Did Neil Young Just Release His Worst Album Ever?

“I’ll always remember something Chris Rock said”
-Neil Young, “No Wonder” (2005)

“Shit, there’s a reason to kick an old man down a flight of stairs…just don’t do it!”
-Chris Rock, Bring The Pain (1996)

After thirty-plus years of deep digging through fifty-plus years of Neil Young’s music, I didn’t think he could actually surprise me. Sure, I could note the irony that he never recorded a real power trio album until 2003’s Greendale, which was also his first rock opera. I could admire the choice to replace the retiring Frank “Poncho” Sampedro in 2019 with Nils Lofgren in Crazy Horse, a guitarist who was actually part of the combo before the others knew who Sampedro was. I could roll my eyes at an orchestral project or boggle at the sound of Jim Keltner seemingly forced to improvise on Peace Trail. But these were, in a sense, familiar surprises. Little novelties to keep Neil Young, and his long-time fans, engaged and entertained. I was too young to have seen Neil go from the most punk-friendly hippie in 1979 to the most Reagan-friendly soon after, releasing unhinged, initially inexplicable albums like Everybody’s Rockin’. Nothing in the decades that followed inspired that level of concern for the guy. Well, maybe divorcing his wife of more than thirty years and doing an ad for Supreme. But the latter could be explained by the former, and none of that was on wax.

Until now! Talkin’ To The Trees, Neil’s first studio album since 2022’s World Record, was announced with some predictably unpredictable novelties. Lou Adler, 91, who signed the Mamas & The Papas and co-wrote “Wonderful World” with Sam Cooke and Herb Alpert, would be producing with Neil, 79. Trees would be Neil’s first album backed by The Chrome Hearts, which is Micah Nelson, two members of The Promise Of The Real (Micah’s brother Lukas’ band), and Spooner Oldham, who first played with Neil on Comes A Time in 1978. The track listing included “Let’s Roll Again,” which I assumed would be a less centrist sequel to his '02 Iraq War invite. The album came out in June, but after hearing the push track “Big Change," I wasn't in a rush to indulge. I kind of expected Fork In The Road II, updating his stance on electric cars after Musk’s heel turn.

What I did not expect was an opening number about singing for his family, overwhelmingly positive but with an aside about not being able to see his grandkids (written during lockdown?), Daryl Hannah referred to as his “best wife ever” (gauche sentiment, but ok, boomer), and a climactic reference to daughter Amber Jean (his only child with kids of her own), oddly free of detail. I’ve found him a little too on-the-nose since at least 2005’s Prairie Wind, though, so whatever. Then track 2 goes in on Amber. Big time.

I had to not just stop the album after my first listen to “Dark Mirage,” but debate if I’d ever finish it. How the hell did a group of people as old as Lou Adler and Spooner Oldham, and as young as Promise Of The Real, all sign off on Neil screaming about his forty-something daughter cutting him off from seeing his grandkids? They’ve all got families, right? They all have other sources of income, too, I think. Nobody said “hey, maybe this should be an e-mail?” No one noted blaming “the darkness inside” his daughter for the estrangement might seem a little tacky for track two after calling Daryl Hannah his “best wife ever” on track one, his daughter still processing her grief over Pegi Young’s 2019 death in sculpture? 

Not one of these guys thought to tell him that reaffirming his sons' affection for him (on the second straight track), will hit differently once he lays out the drama, considering one is from an earlier relationship, and the other is nonoral parapalegic? The former has less on the line, and the latter might have a hard time telling you off, dude. And again, why is this the subject matter of the first two songs on your new album? Who is this album for? Alec Baldwin, and men who wish they were Alec Baldwin? “Dark daughter called me stealin’ daddy/ she won’t say what I stole” may be artistically valid in some geriatric Plastic Ono Band way, but if you’re going to make “grandparental alienation” the first monster you tackle on a topical album in 2025, I’d suggest making sure your creative muse isn’t just narcissistic denial. And maybe don’t put comically grotesque harmonies on the chorus. Lou Adler, what were they paying you for, anyway?

After a week or so to cool down, I decided I couldn’t share my disgust until I gave the rest of the album a listen. After all, most reviews wrote off these tracks as More Wacky Neil, rather than a contemptible career nadir that makes previous peaks of callousness like “Mideast Vacation” look like “Ohio." Maybe the tree-talkin’ that follows contextualizes the intro, or makes it easy to overlook. I’ve almost got twice as many Neil albums on the shelf as any other act, so it couldn't be that hard to get through this, right? 

Young and company may well have realized the opening dyad is extreme, as the next song is Neil’s most shameless “Helpless” rewrite I can remember. Then comes an acoustic “This Land Is Your Land” rewrite. Then an electric “This Land Is Your Land” rewrite, the aforementioned “Let’s Roll Again,” which apparently has nothing to do with “Let’s Roll.” “If you’re a fascist, then get a Tesla/ if it’s electric, it doesn’t matter/ if you’re a Democrat, then taste your freedom/ get whatever you want, and taste your freedom/ yeah China’s way ahead, they’re building clean/ some days are like that, it doesn’t matter.” What is this? Agita-prop?

I’m not mad when singer/songwriters start rhyming “it doesn’t matter” with “it doesn’t matter,” though after Mark Kozelek, I’ve learned refreshing frankness from an aging artist can precede a complete meltdown. Kicking off the B side, “Big Change” turns out to be the first song up to the standard of Fork In The Road (now over 15 years old!), with Grandpa pretty sure things will be ok if we stay strong and put our dang phones down. The title track gently reflects on farmer’s markets, Bob Dylan and deep cuts from Sleeps With Angels. I’d believe the soul exercise “Movin’ Ahead” was written for This Note’s For You, the jazzy mewl “Bottle Of Love” for Sleeps With Angels. “Thankful” could also be described as a jazzy mewl, Neil somehow serene despite the kids and car companies letting him down. Glad that's settled.

Though allegedly recorded by the same people at the same place at the same time (Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La in Malibu, late ‘24!), Talkin’ To The Trees feels more like one of those grab-bag albums like American Stars’n’Bars or Hawks’n’Doves, where what was basically a concept EP got beefed up with a couple outtakes from the vault. Had they put all the gentle brush-stroke business at the front, and the cranky literal shit on the B, it would certainly be easier for a fan to process as “art.” But hey, maybe suggesting it sucks to be around Neil these days is 4D chess.

While “Dark Mirage” might be Neil’s worst song ever by humiliating default (how did the guy who gave Carrie Snodgress “Already One” give his daughter this artless shit?), Talkin’ To The Trees probably isn’t as excruciating a listen as his worst ‘80s genre exercises (for me, Old Ways, for you, maybe Landing On Water). I really hated that turn towards the tepid on Silver & Gold and Are You Passionate? too, back when health scares had him mawkish, and thinking Pegi would outlive him. But even if Talkin’ To The Trees doesn't earn the click-bait title above, I’m compelled to make sure someone online is saying “NOT GREAT, NEIL” rather than politely averting their eyes and stamping the disc with three and a half stars.

If you have something to say to me, and it's not about how grandparental alienation is real and Neil is right to shine a light on the issue, or that Landing On Water is definitely worse than Old Ways, feel free to do so via anthonyisright at gmail dot com. BARN.