Whining Through the Paradox
NEIL YOUNG On the Beach (Reprise) We have reached the second stanza of the title song of Neil Young's new album, On the Beach, and Young is still whining: "I need a crowd of people/But I can't face them day to day." The words are uncharacteristically direct, but there's nothing new about the tone of voice; Young's singing borders on whining even at its most mellow.
Whining Through the Paradox
RECORDS
Robert Christgau
NEIL YOUNG
On the Beach
(Reprise)
We have reached the second stanza of the title song of Neil Young's new album, On the Beach, and Young is still whining: "I need a crowd of people/But I can't face them day to day." The words are uncharacteristically direct, but there's nothing new about the tone of voice; Young's singing borders on whining even at its most mellow. Then he repeats the same lines. Nothing new about that, either; Young repeats himself repeatedly. Then there is a change: "My problems may be meaningless/But that don't make them go away."
Then the original lines are repeated one more time.
Something in the obsessiveness of this music is easy to dislike and something in its thinness hard to enjoy. But there is no question of dishonesty, as there was with his biggest album, Harvest, and as there remains with the mammoth grosses he split with touring associates Crosby, Stills and Nash this summer. The thinness bespeaks a genuine, if comfortless, fragility, and the self-concern contains genuine self-doubt. Are Neil Young's problems meaningless? It's certainly good of him to ask.