Neil Young

Don't know about that one, but some other great Neil Young albums include:

Live Rust
Rust Never Sleeps
Harvest
On the Beach
Zuma
Everyone Knows This is Nowhere
Comes a Time (this is all in no order)

After the Gold Rush still might be my favorite though. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" must be one of my favorite songs ever.

Neil has at least a dozen albums that could be considered classics, but I don't think many would say that 'hawks and doves' is one of them. But for the price I'd grab it anyway. That's not to say it's bad, it's all acoustic, pretty spare... but from where you're coming from I'd say, depending upon how much your taste leans toward rock, either 'harvest' or 'everybody knows this is nowhere'. Mainly b/c both will be easily available used on vinyl. 'harvest' isn't one of my favourites by him, but it's got some of his most popular tunes on it, and it's fairly mellow and country-ish. 'EKTIK' is a bit harder on some songs (it has his backing band Crazy Horse on it), and is all the way a great album. You may just want to try 'decade', I've seen that on vinyl pretty commonly lately. It's a good intro to NY. 'comes a time' might also suit your fancy, and is easily available used.

He's got a lot of albums. FYI, if you have a CD player with an HDCD decoder in it, all his newer albums ('mirror ball' onwards) were released in the HDCD format. As were the CD reissues of four older albums, including 'on the beach' which I'd highly recommend, although it's pretty dark and if you find it on vinyl you'll pay a hefty price.

For the record, my favourites are:

On The Beach
After The Goldrush
Broken Arrow
Sleeps with Angels (I found this on vinyl a while ago, but haven't seen it much).

This probably didn't help much. Like I said, he's got tons of albums.

After the Gold Rush is one of my favorites too...

I second this. If you buy Hawks and Doves, don't expect it to measure up to 'After the Gold Rush.'

To add (repeat) to what s m @ and bln said, 'On the Beach' 'Rust Never Sleeps' and 'Harvest' are (among others) excellent albums. If you are new to Neil, I would send you in their direction. Of course, after you own these, you'll love Neil so much that you will want to own all of his albums, and will end up picking up Hawks and Doves anyway .

Pitchfork did a review of the four re-releases not too long ago. Might be useful to you...might not be.

Aman: pick up the sealed "Hawks and Doves" for the collector value, but I echo other's comments that it isn't in the vein of "After the Goldrush" at all, and there are plenty of other Neil albums you will probably like better.

Neil has been through many musical styles over the years, and not everyone likes all of them.

I would add to albums already mentioned, "Harvest Moon" and "Silver and Gold", two recent efforts more in line with "Gold Rush" and "Harvest".

Neil manages to change up his sound from time to time and does a good job of it. I have several of his albums that all sound quite different but all still appeal to me--a sign of a true artist, IMHO.

I cant believe you guys left out unplugged. Unplugged is a masterpiece.

Harvest Moon is another great acoustic recording.

A sealed record is not necessarily worth anything. There are books you can look up the value in if you're interested. But I say play it.

I think that all the recomendations given so far are good ones, but I have to advise strongly against going with 'greendale' as your second Neil record. It's not too bad, but it's definitely not his strongest IMO. It's actually got a storyline to it, like a rock opera or something... I've seen him perform it twice where he has actors doing the story behind him, which is cool... but I don't really listen to it much and I'm afraid it could turn you off Neil. I also don't like the production, although I'll admit the parts I don't like are almost certainly intentional (mainly the guitar is too low in the mix). Again, it's not that 'greendale' is so bad or anything, it just doesn't have the melodies centre stage like the one that got you interested in the first place.

Neil has taken on so many personas that I second the motion for Decade. It's a good place to start.

HI,

 

I'm 50 yrs of life...hitched hike to see Neil Young up in San Francisco when I was 16yrs of youth and rebellion.

Saw him at the Fillmore...never forget it!

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I was just listening to his CORTEZ THE KILLER.

I first wept when I heard that back in '75/76 and listening through my Alessandro MS1i just took me back to that moment!

 

WOW!!!!!

 

I love all his albums and even find something great on the ones I'm not crazy about!

 

 

Neil Young is on my concert bucket list. I'm waiting for him to near Charlotte.

 

These are his albums I have in my collection http://connect.collectorz.com/users/ctlaltdel/music/view?viewCollection=all&filterArtist=519

Edited by fatcat28037 - 2/11/12 at 1:52pm

My wife and I are really big fans. Funny, Neil was born in Toronto and raised in Manitoba. I'm a Torontonian (pretty much my whole life except for a few years in Ottawa) and my wife is from Winnipeg. Might have something to do with it?

What I find the most interesting about the "Hawk and Doves" album is that, well side one includes a couple of decent songs that are outtakes from one of his mid-seventies albums, but side two is kind of a tribute to the political "right wing" at that time (1980), which baffled many of his original fans. 

It was released just in time to support the RR election in 1980. I somehow think it's an interesting album in the NY anthology!

 

I do have it and would certainly buy it as a collector item for $6. There's a few great songs on side one. I do overall really believe that NY is not so proud of this release, taking side two into consideration, but it's a time capsule in his life and and IMO better than "Everybody's Rocking" and "Trans" a couple of years later." Hawks and Doves" was somewhat a part of this experimental phase in his life!