“‘HE SHOULD BE SLOWING DOWN BY NOW.’ NEIL YOUNG JUST DROPPED ANOTHER SURPRISE—AND FANS ARE ALREADY CALLING THE NEW ALBUM A MUST-LISTEN.” Most artists spend their later years looking back. Neil Young keeps giving fans new reasons to look forward.

Neil Young has launched a previously-unannounced concert movie titled Corduroy Plants via his website.

The 11-song film lasts an hour and was directed by his wife, Daryl Hannah, with news coverage of historic and recent events appearing throughout.

Corduroy Plants can be seen on the Neil Young Archives website now. It’s based around his recent live album As Time Explodes, which he recorded with The Chrome Hearts on the road during 2025.

“The 13-track album includes songs that span Young’s entire career,” a statement from Warner Records noted, “including ‘Ohio’ and ‘After The Gold Rush’ from 1970 to ‘Silver Eagle’ from the 2025 album, Talkin To The Trees. Making this album extra-special is the new song ‘Big Crime’ plus songs that have rarely been featured on recent live albums.”

Meanwhile, Young offered fans an update on the next installment of his archive box set series, saying it would cover the period from 1987 to 2004. “Volume 4 of the Archives is underway, entering the completion phase for all songs we have uncovered over the last two or three years,” he wrote.

“[M]any songs from The Bluenote Cafe period in 1987 have been remixed with more lead vocal and bass. I like the music better now that the vocal is more clear and you can stay with the story.

“When I did them originally I was really into the swing of the Bluenotes and featured the band more than the song itself. I see it differently now.” He added: “We are now traveling through the time we introduced ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ on SNL.”

Neil Young’s Next Studio Album Will Be Analog and Digital

Young recently confirmed the upcoming release of a second studio album with the Chrome Hearts, titled Second Song. Calling it a “lifetime experience,” he explained: “First, the music was breathing. Every song of the seven released on this album is straight from the heart. Second, we tried to do something we have never done – record digital and analog masters at the same time.

“We did this so we could show the difference we know and believe in, my friends and I. Analog was the beginning, and it never sounded better. Hi-res digital is a clear second best. … You can hear the difference, instantly. They are both beautiful if the song is. One is as deep as life. One is the highest quality counterfeit copy.”

On the subject of analog recording he continued: “I made records like that in the beginning. I miss the quality people today hardly ever get a chance at hearing. Music is infinitely deep. Museum quality sound is analog.

“Try comparing these if you get a chance. For true analog playback, there can be no digital components in the player or amplifier or speakers. I do hope you enjoy the music no matter how you listen. We made it for all of us.”

Neil Young Albums Ranked

He’s one of rock’s most brilliant, confounding, defiant and frustrating artists.

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci

Geffen

43. ‘Old Ways’ (1985)

Another record from Young’s tumultuous Geffen years, when he played chicken with the label by making everything but the rock ‘n’ roll records the record label was hoping for (the company responded by shelving some of those albums). Old Ways, a traditional country LP, lacks spark, inspiration and good songs.

Geffen

42. ‘Everybody’s Rockin” (1983)

This was the album Young delivered to his record company after it insisted he make a rock ‘n’ roll album following the electronic mess ‘Trans.’ So he gave them a record filled with doo-wop, rockabilly and ’50s nostalgia. ‘Everybody’s Rockin” is a middle finger to the label, but the music never captures the charm or magnetism of the sounds it’s emulating. No wonder his record company hated him.

Geffen

41. ‘Landing on Water’ (1986)

After his record company sued him for making uncommercial music, Young released this album of scraps dusted off from some of Crazy Horse’s unreleased 1984 sessions (which even Young’s producer was unhappy with). Like much of Young’s ’80s output, it’s convoluted, half-assed and mostly forgettable.

Reprise

40. ‘Re-ac-tor’ (1981)

The follow-up to the pieced-together and laid-back Hawks & Doves can almost be seen as a reaction to the earlier record, as Young — working once again with Crazy Horse — plugs in and takes on the ’80s with some of the toughest-sounding songs he’s ever recorded.

Reprise

39. ‘Peace Trail’ (2016)

Part of the environmentally themed trilogy that includes The Monsanto Years and the kinda-live Earth, Peace Trail is Young at his most anxious. The plugged-in acoustic songs sound like tossed-off bulletins from a restless artist who’s gotten grumpy. Nearly 40 minutes of messy finger-pointing.

Reprise

38. ‘Fork in the Road’ (2009)

Young closed out the first decade of the ’00s with an album of car songs inspired by a 1959 Lincoln Continental he converted to a hybrid. Like many of his albums from the era, Fork in the Road is stubbornly single-themed and, also like so many of them, boring. Songs like “Fuel Line” and “Hit the Road,” without context, sound aimless and lost.

