Customer Reviews

Trans

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the things you've got to admire about Neil Young is that the man does not stand still. Basically a metal-rocker at heart, if his concerts are to be relied on--he nevertheless is comfortable working in a wide array of musical genres, as is amply demonstrated by a spin though his retrospective Decade CD.

Trans marks a foray--with a vengeance-- into electronic music. Admittedly, if this is not your sound, this will not be one of your favorite albums. It is, however, one of those experimental efforts that works. It was, at the time of its release, well ahead of the power curve insofar as this genre was concerned. Moreover, it clearly stands as an experiment with a different sound and technology. Not only did Neil write material specifically for this album, but he also took to trying the sound out on some of his old standards. So, not only do we have the commercially successful written pieces, such as Transformer Man and Sample and Hold, but also electronically rendered pieces such as Mr. Soul and Hold on to Your Love.

What has made Young such a viable artist for so long-his awesome talent aside-is his willingness and ability to experiment, to evolve, to grow. Everybody knows some growth spurts can leave one awkward in the short run, but better off in the long run. It is precisely because of efforts such as this that Young remains the vital musical force and influence he is.

So, treat yourself to a bit of musical and personal history and give Trans a spin.

This is another album I bought when I was much younger and didn't know anything about Neil Young. Being a part of the Flock of Seagulls, After the Fire, Gary Numan etc. generation, I loved the vocoder-laden "Trans", with its muted synthesizers and hyper-distorted guitar riffs, and I now recognize it as a very entertaining experimentation by Neil Young, a lighthearted flight of fancy into a quasi-techno vein. However, I want to warn those of you who, like me, remember "Sample and Hold" and would consider buying this CD to get hold of that tune. Do not do it. The version included on this disk is some sort of watered-down Muzak version. The drums are practically inaudible, replaced by an obviously synthetic "swish" snare drum and a completely straight four-beat with synthetic hand claps. I think this remix was a very poor attempt to appeal to the European techno-pop crowd (Chemical Bros, etc.--note that this disk is an import, from Sweden), but they ruined the song in the process. "Computer Age", "We R In Control", and "Computer Cowboy" have survived intact, and because I really enjoy those tunes I give the disk three stars in spite of the fact that the producers ruined the best song on it.

It was so unexpected of Neil to turn out an album like this, and it was even more surprising that it was so entertaining, wedged as it was between his rockabilly album Everybody's Rockin' and his defiantly country album Old Ways. The updated, vocoder-laden version of Mr. Soul wasn't so great, but many of the other songs score bulls-eyes using this vocal device, most notably, Transformer Man, Sample and Hold, and Computer Age. Not all of the songs are Kraftwerk-influenced, either; the opening track, Little Thing Called Love, is a very upbeat and effective track with good "regular Neil" vocals and an excellent guitar line, too. My favorite song is the epic album-closer, Like an Inca, with the memorable line "Who put the bomb on the sacred altar?" Seeing as how this is still just available on import, the album still doesn't get heard by an American audience in the way it should. Too bad. It was a signpost album of the 80's for me.

Okay, "Trans" isn't your "typical" Neil Young record. Then again, given his amazing diversity it is hard to say exactly what IS typical for Neil. "Trans" gets a lot of heat because it began Neil's strange journey through the 1980's, in which he tried out just about every style of popular music around. Suprisingly, the weird synthesizer sound of "trans" not only fit him better than his other stylistic detours, but also showed him as being ahead of his time making electronic music. Call it "Nine Inch Neil." The highlights of "Trans" are a pair of excellent mid-tempo rockers, "Sample and Hold" and "Transformer Man," both recorded with the strange digitalized vocals that so turned off many of Neil's longtime fans. The former rocks strongly while the latter is one of Young's prettiest melodies (for proof, check out the amazing accoustic version of the song on Neil's "Unplugged" album). "Little Thing Called Love" (with normal singing) is the kind of simple uptempo love song the Neil can write in his sleep, while the reworking of "Mr. Soul" is very adventurous.

The one complaint with "Trans" is that it is too short at nine songs to be a truly fulfilling album. Otherwise, while not among Neil's best works, it is far from being the stinker that many accused it of being.

I just received my copy of Trans on CD. I too am one of the lucky ones who own this on vinyl as well and was surprised to find that Sample and Hold is a remix. It has a couple of extra minutes of time but is not the original and varies slightly from the original US release. Why do they do this? I remember the first time I played this album and was amazed at how different it was from Neil's other albums. This was a very daring album and is very, very good. A must have CD for any hard-core Neil Young fan and I truly hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I hope the original domestic release will someday be available, as I would still like to own the original "Sample and Hold" on CD. I had to fire up the "record player" just to make sure my ears were not deceiving me, and they were not.

