On the Beach by Neil Young (1974) I’ve always been a fan of Neil Young, but I’ve never heard this album, which is shame, because it’s really good, if understandably unpopular. This is music that would have helped at times when tough decisions had to be made. Young does despair with panache, and causes the listener to take a deep breath, turn in the right direction and “Walk On”. The hope is but implicit (except the last line of this otherwise unpolitical record—take that, Nixon! [The headline on the 3/20/74 newspaper in the cover photo reads: “Sen. Buckley Calls On Nixon To Resign”. Three weeks after the release of this album, he did]). The Wurlitzer electric piano with its sometimes weirdly exaggerated tremolo spoils the dreary mood on several of these tracks (2, 3, 6). But the mournful slide guitar (Ben Keith) and Young’s uniquely forlorn voice fittingly provide the dark atmosphere for these compositions. Young explores the lower end of his vocal range on “On the Beach”, “Motion Pictures”, and “Ambulance Blues”. For those of you who don’t like his singing, you should listen to these three tracks before writing him off. This is music for a cold, blustery autumn day, when you’d like some good news, but there probably ain’t any. 3/5