Reprise

37. ‘Are You Passionate?’ (2002)

Young’s most disjointed album isn’t sure what it wants to be. On one hand, it’s an R&B record with backing provided by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Then again, it’s also a Crazy Horse album, with his longtime sparring group sitting in for one extended jam. Then there’s “Let’s Roll,” about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the nine-minute closing track, “She’s a Healer,” which goes on forever. A mess from start to finish.

Geffen

36. ‘Life’ (1987)

Young’s most forgettable album, another collaboration with Crazy Horse, was partly recorded live in concert. Sandwiched between two other bottom-of-the-barrel LPs from the dismal ’80s, Landing on Water and This Note’s for You, Life sounds like an obligatory Crazy Horse outing. Only this time nobody’s hearts were into it.

Reprise

35. ‘Storytone’ (2014)

Young’s second album from 2014 swerves in a completely different direction from the stripped-down A Letter Home, incorporating an orchestra, choir and big band. Many of the cuts are about the environment; some are love songs. They all add to one of his most unfocused albums, a mess of too many ideas and not enough memorable tracks.

Reprise

34. ‘Broken Arrow’ (1996)

Like Ragged Glory and Sleeps With Angels, two other ’90s collaborations with Crazy Horse, Broken Arrow is loose, free-form and muscular at times. But it’s not as fully formed as those other two records, instead juggling long jams with shorter, more structured songs. Still, it would be a decade before he made another album this interesting.

Reprise

33. ‘Hawks & Doves’ (1980)

Yet another Neil Young album culled from old sessions. The first half of Hawks & Doves includes songs originally recorded for a Harvest follow-up, Homegrown; the second side is new country songs that were among Young’s most political at the time. It’s a bit perplexing after the landmark Rust Never Sleeps, but a usual Neil Young curveball.

Third Man Records

32. ‘A Letter Home’ (2014)

This all-covers album (of songs by Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen and others) features mostly just Young on vocals, guitar, harmonica and piano, and was recorded in a vintage 1947 recording booth in Jack White’s Nashville studio (White guests on a couple of cuts). The intimacy is appealing, but A Letter Home sounds slight and unfinished.

Reprise

31. ‘The Monsanto Years’ (2015)

Working with a new band, the Crazy Horse-like Promise of the Real (which includes Willie Nelson’s sons), Young’s most political album in years takes on GMO giant Monsanto in what pretty much amounts to a 50-minute PSA. It’s loose and impulsive, but the single-minded agenda gets tiring.

Reprise

30. ‘Neil Young’ (1968)

Young’s debut album was released on his 23rd birthday in 1968, and pretty much sounds like an extension of his songs from the previous year’s ‘Buffalo Springfield Again.’ It’s an occasionally shaky start, but some songs – especially “The Loner” – hold up with Young’s best.

Geffen

29. ‘Trans’ (1982)

Young’s notorious electronic album – featuring a Vocoder on most of the tracks – started his tortured relationship with Geffen Records, which wanted a rock ‘n’ roll album, not a synth-pop LP. It’s a daring move by an always-daring artist, but that doesn’t make it any more of a pleasant listen. It’s jarring, to say the least. Young would spend most of the rest of the ’80s making records that defied his record company and confused fans.

Reprise

28. ‘Silver & Gold’ (2000)

Like many Young albums, Silver & Gold was pieced together from abandoned songs over the years (one reportedly dated back to the early ’80s). Its stripped-down atmosphere – including harmonica, pedal steel and backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt – makes it seem like another Harvest descendant. But the ho-hum songs don’t back it up.

Reprise

27. ‘Americana’ (2012)

Young and Crazy Horse rework a bunch of traditional songs (like “Oh Susannah” and “Clementine”) as garage-rock rave-ups, complete with sprawling jams and missing verses. The idea was to capture these songs in their original raging glories; Americana sounds tossed off, like a hastily assembled and loose practice session before the real songs are tackled.

Reprise

26. ‘The Visitor’ (2017)

Young’s third collaboration with Promise of the Real, the band led by Willie Nelson’s son, sounds like a tethered Crazy Horse record. There are a few quiet reflective moments, but mostly the album is about living under the shadow of Trump’s presidency for a year. He’s mostly coping, and coasting, here, offering little more than commentary on daily headlines backed by a musical template that swings from a circus waltz to the Broadway stage.

Reprise

25. ‘American Stars ‘n Bars’ (1977)

Like many of Young’s albums, American Stars ‘n Bars has a scattered history. It includes several songs slated for not one, but two, separate follow-ups to his breakthrough Harvest record. Crazy Horse shows up on a few songs; so do old pals Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. Even with its rocky formation, the album holds together well, especially the centerpiece “Like a Hurricane.”

