons.

If you're into creating your own CD's, it's nice to have these unreleased and live recordings to add to other period pieces. For instance, try tacking the live Shocking Pink's tracks onto the end of 'Everybody's Rockin' to fill out that sparse disc. And if you wisely have not slapped good money down for some of Neil's misguided 1980's products ('Old Ways', 'Landing On Water' and 'Life'), here's your chance to possess proof of your wisdom. It's almost comical to compare this 'greatest hits' package with other Neil Young compilations such as 'Decade' or 'Live Rust', but at the same time Young has found ways to fire up the interest of his followers. Lyrics are included in this, one of the strangest compilations you'll ever come across.

Neil Young went nuts in the 1980s, indulging himself in all sorts of weird projects including space rock and rockabilly as well as straight up country and blues albums. The records were for the most part mediocre and this collection purports to collect the "highlights" from them. If you want to hear an example of the problem with Young's genre wanderings, check out "Transformer Man" here from the space rock album "Trans" and its bizarre synthesized vocals. Then check out the same song on the album "Unplugged," sans the technology. You'll be amazed at how pretty the song really is. For all but diehard Young fans, this album suffices in place of his 1980s material. Even so, it is still a very uneven listening experience.

Many great artists of the nineteen-sixties and seventies waned in the eighties, but how many released work so awful that their record label sued them because of it? By the time Neil Young's tenure with Geffen Records (to whom he signed in the early eighties) was complete, the record label had sued the singer/songwriter for three million dollars for making music "unrepresentative of himself." Listening to Lucky Thirteen, a compilation that collects highlights (and I use the term loosely) from his Geffen years, one can understand Geffen's frustration and disappointment at enduring consistently baffling creative decisions and sub par output from this usually outstanding artist.

Throughout his time at Geffen, Mr. Young bounced from genre to genre, adopting many sounds completely atypical to his characteristic gruffness and solemnity, often sounding utterly ridiculous. His Geffen debut, 1982's Trans, introduced "Neil 2," a peculiar musical entity who sang sci-fi inspired lyrics into a squeaky computer filter over hyperactive, Kraftwerk-ish synthesizers. Lucky Thirteen's Trans tracks, "Sample and Hold" and "Transformer Man," show Mr. Young's compositional skills still intact (The version of "Transformer Man" from his 1993 Unplugged album shows what a well-written song it truly is) but that is difficult to appreciate through the dense coating of blaring electronic effects. After Trans came 1983's Everybody's Rockin', an outrageously silly album a zoot suit clad Mr. Young recorded with a rockabilly ensemble called the Shocking Pills. Thankfully, Lucky Thirteen spares listeners from any tracks from that monstrosity. Next came 1985's Old Ways, a slow, mummbly country album stuffed with stereotypes of the genre. Just look at the song titles of Lucky Thirteen's Old Ways tracks. "Once an Angel." "Where Is the Highway Tonight?" Ugh. Next came 1986's Landing On Water, an album that bored listenors with its conformity to the lowest common denominator of the current new wave movement. One track, however, "Hippie Dream," smartly included on Lucky Thirteen, rages with intense cynicism and grinding guitars reminiscent of Neil 1. There was hope for more of the same when Mr. Young reunited with his on-again-off-again backing band, Crazy Horse on 1987's Life. Unfortunately dated eighties-style production and an obvious lack of creative energy bogged the album down. Life did feature two stand-out tracks, however, the startling, current-event inspired songs, "Mideast Vacation" and "Around the World," both of which are also high points on Lucky Thirteen. The compilations' final song is not from any of Mr. Young's Geffen releases, but the title track from This Note's for You, an 1988 offering that marked his return to his former label, Reprise. Although, his second tenure at Reprise would see a return-to-form, Mr. Young still had one last experiment to get out of his system. For This Note's for You, he teamed-up with a jazz group called The Bluenotes for an album of lumbering blues-rock. The effort was surprisingly pleasing (Make enough seemingly random creative decisions and eventually one has to work out right). The title track features an excellent bluesy rhythm and lyrics that cleverly mock musicians' product-endorsement deals.

