Neil Young - 'Before and After' album review (2024)

They say the greats never go out of style, and with Neil Young, that seems to certainly be the case. On Before and After, his latest album and his 45th to date, the Canadian maestro has re-recorded 12 songs from across his career, with one new offering thrown in for good measure. Transforming the selections into more basic efforts than their original forms, with a touch of musical assistance sprinkled across the record, Young compiles them into a continuous tapestry in an effort to make us think about how we consume art.

Discussing the records, Young explains in an accompanying statement: “Songs from my life recently recorded create a music montage with no beginnings or endings. The feeling is captured, not in pieces but as a whole piece. Soon to your ears and heart and soul – music defies shuffling, digital organisation, and separation. Only for listening.”

An effort clearly influenced by his issue with the monopoly streaming sites such as his archnemesis Spotify has on the music industry and artist’s income, the decision to configure Before and After as one great montage from across Young’s career is impactful. From the Buffalo Springfield songs ‘Burned’ and ‘On the Way Home’ to ‘Birds’ from After the Gold Rush and the latter Young classic ‘When I Hold You in My Arms’, the selection of music he pulls together and reworks is interesting. Via their new stripped-back essence, Young expresses deep regret at the direction music has taken over the course of his life.

Although his widely-influential talent remains, he does away with the usual ornamentation that contemporary artists are afforded. Young takes up a position as a troubadour of days gone by, taking listeners back to the good old era when art was the first priority, not thoughts of how it would be consumed after the fact. Accordingly, a great deal of regret courses through this sometimes uncomfortable 48-minute experience.

Fair criticisms can be thrown in the direction of Before and After in the sense that it can, at times, be too downbeat. It’s mournful but not in the most piercing way that fans of Neil Young are so used to. It is also rather repetitive at points, yet concentrating on these aspects too much would miss the point. With his latest offering, Young is trying to make a statement about music in general, not just his own output. It’s the symbolism of it that really counts. Furthermore, after 45 albums, the impulse to produce completely new music is surely at rock bottom.

The only new effort on the record, ‘If You’ve Got Love’, certainly sticks out of this broader tapestry he has stitched together from his timeline. A loose, minimal piece in the vein of the album, featuring just the former CSNY man, his trusty harmonica and a droning pump organ, he leaves it all on the table in a resounding fashion.

Young sings about holding your head up high and talking to people eye-to-eye, lamenting how they would do so in the halcyon days of his past, as love and pride was all around. However, in the second verse, he counterbalances this nostalgia. Young notes living like a satellite – a nod to today’s atomised existence – which he says we all know isn’t right, as love still exists despite it not being as apparently prominent as it once was.

This infers that technology doesn’t have to be so dictatorial in our lives, à la the album’s general theme. It’s a distinctly countercultural sentiment, which comes from an era long since passed, but regardless, he tells us: “If you got love the world you’re walking in is at your command”.

While this might seem soppy, and at times, he fails to be clear-eyed about the past, painting it over idyllically, you just cannot fault him for never veering off his path. His dedication to just causes is what makes him such an important artist. 45 albums in, he’s still saying something.

It might not be Young’s most eye-catching or entertaining album, but the messaging underpinning Before and After is clear, and it’s something all music lovers should get behind. It doesn’t have to be this way, he tells us, and it’s right.

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