Reprise

24. ‘Talkin to the Trees’ (2025)

Working with a new band, the Chrome Hearts (basically a revamped Promise of the Real plus veteran keyboardist and Young collaborator Spooner Oldham), Young returns once again to his favorite subject on Talkin to the Trees. Environmental concerns are at the top of his list of concerns here, but neo-fascism and the state of the world in the 2020s are also here. The music turns from Guthrie-esque folk to Crazy Horse loose.

Reprise

23. ‘This Note’s for You’ (1988)

At the tail end of his genre-jumping ’80s run, Young shook off Geffen, returned to his old record company and delivered the sort of unconventional record that got him into so much trouble with his previous label. Taking shots at the music industry, and backed by a horn-powered, R&B-influenced group, Young drives This Note’s for You into the ground with one attack after another.

Reprise

22. ‘Barn’ (2021)

Like its predecessor Colorado, Barn was recorded quickly with Crazy Horse and follows similar political and personal themes. It’s a bit more languid than what we’re used to from Crazy Horse, the guitars and distortion dialed back in favor of accordions and acoustic ruminations – a reflection of its pandemic origins.

Reprise

21. ‘World Record’ (2022)

Like predecessors Colorado and Barn, World Record was made quickly and live in the studio with Crazy Horse. Producer Rick Rubin doesn’t get in the way as Young explores a decades-old passion: the environment and man’s mistreatment of it. Even the love songs are about the planet. The songs aren’t deep – “Love Earth, such an easy thing to do,” he sings in one; “No more war, only love” goes another – and Crazy Horse rarely works up to full speed. But after more than a half-century on the subject, Young still sounds committed.

Reprise

20. ‘Greendale’ (2003)

Young’s nearly 80-minute rock opera about a small-town family and how politics and the environment affected it at the turn of the century is one of the artist’s most ambitious projects. It’s also one of his messiest, thanks to Crazy Horse’s sloppy playing (not suited to a sprawling narrative like this) and the muddled storyline. Plus, it goes on way past the point of anyone caring.

Reprise

19. ‘Prairie Wind’ (2005)

A quiet little victory after Are You Passionate? and Greendale, Prairie Wind is one of Young’s most meditative records, informed partly by his father’s recent death. Young himself suffered an aneurysm shortly after the songs were recorded, adding even more heft to an already poignant LP.

Reprise

18. ‘Chrome Dreams II’ (2007)

In 1977, Young was ready to release an album called Chrome Dreams when it was retooled as American Stars ‘n Bars. This sequel, 30 years later, isn’t as good as that scrapped LP, but a handful of its songs – which, like so many of Young’s albums, had been sitting around for years before finally finding a home – rank among his best of the ’00s.

Reprise

17. ‘Le Noise’ (2010)

Rebounding after another fallow period of stalled and aimless records, Young launches Le Noise like a battering ram into the ears of fans who had written him off. Young, with producer Daniel Lanois, constructs a sonic template of feedback, distortion and skeletal fragments of songs. It all gels in a glorious mix of abrasive guitar noise and avant-garde garage rock.

Reprise

16. ‘Living With War’ (2006)

Written and recorded in less than 10 days, Living With War plays like a visceral reaction to 2006’s headlines (most notably, the war in Iraq). And with songs like “Let’s Impeach the President,” it’s Young’s most political work in decades, too. It doesn’t always connect, but his commitment to music and the issues that drive it is palpable.

Reprise

15. ‘Colorado’ (2019)

Young’s first album with Crazy Horse since 2012’s Psychedelic Pill has more in common with much of his environmentally minded ’10s output than the freewheeling spirit of classic Crazy Horse records, but distortion and rage keep fans happy. The biggest stumbles here are the more inward-looking love songs; when Young points fingers and turns up the volume, his Angry Old Man poses sound like the real thing.

Reprise

14. ‘Psychedelic Pill’ (2012)

Young’s second album of 2012 (and second with Crazy Horse that year), following the traditional Americana, trades structured songcraft for drawn-out jams and riff-heavy rock ‘n’ roll. With two songs clocking in at more than 16 minutes, and one at 27 minutes(!), Psychedelic Pill can be a long and exhausting listen. But it’s one of Young’s best works of the 21st century, a volume-cranking statement by a still-vital artist.

Reprise

13. ‘Mirror Ball’ (1995)

Young and the members of Pearl Jam bonded while playing a Bob Dylan tribute concert in 1992. A few years later, they bashed out this electric LP live in the studio, coming off like a more polished Crazy Horse. Young’s string of comeback records (which started six years earlier with Freedom) ended here.