After This Note's for You, Mr. Young released 1989's Freedom, his stunning comeback record and went on to a period of creative prosperity that rivaled his classic output of the seventies. Unfortunately, his eighties work comprises a valley as deep as his peaks of the seventies and nineties are high. Lucky Thirteen stands as a decent crash coarse for fans enticed by work from his better days and curious about this peculiar stage in his career, but expect to be more bewildered and disillusioned than impressed. Lucky Thirteen is a thorough display of a great artist at his most outlandish, confusing and downright bad.

This collection artfully salvages eight years of Mr Young's period in the Wilderness. As he lurches from electronica to rockabilly to country to 80's Nuevo Wavo to big-band jump blues, and hides behind an increasingly weird series of personae, Neil once again convinces us he can be the most perverse of rock and rollers. His '80's records are barely listenable in their entirety -- this sampler converts the lousy run of Trans, Everybody's Rockin', Old Ways, Landing On Water, Life and This Notes For You into a single 60-minute tour-de-force of stylistic diversity.

"Lucky 13" is a compilation album of tracks from albums that Young recorded for Geffen in the early to mid 80's. Ever the chameleon, Young signed with Geffen records in 1981 after having a huge career during the 70's. Instead of sticking with the status quo Young put out a series of experimental albums that eventually got him sued by his own record company for not being commercial enough! These albums included "Trans" which was mostly electronic music, "Old Ways" which was basically a country album, "Everybody's Rocking" which was a rockabilly album, "Landing On Water" which was a new wavish pop rock album, "Life" which was a rather average recording with Crazy Horse, and "This Notes For You" an album of blues. None of these albums did that well at the cash registers and it did not help that as soon as Young left Geffen he released his big comeback album "Ragged Glory". A lot of people missed out on the Geffen releases but there was some nice stuff to be found on them and I personally thought "Trans" was great. In fact "Trans" is the album that first turned me on to Neil Young which most people find very strange considering the album is so different from anything else he has done before or since. The tracks on "Lucky 13" are a mix of the original album tracks and some live stuff, but it all comes from the Geffen years. The only real hit to be found here is a live version of "This Notes For You", Neil's protest song about classic rock being used in advertisements that managed to get quite a bit of radio play at the time. Although most Young fans look at the Geffen years as a low point in his career I think this compilation is packed with solid songs. "Sample And Hold", "Transformer Man", "Depression Blues", "Hippie Dream", "Around The World" and "Mideast Vacation" are all great. The rest of the tracks are decent too and the whole thing shows what an incredibly diverse artist Young really is. If you are a Young fan and looked over the Geffen albums this little compilation is worth checking out. I always enjoy it when I pull it out from time to time.

Although in the early 90's Neil Young was christened the "Godfather of Grunge" on the strength of his hard-rocking 70's catalog, most rock fans convieniently forgot that he was a music industry laughingstock in the early 80's. One look at the cover of this CD tells you all you need to know. Taken during his "Trans" techno period, Neil could have easily been mistaken for David Byrne of the Talking Heads. Jumping from one misbegotten genre experiment to the next, (techno, rockabilly, country, stax soul) Neil symbolically gave the finger to the fans who had pigeon-holed him as the country rock shaggy-haired bumpkin of "Harvest" and "After The Gold Rush". The best that can be said for this collection is that it's strikingly eclectic. Consider this an early 80's "Decade".

Thanks to Amazon, I have finally found one of my all-time favs - Neil Young's "Lucky 13" is the only album that I have ever listened to that mirrored Neil's considerable talent I first heard of a 1980 HBO (2hr) Young in Concert special - it was there and only there that two songs "Computer Age" and "Transformer Man" have been recorded. I discovered that genre of his music and immediately sought out a source to buy Neil's music and ran into brick wall after brick wall - apparently those vibes were among those that the artist did not have entitlement to since HBO claimed (I believe) all future rights on the entire work of that special....I've read much on his trials (and other artists) court appearances and legal motions to regain artist's rights to their own works and certainly favored them....it was not until 1992 when my wife discovered the "Lucky 13" album and, remembering my having many times over made it clear for my desire of those two afore-mentioned songs, bought the album on cassette for my Christmas present that year. A large break-in and subsequent theft of all my good music left me "Young-less" once again and there I've remained until much searching through all the Neil Young album offerings of practically every vendor on earth - even on several Neil Young blog sites - and then one day I'm on Amazon, I find it through Amazon's fantastic search engine and have once again become "transformed" in this "Computer Age". Although I have many other Neil Young albums, this remains my favorite, not because it is such a departure from all of his "war/political/green" challenges to all of us, but because it incorporates the very best talent both he and Crazy Horse mustered back in a time when synthesizers were only in their infancy...they personified a new genre and the world knew it not!

Neil Young went through a turbulent (some have suggested using the word sucky) period in the 80's, like Bob Dylan. Whereas Bob put out regular albums that were mostly garbage, Neil experimented a lot and tried new things, but it still ended up being mostly garbage. He was even sued by David Geffen for putting out substandard product. This album is actually a good pickup for the hardcore Young fans out there, as it has the best songs from that period on it. It was compiled by Young himself, and it's better than buying all the 80's albums you can, because, quite frankly, most aren't worth picking up by themselves. This album has the lovely Once an Angel, the best song off of Old Ways, a failed, overblown country experiment by Neil. But Once an Angel is one of the more straightforward songs on that album, and works beautifully. I actually like Sample and Hold (probably because it's long) and Transformer Man. Young sounds a little like Jethro Tull in their Under Wraps/A phase, which wasn't welcomed by the fans either (for the record, A and Under Wraps are good albums). I like This Note's For You, one of Neil's underrated songs. So, instead of picking up all the 80's albums, pick this one up at a used CD shop. Save yourself time, money, and aggravation.

It tooks me some times to love this album because it's not the usual Neil Young's stuff. But compiled by Neil himself, it not only sumarised his lost period but reinvented it. As a whole, it's a very diverse and solid album.

It began's by two electronics tracks wich are both very good (Sample and hold and Tranformer man) and melodic. Than you have a wonderful Old ways outake (depression blues), wich is contry Neil Young at his best. The two unrealesed live cuts from 83 (Get Gone and Don't take your love away from me) are revelatory, especialy the second one wich should be an all time Neil's classic.

The two country tracks (Once an angel, Were is the highway) from Old ways are well chosen, as are the tracks from Landing the water and Life wich were not very good albums (80's production). The compilation ends with two more good unrealesed live cuts from 88, including a very lively version of the classic This not for You !

But this compilation is for us to appreciate ! As a whole this is a very diverse and solid album wich ranks among the good ones from Neil.

The single most frustrating aspect of Neil Young's career is the degree of loathing he has for his fans, his closest friends, and himself (read Shakey: Neil Young's Biography if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, and pay particular attention to the "Tonight's The Night" tour, plus his relationships with Stephen Stills and the late Nicolette Larson).

Amazon nailed it in their product description: Lucky Thirteen captures a "lamentable stretch with Geffen Records" and is "a must-own for true fans of the man." This is Neil's Metal Machine Music, an unbelievable act of contempt toward the fans who bankrolled the purchase of that sprawling ranch in Redwood City. Bravo, Neil...bravo.

David Geffen later sued Young for producing a 10-year stretch of flops that "didn't sound like Neil Young." Young, of course, found this to be hilarious.

Without question, the Geffen records encapsulate the worst of Young's 4 decade-plus career. Big joke to Neil, bigger rip-off to his fans.