Harvest

Okay, so CDs have been with us getting on for thirty years now. We were told back then that they represented the pinnacle of recorded sound. So, when me and a few million other mugs bought CDs of albums we'd loved to death on vinyl, why was the listening experience so underwhelming? The record labels then realised that they had to be properly remastered using original tapes with a cutting engineer who knew their stuff. Neil Young has constantly frustrated his long standing fanbase by simulataneously whipping the horses and stamping on the brakes - threatening to release stuff then stepping back when some other format (5.1, Blu-Ray) came into view. Anyway, having finally got his finger out, the first batch of Neil Young reissues eventually came out, and, casting cynicism aside, I can honestly state that they are fantastic. I always felt ambivalent about 'Harvest'; on the one hand, it was a massive commercial success internationally, but its success seemed to cause moments of self-doubt, and Young then set about, if not actually sabotaging his career, embarked upon a series of recordings culminating in 'Tonight's the Night' and 'On The Beach' (and when is 'Time Fades Away' gonna make it (Legitimately) to the digital format?), two of the darkest records in the rock genre. Anyway, I digress. 'Harvest' sounds wonderful in this new, remastered incarnation. The guitars on 'Alabama' are brittle and sharp around the edges, and you can actually hear the room in the recording - and the bits where the instruments leak over into one another. The hit single, 'Heart of Gold' sounds so full and dynamic - you can hear the individual beats on the hi-hat, and the rhythm section - especially the loping bass line - have real depth. Also, the orchestrations - especially on 'A Man Needs A Maid', are amazingly rich and vivid. 'The Needle and The Damage Done' is totally in your face - you have to check that Young's not in the room with you! It's like hearing the record all over again, and in my mind (it's such a fine line), 'Harvest now resides as a total classic - one of Neil Young's (and anyone else's) finest.

Neil young must have superb quality

My husband was pleased to receive this as part of a present. I even knew a few on there!

Quality

A superb album on vinyl and a good quality 180gram pressing. The only problem is for some reason Amazon has started sending vinyl without any packaging, the first one arrived with just a postal label on the shrink wrap, nothing else and was damaged, the second arrived in a plastic post bag but not the standard cardboard sleeve, it was a bit bent on the corners but not badly. Get the album for sure, but be wary of Amazon packaging. If they continue posting items like this I will probably shop vinyl elswhere.

Neil young at his best. Great price

There are more pages and I only caught up with Neil Young after The Band The Last Waltz so am a novice but Heart of Gold and Helpless are well known as Dylan and Crosby Stills Nash and Young nearly always referred as Crosby Stills and Nash to the 1960s 1970s listeners. However Neil Young has made a greater impact in recent years and his Canadian, Farm and progressive activities brought him to a Presence even the suit politicians could not avoid this time and his works tend to be descriptive along with Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nickelback, Celine and Cash. Hiding in a White House has little effect but one can say this compilation will have a result as long as people read, listen and think. Sweet Home Alabama, current at this date as politicians lash out at free people and independent nations. Freedom might be Neil's observed work, but quality music and composition and dedication to real life are his forte.

This was one of his first efforts, and some feel he never quite got this back. Strangely commercial considering Neil Young's later choices. This album is a masterpiece, and is undoubtedly the most accessible of Neil's oeuvre. Classic songs, beautifully recorded imho. I would recommend this to most people as it stands the test of time (excepting, Man needs a Maid, which might get some people's backs up.) Very acoustic sound to the album.

excellent as expected...

Excellent album. Livraison impeccable.

2022年に、50周年記念で、ボックスセットも発売！でも、何回も、購入してしまいます。最近は、1960年代後半の｢クレイジー・ホース｣とのセッション・アルバム発売も話題になり。彼の曲にはまったら、もう抜け出す事は、難しいカモ。政治色な曲もありますが、彼の人柄で、切り抜ける勇気？お気に入りです。全曲必聴です！！！ 私の、5才上のパブの店長が、ファンで、影響を受け、今は、｢Living with War｣をよく聴いてます！ 私は、しばらく、｢孤独の旅路｣を続けて・・・。となるはずでしたが、逃げていませか？レビューを書かないのはなぜ？と言われそうで。うけを狙っていませんが。最近は、全く面白くない！どの感じもあり。エ～ィ、｢Do You like Muslc？｣、私もねって！久々に、大喜利を・・・。やめておき～・・・。 how dy! 冬は、もうすぐだよね！元気？

Excelente! Gatefold com encarte trazendo as letras e qualidade de áudio primorosa. Harvest reúne canções icônicas que agradam tanto aos apreciadores de folk quanto de country.

First, I'd like to congratulate the reviewer Ethel Campbell, who precedes me, and who has a 78 of this album. Who knew Neil was in his nineties!? But on with this review. It took me a while to find all four remasters (Neil's first four albums) at a decent price, and I've just purchased and listened to Harvest, the last in the series. Together, the four albums represent one of the peaks of Neil's career. They are great music, and as the title of my review indicates, my gripe is with the remastering only. Not that it isn't fine - it is - but it simply isn't enough. It's all very well to have gone back to the original master tapes, but who said the original master tapes were perfection? Do I really want to pay to have the imperfections just because they are original? There are many fine elements in these remasters, but there are also several annoying ones, because it would have been so easy to fix them. For me, the greatest irritant is the lack of proper loudness control on all four albums: on all four there are audible level drops and sudden rises. I think I can figure out why it was necessary to mess around with levels in spots - it's very hard to maintain the same loudness on a song that employs an orchestra as on a song that just has Neil gently strumming an acoustic guitar - the orchestra will fry your monitors at that level. But that could have, and should have, been fixed now. Here, on Harvest, for example, on "A Man Needs a Maid" the levels are lowered to allow the whole massive shebang to sound clear and pure; the vocal is receded accordingly, because it would sound weird if it were louder than all those instruments put together. So perhaps you adjust your sound at home, a couple of notches up, in order to hear it all as loud and clear as you'd like. Unfortunately, on the very next song, Neil comes screaming in, "Ive been to Hollywood..." because the song, with a much simpler arrangement, has been recorded louder, and you at home are now getting it way too loud. I get tired of adjusting the loudness; I want the album to sound even: Neil, you've got your digital remastering enabled, use it. The upshot is, if you already have the first-generation cds, I am not convinced that the remasters warrant the expenditure. By all means, make sure this album is in your collection, but if it already is, you're fine. (If, like another reviewer, you're buying vinyl, that's a whole other ball game. For one thing, your old vinyl is not very likely to be in mint condition, so you hardly have a choice.)