Reprise

12. ‘Comes a Time’ (1978)

Young was on track so many times to deliver a sequel to his chart-topping Harvest that when he made one, it took several detours. Comes a Time started as a solo record, until backing groups (including Crazy Horse for a couple of cuts) were brought in to goose up the sound. The easygoing charm is all Harvest, but the excellent songs are distinctly its own.

Reprise

11. ‘Harvest Moon’ (1992)

Young’s long-delayed sequel to Harvest was shaped, in part, by his tinnitus, which he developed following the punishing Ragged Glory sessions and tour. Unplugged and working with many of the same musicians who contributed to the 1972 classic, Young turns in one of his most tranquil records, filled with the sort of introspection and laid-back ease that come with age.

Reprise

10. ‘Sleeps With Angels’ (1994)

Like the classic Tonight’s the Night, Sleeps With Angels is a dark, brooding rumination on death, particularly Kurt Cobain’s. Backed by Crazy Horse, Young plugs in and chips away at the walls of doom around him with feedback and orchestrated noise (the 14-minute “Change Your Mind” is the highlight). Not an easy listen, but a passionate one, and one of Young’s most haunting, and haunted, albums.

Reprise

9. ‘Zuma’ (1975)

One of Young’s best guitar albums, and a blazing showcase for a retooled Crazy Horse, Zuma marks the beginning and ending of key eras during the ’70s. For the most part, the album crawls out of the darkness that permeated Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach, while once again picking up some spare pieces from his past. Plus, it includes “Cortez the Killer,” perhaps his all-time greatest guitar jam.

Reprise

8. ‘Freedom’ (1989)

After spending most of the ’80s releasing one disappointing album after another, Young got back on track at the end of the decade with his most focused record. He unleashes an era’s rage on Freedom, swinging at the sociopolitical landscape like his future counted on it. It helped that it was all anchored by “Rockin’ in the Free World,’ one of his all-time greatest songs.

Reprise

7. ‘Ragged Glory’ (1990)

Ragged Glory‘s predecessor, Freedom, made Young a viable artist again, but this sealed that comeback. Plugged in and sounding more alive than they had in years, Young and Crazy Horse tear through songs that take their electric fury to brand-new levels. Then in his mid-40s, Young found new life with his old band.

Reprise

6. ‘On the Beach’ (1974)

The follow-up to Harvest arrived following a live album, a soundtrack and a few shelved LPs. Like Tonight’s the Night recorded earlier but released later, On the Beach sounds thrown together. Working with various musicians, including members of Crazy Horse, Young still seems to be reeling from success, the death of friends and the ’60s (not necessarily in that order). A gloomy album, but one of his most underrated.

Reprise

5. ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ (1969)

After a sketchy debut in 1968, Young returned to the studio the following year with a new backing band (Crazy Horse) and am armful of great new songs that would help define his long career as one of rock’s premier guitar players. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is one of his most focused and consistent albums, with nearly every song turning up the passion or volume or both.

Reprise

4. ‘Tonight’s the Night’ (1975)

Tonight’s the Night was so bleak and despairing when it was recorded in 1973 that Young’s record company didn’t want to release it (which is why it sat on the shelf for two years). Mostly recorded in a single session following the drug-related deaths of two friends (including Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, whose band backs Young on part of the album), the LP remains one of rock’s darkest, harrowing and cathartic works.

Reprise

3. ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ (1979)

Side one was recorded solo acoustic; side two was plugged in with Crazy Horse. And it was all captured onstage in front of an audience hearing the songs for the very first time. It’s a great idea and one that Young pulls off with style and introspection. In a way, Rust Never Sleeps is a concept album about the end of the ’70s and his place in them. But it’s also just a great record with excellent songs, killer riffs and zero filler.

Reprise

2. ‘Harvest’ (1972)

Young’s only No. 1 album (propelled by his only No. 1 single, “Heart of Gold”), Harvest is a landmark record for both the artist and the era. Stripped to acoustic instruments and filled with some of his best songs, the record swings through country, folk and Americana, detouring slightly for a few songs about life, death and other big issues.

Reprise

1. ‘After the Gold Rush’ (1970)

Young’s third album pretty much set the template for his career. Pieced together from various sessions (some from Los Angeles, some from Young’s home), different bands (Crazy Horse here, 18-year-old Nils Lofgren there) and several periods (from late 1969 through mid-1970), After the Gold Rush is held together by Young’s reflection on the past decade and his hopes for the new one. It includes some of his best songs (the title track, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “Southern Man”), but more importantly, it established Young as one of rock’s most visionary and exciting artists.

Read More: Neil Young Never Sleeps: New Concert Movie, Studio LP and Box Set | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/neil-young-corduroy-plants-movie/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral