0308. Neil Young
Harvest

Neil Young's sixth album on this list which, I guess, puts him in the lead. This time it's the album, or rather the song, that made him a household name, as the single Heart Of Gold climbed to the first spot on the U.S. charts (a fact that apparently bothered both Neil and Bob Dylan as the former didn't feel comfortable in the mainstream spotlight and the latter thought the song sounded too much like one of his own tracks).

It's a bit uneven (as always), but there are no decidedly bad tracks. I just can't decide if I like the conflict between the guitar solo and the piano in Words (Between The Lines Of Age) or not, but it still works. And the bombastic orchestrations of A Man Needs A Maid and There's A World are sweet (kudos to The London Symphony Orchestra for that), but it's almost the only things that catches me in those songs.

Better then the aforementioned Heart Of Gold (even though Linda Ronstadt's backing vocals kinda brings it down a bit). Along with Alabama, where he returns to the theme of Southern Man (and riles up Lynyrd Skynyrd a bit more) and of course the anti-heroine The Needle And The Damage Done it crowns the album and are vintage Young.