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i worked at a video store back when Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man came out...loved it then, and still love it two decades later. i also thought Neil Young's stark musical score fit brilliantly into the film.
...but that's about where the brilliance ends. as a stand-alone piece of music that clocks in at over an hour, it's a tedious listen. i imagine anyone that says this is their favorite Neil Young album either hates Neil Young or is being a hipster arbitrarian, given that Young is a celebrated SONGWRITER. like, "oh, you enjoy Neil Young's music? you should check out this instrumental improv that sounds more like a Ry Cooder soundtrack!" essentially just one song's worth of guitar notes, reverb-ed out over a sixty minute span, save for bits of dialogue from the film, William Blake poetry being read by Johnny Depp (which i don't remember actually being in the movie, but maybe they were), some pumps from a pump organ and sounds effects of cars.
...which brings me to other amazon reviewers' complaints about this album...some folks here seem to be griping that the car sounds were accidentally included by mistake; as if vehicles in the background were being picked up by the microphones during recording, or that the person mixing this album didn't notice that they added library sound effects of automobiles, and this went unnoticed by Neil Young, by the mixer, by the mastering lab and by the record label that released it. the car sounds are deliberate, an attempt to move the music from piece to piece and, without them, this sparse audio would've been TOO sparse. the car noises work best when they can be passed off as rushing reverb, waves of water, or possibly storm sounds. when you can tell it's a car door being slammed or an engine ignition, it doesn't work at all; it takes you out of the sound experience. train FX would've been more appropriate, since the film takes place in the pre-auto days (but does actually include travel via locomotive)...the distant echo of a wailing whistle, the rumbling of railroad tracks and some "chugga chugga" could've been a nice compliment to the soundscape. so, the car sounds are an artistic misstep perhaps, but not an audio "mistake" per se. it's SUPPOSED to sound like that, dummy.
in closing, i can only recommend this album to Neil Young completists...or, possibly to Ry Cooder fans. considering that, three stars seems like a high rating, but it does work SO perfectly in the context of a great film (which i am going to give a five star rating to next).
* if you're going to plunk down your hard-earned cash for the pricey vinyl edition, watch out for a recent bootleg of the 2LP set. the illegal "import" version can be distinguished by a lack of matrix numbers on any of the record sides (matrix numbers are etched into the vinyl itself, near the center labels...or, in the case of the bootleg, NOT etched into the vinyl near the center labels).
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Top reviews from other countries
Lodestone
BRILLIANT!!!! Watch it now and many times.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 6, 2010
Mr Orion
If you love the film then this purchase is essential
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2014Mr. N. C. Mitchell
This appears to be a bootleg
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2013
