A Masterpiece from already stunning career
This is the sound of someone adapting to modern times. In the tradition of Dylan, Neil Young persues the half acoustic, half rock album. The songs foremost deal with change and transition into a new era of music. "Sedan Delivery" and "Welfare Mother" and nearly the rest of the second half have a raw sound that mimics the rough sound of punk. However, I feel the acoustic tracks are the treat. "My, My, Hey, Hey" is the reaction to the new puck scene and other songs such as "Thrasher" are very surrealist that recall a sense of nostalgia as they do for fans who liken more to his folk period. But the ablum closes with a bang. In my humble opinion this is his greatest album, but by no means is it his last great one.

One of the best albums EVER!!
If you like Neil, this is one of his best, hands down. Star Wars roadies, huge speaker setups, classic songs both acoustic and electric. Probably the pinnacle of Rock & Roll. Buy this immediately if your a Neil fan. 5 STARS!!

JAPAN REMASTERED VERSION AVAILABLE

A while back, Warner Brothers Japan re-released 12 Neil Young titles. The surprise was that remastered content appeared for the first time on most of them.

The titles & WB-Japan catalog numbers are:

Neil Young WPCR-75086
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere WPCR-75087
After The Gold Rush WPCR-75088
Harvest WPCR-75089
On The Beach WPCR-75090
Tonight's The Night WPCR-75091
Zuma WPCR-75092
Long May You Run WPCR-75093
American Stars n' Bars WPCR-75094
Comes A Time WPCR-75095
Rust Never Sleeps WPCR-75096
Live Rust WPCR-75097

I picked up most of these, A/B'd them, and found them to be superior to the domestics. However, having purchased the domestic 2002 remasters of "Beach" and "Stars n Bars", I declined the Japan versions of those two titles.

Unfortunately, while the Japan version is remastered, Live Rust is not restored to the original LP's running form, and remains still the bastardized version.

If you own the U.S. versions, and you're a NY fan, I would seriously consider replacing them with these.

Half Acoustic Young
Probably my favorite Neil Young album,yet I only listen to the first six song's.Rust Never Sleeps really showcases Young as a truly talented all around musician,songwriting,crisp,clean acoustic guitar,Neil's unique singing and harmonica(Neil Young plays harmonica like nobody's business.)Listening to the original vinyl,I purchased when it was first released,I never realized this was a live album with the audience dubbed out,until recently.As I recall this was some sort of a comeback tour for Young and it was a good one,and I also remember the acoustic version of Hey Hey My My alway's constantly playing on the radio at the time,never did like the hard rock version. Nothing special about this Warner cd,just a good Neil Young and Crazy Horse recording,Rust Never Sleeps.

Park bench mutations
It may be an exaggeration to say that Rust Never Sleeps saved my life, but it certainly lifted me out of a pit of despair in 1979. I was 23, living 200 miles from friends and family (i.e., lonelier than I thought I would ever be), and working for a moron.

The real irony of getting hooked on Rust Never Sleeps is that in college I hated Neil Young because I had been a HUGE fan of Crosby, Stills, & Nash (never mentioning "Young" in the group's name), and had thought of Neil Young as the guy that destroyed that super-group and also Buffalo Springfield. Sort of like Yoko did for the Beatles, except that Neil did it twice.

But one Sunday evening in the summer of 1979, a syndicated radio program played an interview with Neil Young, and the topic was his concert film, Rust Never Sleeps. Much to my surprise, Neil did not sound like the devil, but like a legitimate artist that was more concerned with being true to his art than he was in being commercially successful.

I checked the movie listings in the local newspaper and saw that Rust Never Sleeps was playing at a theater across town, so the next night I went to see the movie. It made me ridiculously happy, so the next morning I bought the Rust Never Sleeps vinyl LP, and listening to it day after day (and later, Live Rust and Comes A Time), I was able to survive my crappy job and The Summer From Hell.

For Christmas this year I bought Roxio Toast, with CD Spin Doctor, and started recording my old vinyl albums onto my Mac, and one of the first to be recorded was Rust Never Sleeps. Just for grins I went to Amazon to read reviews, and it was interesting to see where I agreed and disagreed with the other reviewers.

Powderfinger is one place where I diverge from the prevailing opinion. Although I like the song, it never seemed to me to be the greatest song Neil ever wrote or performed. From the electric side of the LP, Sedan Delivery and Welfare Mothers have much stronger places in my memory. I guess the humor that I needed in 1979 made those two songs more appealing. As a side note, whoever thinks that Powderfinger is about Native Americans should listen to the song again. The characters sound to me like they are from the backwoods of the South.

For the acoustic side, most reviewers love Pocahontas and Thrasher, and I'm with everybody on those. Of course, both Hey Hey, My My and My My, Hey Hey are great.

And as mentioned by some other reviewers, Live Rust is wonderful, too. The versions of Cinnamon Girl and Tonight's The Night make the entire record worthwhile.

Finally, if you have never seen the Rust Never Sleeps movie, buy it NOW. It is tremendous.