World Record

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Released on 11/18/22 by Reprise
Main artists: Crazy Horse Neil Young
Genre: Rock

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Given Neil Young's range and output, it's just as helpful to describe what World Record isn't before getting to what it is: It's not a previously unreleased studio album from the 1970s; an instrumental guitar album a la Le Noise or Arc; an Old Ways-style country album; a romantic stroll through Harvest Moon balladry; a Devo-inspired electronic rock album like Trans; or a mad-as-hell-not-gonna-take-it-anymore rager Ragged Glory.

World Record, though, is notably ragged in its own way. Sounding like the band borrowed a friend's two-car garage despite being recorded at co-producer (with Young) Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studio in Malibu, it's a stripped down, stubbornly direct missive to a world in which Young has spent nearly eighty years.

A hint of what's to come on his millionth studio album, in fact, arrives before he plays the first note. We hear a little studio chatter, drummer Ralph Molina counts off the beat and Young and Crazy Horse casually enter into a piano-driven mid-tempo song called "Love Earth." Sounding duct-taped together, the recording moves with a loping grace as Young opens with a couplet that's, well, pretty basic. "Love Earth/ And your love comes back to you/ Love Earth/ Such an easy thing to do!"

What follows is an exploration of the Youngian worldview as moderated by Rubin and featuring Molina, guitarist Nils Lofgren and bassist Billy Talbot: Songs and lyrics about old and new love, a fragile planet, dreams both hopeful and dying, the end of war, the toll of strife, blue skies, sparkling waters, the rising and falling of the sun and "roads we left behind." A 15-minute muffler-free song about the morality—and thrill—of driving a gas-guzzling old Chevrolet? You betcha.

This is the sound of Young doing Young—with the addition of the occasional pump organ and whatever multi-instrumentalist Lofgrin harnesses, be it lap steel, slide guitar, accordion or, on the glorious "The Wonder Won't Wait," what liner notes call "tap sweep percussion."

Though a relatively varied mix of Young bangers and weepers, World Record is united by its seemingly casual approach. Molina or Young count off many songs, an indication that the band was working live in a room and not swapping digital files.

One of the least precious records in his deep catalog, World Record seems to abhor sentimentality while embracing a screw-it-let's-let-loose ethos. The approach, however, does lead to an occiasional clunker. "Walkin' On The Road (To The Future)," opens with a telegraphed rhyme—"Walkin' on the road to the future is scary/ We want to make the best of the past and not tarry"—that could have been penned by a Neil Young AI song generator.

But, really, such critiques are petty at this point. This is Young in his natural habitat, gazing and grazing as the world around him keeps spinning. © Randall Roberts/Qobuz

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World Record

Neil Young

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Love Earth