His reputation and importance rest on a string of superb records made in the decade following 1969. These are 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' (1969), 'After The Gold Rush' (1970), 'Harvest' (1972), the live 'Time Fades Away' (1973) which is still not available on CD (Young has bad memories from the tour), the iconic 'On the Beach' (1974), the willfully perverse and artistically courageous 'Tonight's the Night' (released in 1975 though recorded two years earlier), and 'Zuma' (1975).

'Time Fades Away,' 'Tonight's the Night,' and 'On the Beach' are the so-called "Ditch Trilogy," a name which comes from Neil's famous comment in the liner notes of 'Decade': "'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch."

Also from the same period are the two great Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young albums, 'Déjà Vu' and 'Four Way Street'.

Rust had already set in when Neil released the last must-have album from this period, a pastiche of current and earlier material, 1977's 'American Stars 'N Bars'. The career-summing "best of" from the whole period is called 'Decade,' orginally a 3-disc compilation. Both 'American Stars'N'Bars' and 'Decade' contain the must-have guitar anthem "Like a Hurricane."

The twin codas to the decade (and ending a run that would be enough for a whole career for most musicians) were 'Rust Never Sleeps' and 'Live Rust,' both from 1979. The titles are a bit confusing. 'Rust Never Sleeps' was a live album debuting new material, like 'Time Fades Away' had been. Although it wasn't quite as good as the earlier album, it holds its own. 'Live Rust,' on the other hand, was a combination of a traditional live album and a traditional greatest hits--and doesn't contain much material from 'Rust Never Sleeps.' So the two albums aren't nearly as closely intertwined as their titles might have you believe.

GENRE EXPERIMENTS

The 1980s could be dropped almost entirely from Young's catalog and little would be missed. It was a time of personal turmoil, commercial struggle, and artistic uncertainty. Basically, what Neil did was lose his way--without losing his nerve. The result was a string of defiant, searching, but wretched genre records. There was 'Old Ways' (country), 'Trans' (techno, heavy on the vocorder), 'Everybody's Rockin'' (rockabilly, for god's sake), the awful 'Landing On Water' ('80s synth-pop [!]) and finally the dismaying 'This Note's for You' (horn blues), which elicited one of the funniest and most scathing music reviews ever (in The Village Voice), and a very funny comment from another reveiwer, who said something like "this album actually isn't quite as bad as it sounds."

THE FOLKIE FOURSOME (OR IS THAT FIVESOME?)

Allegedly the best-selling record of 1972, and the record that put Young in the pantheon, was, of course, 'Harvest'. Although Neil later "headed for the ditch," as he says, he's also periodically returned to melodic, gentle, almost easy-listening folkie albums throughout his career--seemingly when he needs a shot of sales, re-anchoring, or a defined change of pace from his musical pinballing. The first 'Harvest' reprise was 1978's 'Comes a Time'; then came 1992's 'Harvest Moon', and finally 'Silver & Gold' from 2000. If this is the Young you love, these four will do it for you. Although it's too soon to tell, it looks like the now-brand-new 'Prairie Wind' is the fifth in this set.

GODFATHER OF GRUNGE

As with all great artists who keep questing, sooner or later the questing takes on a nobility of its own, and/or finds a new audience. Neil redeemed himself in many peoples' eyes in 1989 with 'Freedom' and the searing EP 'Eldorado' (released in a limited edition of 25,000, only in New Zealand), followed in 1990 by the hard-rockin' 'Ragged Glory'. He continued his hard-rock Godfather of Grunge turn by recording with Pearl Jam in 1995 ('Mirror Ball'), and on albums like Re•Ac•Tor.