I'm not sure why so many people don't like Trans, but I love it. I am a Neil Young fan, and I understand why Trans is sort of a shock to a lot of people, because it's incredibly different from a lot of his other work. However, the songwriting is as strong as ever, and I personally love the music too (yes including the heavy vocoder use!). Besides the vocoder songs, there are 3 songs which feature Neil's regular voice. To me, Transformer Man is a wonderful song, especially when viewed in the context that it's about Neil's son Ben. Sample And Hold and Like an Inca are my other two favorite tracks from this album, but all nine tracks are good. Don't judge this album before you hear it!

I am a relative newcomer to Neil Young's work, was turned onto Harvest back in 2001, and since I have collected as many of Neils albums as possible.

Trans is very different, well.... hmmm, some of the songs sound in-line with his previous work (Little Thing Called Love, Hold on to your Love, Like an Inca, & Mr Soul). However the songs which make use of the vocoder are very strange upon first listen.

This is a great album, imo the vocoder songs are the strongest on this album, Computer Age, and Sample & Hold are among the best songs Neil has written. I have liked this album from the first few listens and think of Trans as one of Neils best.... am currently reading his biography named 'Shakey,' which goes into detail about how Trans was heavily influenced by Neil's son Ben, who suffers from a terrible disability. This album is about Ben and his struggle. Neil Young is a trully great man.

Okay, it's not "After the Gold Rush, Tonight's the Night", or even "Comes a Time," or "Rust Never Sleeps". But given the breadth of the music on Neil's albums up to this point, and the times they were based on, should the contents of "Trans" really come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Neil? This album is unlike anything Neil has ever been associated with. But it did come out in 1982 when we were inundated with the likes of Flock of Seagulls, Talking Heads, Haircut 100 and so many other 80s bands that brought a new sound to the music scene, for better or worse. Why should Neil be forbidden from sinking his mutton chops into such a genre. Neil openly admitted that this and other CDs produced under the Geffen label were made in haste and with disdain for those in charge that were dictating what kind of music Neil should make. Neil admitted to producing albums just to get his legal obligation to Geffen over with. Given that as a basis, this CD isn't half bad. Sure, it wasn't accepted as widely as some of Neils other more recent CDs that had that "Harvest" flavor to it. But once you get past that fact, this album isn't a bad listen. Totally electronic (and not in the Crazy Horse sense) But let yourself go and fall into the theme of this album and you'll find yourself getting hooked on one or two of these tunes - though certainly not all of them. Songs like "Transformer Man"(which will ring the bells of those who own Neil's "Unplugged" CD) and Neil's newest version of "Mr. Soul" are extremely catchy, once you get used to Neil singing through a computer. Other tunes like "We R in Control" and "Computer Cowboy" are a little obtrusive, and wear out their welcome fast. On the other hand, Neil uses his unadulterated voice on the melodic "Hold Onto Your Love" and "Little Thing Called Love", the latter cut being as true to any previous Neil Young recordings in style and sound - kind of the eletric side of "Rust Never Sleeps" w/o the electric assault. Neil would stray even further from his roots on his next couple albums (his 50s sounding Shocking Pinks CD and the hot, brassy, bluesy "This Note's For You") but this CD was a landmark in his daring - his experimentation. After all, Neil didn't have the late 60s, early 70s background to produce a CD with the effect of an "Ohio" type tune. But this album screamed of the 80s and the early days of MTV when a new sounding music was entrenched on the FM dials. And "Trans" was actually not a bad fit. Give it a chance. I'll bet you'll find yourself humming at least 1 or 2 of these tunes, if only subconsciously.

I feel sorry for anyone who picked up on ol' Neil after the mid-eighties; granted, he's done some great work in the nineties, but the Everybody's Rocking/Trans tour was possibly Neil's finest moment: divided into four separate sets of music, he did the folkish/country-ish stuff on a stage decorated like an abandoned saloon: just Neil, a stool, a mike, his guitar and harmonium. Then, the stage changed and out came the heavy rocking Crazy Horse material. Slowly, as Neil and band play the hits, the set is being transformed (get it?) in progress to become the slick, aluminum-shiny showcase for the Trans material (sequencers, synthesizers, vocoders, wrap-around shades). And, over three hours later, just when you thought it was over, as an encore, the full 10-piece Everybody's Rockin' band appears, in matching pink suits, to do rockabilly and country-fried Neil. It was a hoot-and-a-holler, a howling rock storm, a fun visit to Neil's Space Lab, and some quality time with one of popular music's great folkies. I wish you could have seen it and heard it.

We know-- now-- that this album, and indeed the bulk of Young's spotty, genre-hopping, fan-vexing 80s output, was directly influenced by the birth of his son Ben, Young's second child with cerebral palsy. This album was about Young's inability to communicate with the disabled child, and his frustration around it. indeed, armed with that understanding, in hindsight the distance between artist and listener here makes absolute sense.

When it came out, though, we didn't know that. And it was still my pick for 1983's album of the year.

Essentially, this album worked upon release as a meditation on man's embrace of technology, and the perils thereof. Young, as the archtypical organic musician-- alternating gorgeous folk albums with the raucous garage rock of Crazy Horse-- was the last artist you ever thought would go electronic. But look at the cover image of Trans; in the left lane coming toward you, a car from the future; in the right, speeding away, a car from the present (or recent past). Indeed cover up the left or right side of the cover drawing, and you alternately can see one or the other worlds, a confluence of paradoxical opposites.

That's what this album plays like to me; Young straddles the white lines between the two lanes, the two worlds-- the past and the future, one coming, one going. And he tells us what he sees.

"Little Thing Called Love" starts at the beginning, and is immediately recognizable as a solid Young rocker in the vein of "When You Dance." But then the techno stuff comes in, the synths, the vocoder. (Indeed the vocoder was a tool used by Young's son to communicate, but again, we didn't know that.) Instead what we heard was an artist wrapping himself in the sounds of technology, moving further and further away from familiar ground (and presaging much of the electronic and dance music that unfolded over the next 15 years.) It is especially startling that this is Neil Young making these sounds, and because it IS him-- instead of, say, the Cars or Eurythmics-- it makes the record especially confrontational. You can't chalk the influence of technology up to musical styles; this is NEIL YOUNG, for heaven sake, who's records are great precisely because they do NOT sound like the year in which they are recorded.

Late on side two (when it was a record with sides) he pushes the envelope, maybe even goes too far, by recasting the Buffalo Springfield classic "Mr. Soul" as a wierd hi-tech squeal; he performed this one solo live on his much-maligned Trans tour, and the thought that this is what he'd done with such a classic tune was disquieting. Would the 80s see him summarily trash all his precious back catalog in a similar fashion? Did we have solo electric vocoder versions of "Like a Hurricane" to look forward to?

But in a remarkably cathartic and redemptive track, he closes the album with "Like an Inca," a song that harkens back thematically to many of his Native North American-themed epics (notably "Cortez the Killer.") The searing Young electric guitar is back, and he seems to shake off the yoke of technology, planting both feet squarely and finally taking a stand, one you did not see coming. The album's climactic verse:

I feel sad, but I feel happy
As I'm coming back to home
There's a bridge across the river
That I have to cross alone
Like a skipping rolling stone
Like an Inca from Peru.

One of his most underrated songs.

So no, I did not understand his personal message on the record-- and he has called it his most personal recording-- but it still spoke volumes to me. Like many works of art, it stands alone and has meaning for the listener outside of the thing the artist thought he was addressing. On a micro level, Young is dealing with his anguish, guilt and frustration about his son; but on a macro level, one that we can relate to, he is tellng a story about mankind and the devil's deal we strike with technology. It rings as true today as it did in 1983. And if the futuristic songs now sound dated, in a sense so much the better.

It is not his finest work, not by a long shot; this is a man who put out 9 classics in the 70s alone (no wonder he was the Village Voice's artist of the decade): Zuma, On the Beach, Tonight's the Night, Rust Never Sleeps, Long May You Run, Comes a Time, Harvest, After the Gold Rush,and Deja Vu. As the 80s wore on he confounded with more genre exercizes (the dreadful rockabilly Everybody's Rockin', generic synth rock stuff like Landing On Water with Crazy Horse, as well as the welcome country Old Ways and the swing set, This Note's For You.) He studiously avoided sounding like-- avoided being-- Neil Young, until the Eldorado ep and then the longer Freedom album at the end of the decade. By the time he and the Horse convened in '91 for the incandescent and aptly named Ragged Glory, and he followed up with the solo Harvest Moon (one raucous garage rock, the other glorious folk), he was back and all was forgiven.

But Trans remains an important work, a visionary one, a challenging one, and maybe an essential one in the Young canon.