Neil Young & Crazy Horse Rust Never Sleeps 1979 Reprise Orig. Vinyl +Inserts

$

70

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Rust Never Sleeps Studio album with live recordings by  Neil Young with Crazy Horse Released June 22, 1979 Recorded 1976–78 Venue The Boarding House, San Francisco,
McNichols Arena, Denver,
St. Paul Civic Center,
Cow Palace, San Francisco Studio Indigo Ranch, Malibu,
Triiad Studios, Ft. Lauderdale,
Woodland Studios, Nashville
Genre

• Folk rock 
• hard rock 
• proto-grunge

1. "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"
   Released: August 27, 1979

Rust Never Sleeps is the tenth album by Canadian American singer-songwriter Neil Young and his third with American band Crazy Horse. It was released on June 22, 1979, by Reprise Records and features both studio and live tracks. Most of the album was recorded live, then overdubbed in the studio, while others originated in the studio. Young used the phrase "rust never sleeps" as a concept for his tour with Crazy Horse to avoid artistic complacency and try more progressive, theatrical approaches to performing live.

The album peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 album chart and spawned the hit single "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" that peaked at No. 79 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also included one of Young's most popular and critically acclaimed songs, the enigmatic "Powderfinger". The album, along with Young's 1990 release Ragged Glory, has widely been considered a precursor of grunge music with the bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam having cited Young's heavily distorted and abrasive guitar style on the B side to this album as an inspiration.

Background

The album was recorded in May 1978 during solo acoustic performances at The Boarding House in San Francisco and in October 1978 during the "Rust Never Sleeps" tour, in which Young played a wealth of new material. The concert tour was divided into a solo acoustic set and an electric set with Crazy Horse. Two new songs, the acoustic "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" and electric "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" were the centerpiece of the new material. The overdubbed live tracks are complemented with two outtakes from Young's previous album, Comes a Time

Critical reception

Reviewing for The Village Voice in 1979, Robert Christgau called Rust Never Sleeps Young's best album yet and said although his melodies are unsurprisingly simple and original, his lyrics are surprisingly and offhandedly complex. "He's wiser but not wearier", Christgau wrote, "victor so far over the slow burnout his title warns of". Paul Nelson, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, found its first side virtuosic because of how Young transcends the songs' acoustic settings with his commanding performance and was impressed by its themes of personal escape and exhaustion, the role of rock music, and American violence: "Rust Never Sleeps tells me more about my life, my country and rock & roll than any music I've heard in years."

Rust Never Sleeps was voted the second best album of 1979 in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it second on his own list for the poll, as did fellow critic Greil Marcus. The album also won Rolling Stone magazine's 1979 critics poll for Album of the Year. In a decade-end list for The Village Voice, Christgau named it the ninth best album of the 1970s.

In 2000, Rust Never Sleeps was voted number 240 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums book. In 2003, it was ranked number 350 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Rolling Stone re-ranked the album at 351 in the list's 2012 edition, and later at number 296 in the 2020 edition. In a retrospective review, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that the acoustic and electric sides were both astounding. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann viewed that Young reinvigorated himself artistically by being imaginative and bold, and in the process created an exemplary album that "encapsulated his many styles on a single disc with great songs — in particular the remarkable 'Powderfinger' — unlike any he had written before." Rob Sheffield, writing in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), felt that "Powderfinger", "Pocahontas", "Thrasher", and "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" were among Young's greatest songs.

Track listing

All tracks written by Neil Young except where noted.

Side one

1. "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" (Neil Young, Jeff Blackburn) (3:45)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocal, harmonica
   • Recorded at The Boarding House, San Francisco, May 26, 1978
2. "Thrasher" (5:38)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocal, harmonica
   • Recorded at The Boarding House, San Francisco, May 26, 1978
3. "Ride My Llama" (2:29)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocal, harmonica
   • Recorded at The Boarding House, San Francisco, May 26, 1978
4. "Pocahontas" (3:22)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocal, backing vocals
   • Recorded at Indigo Ranch Studio, Malibu, November 8, 1976, with overdubs at Triiad Recording Studios, Ft. Lauderdale, April 9, 1977
5. "Sail Away" (3:46)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocal, harmonica; Joe Osborn – bass; Karl T. Himmel – drums; Nicolette Larson – vocals
   • Recorded at Triiad Recording Studios, Ft. Lauderdale, September 9, 1977, with overdubs at Woodland Studio, Nashville, November 1977

Side two

1. "Powderfinger" (5:30)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocals; Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – guitar, vocals; Billy Talbot – bass, vocals; Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
   • Recorded at McNichols Arena, Denver, October 19, 1978.
2. "Welfare Mothers" (3:48)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocals, percussion; Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – guitar, vocals; Billy Talbot – bass, vocals; Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
   • Recorded at St. Paul Civic Center, October 15, 1978.
3. "Sedan Delivery" (4:40)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocals; Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – guitar, vocals; Billy Talbot – bass, vocals; Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
   • Recorded at St. Paul Civic Center, October 15, 1978.
4. "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" (5:18)
   • Neil Young – guitar, vocals; Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – guitar, vocals; Billy Talbot – bass, vocals; Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
   • Recorded at The Cow Palace, San Francisco, October 22, 1978.