[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Tonight's The Night by Neil Young (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1975.
Country:
Overall rank: 547
Average rating: 82/100 (from 754 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Tonight's The Night
2. Speakin' Out
3. World On A String
4. Borrowed Tune
5. Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
6. Mellow My Mind
7. Roll Another Number (For The Road)
8. Albuquerque
9. New Mama
10. Lookout Joe
11. Tired Eyes
12. Tonight's The Night - Part II

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[DommeDamian]

Through all the 200+ albums I listened to in June 2019 (after my 10-month challenge), this was somewhat always stuck in my mind. Whether would be that the imperfect and raw sounding quality, the dark subject matter, the hook in the title track or Come On Baby, the circumstance surrounding the album, or…just how great it wa- *ahem* is.

Neil is known and loved for being the godfather of Grunge as well as inventing the most popular form of emotional songwriting during the last century. Therefore, it's surprising that on Tonight's The Night, he not only strips away all sorts of innovation, but also kicks out the poetic depth that made On The Beach so harmoniously appealing. This is his most depressing album and not just lyrically; it's one of those albums that I can actually feel the emotions coming through the way the straightforward instrumentation comes through, how it is sonically placed, and the overall pacing too.

The way things starts with Neil singing the title, is very cryptic, it’s creeping up on the listener, which automatically makes that preferable to, as if it was recorded or sang very grandiosely (it would be overstating and cheap); it’s like a background voice in your mind singing. And you got to question this? Tonight’s the night for what? They’re gonna leave Earth? They’re gonna go out again? Etc. I like to think of it as, tonight’s the night hell/heaven breaks loose. No matter how you interpret it, it gets you excited somehow. (Just like) no matter how drunk/sober/bad/decent/great singer you are, to sing this catchy hook wouldn’t sound misplaced at all. That's the pure genius of this hook, I don't think even the most angelic voice would be able to not make it sound incredibly cryptic. "Legend has it Young and his band mates would drink heavily throughout the day and into the night then hit record around midnight, & it shows with the loose melodies and slurred vocals evident through out. “ - Brad1770. And it’s very apparent here, since all the songs are the definition of drunk: the vocal performance, the band-playing, the off-the-cuff-engineering, the composition of the lyrics, etc.

Playing a wrong note is insignificant, playing without passion is inexcusable. On Speakin’ Out, that philosophy comes to fruition. The band are feeling themselves like crazy, over a musicianship and composition that sounds almost ten years outta style. Yet when we pay closer attention to Neil's vocal performance, he is a drunk mourning an everyday story, and it's difficult not to immerse yourself in it. The chord progression are so easy to learn, absolutely nothing complex…but it just works! World On A String didn’t hit me at first, but now I realize it as one of the rawer sounding tracks, I’ve ever heard from Neil. The heart-stroking Borrowed Tune is of many thrown together songs. Neil, oh so devastatingly sounds like he just needed to get a little song off his chest, sat down with his piano (with harmonica), and freestyled whatever came to mind. As he sings about the melody not being his “too wasted to write my own”, this tune resulted quintessentially to Young’s dreary situation of a track. The way it’s executed also (as Mark Richardson quotes) suggest that the building blocks of music is to be shared. Borrowed Tune would've not gone through to the final product in this day and age, but it illustrates that if a melody strikes you to get the emotions out when you have hit rock bottom, then you have no other choice but to let it go.

Then we have Come On Baby, which is one of my favorite rockish songs ever. And here is where the pacing comes into play as an element to why this whole album is deeply striking; this song was recorded three years prior to the remaining songs, when Danny Whitten was alive and in the band. It speaks as if they placed this song in as a throwback memory to when they were together, creating music, going places etc. Yet that's not even the most depressing or scariest part; this song itself is metaphorical to drug addiction, that took Danny's life. Despite the unsettling nature, I cannot help but sing along like it's happiest rock'n'roll tune in existence, sort of like it's really about.... i don't know.... visiting downtown Los Angeles or somethin'. The listener gets hit with imperfection at its best, Mellow My Mind. The mourning and raw emotion in its sonic sphere and Neil's expression gets an all time high in the chorus; is he legit crying or way too drunk and mentally beaten down to have any will of putting effort into those notes. Truly, truly affective. I also need to shoutout the magically well-fitting sloppy instrumentation too, it always stumbles into a gut-punch.

Roll Another Number, is also a supreme track, and this time it's melancholic country. On this song, it sounds like the entire band is mourning in harmony with Neil. This might be the most finished-sounding song on the album, and it still whispers that something is very wrong; at this point I have no idea if any of the mates knew how hard hitting the music they drunkenly played would be, I am convinced though that they were too depressed to care. Although optimistic mourning of loss comes through on the utopian mass Albuquerque, Neil sings the entirety of the song in a jittery bass-chest voice. Keith hits his high in terms of grief-filled notes that he already was on top of the pathos game on previous cuts; this time, all the instruments dynamically grieve along with their players.

After another number of black clouds of pure depression, the record gives New Mama, the most euphoric song. The guitar chord progression is indescribably unbearably melancholic, tear inducing. As the less-is-more approach becomes metaphysical, Neil's intimate acapella as well as bright verse is born from a space between the most victimized melancholy and an integral childlike heartlight. Wish I could write more, but I am at a loss of words. Lookout Joe is an upbeat song that lyrically philosophizes about going from one crisis to another, and longing as "old times were good times". The nihilistism ends with Tired Eyes, a sort of wake-up call to himself but also to any depressed soul listening. Neil encourages to open up the tired eyes, because, as Richardson says, while a lurching gait can be a marker of damage or dysfunction, it can also be a sign of defiance. Because some force, whether it's from outside or it’s something you bring on yourself, is trying to cripple you. But guess what: you’re still standing. And that's the final real song, as it ends with another version of the opening title track. As Neil has sung "[...] was real as the day is long", it implies that since his close buddies are no longer, the days slow down, leaving me with a dense feeling that is unsure of what to make of it other than it being one of the most striking, thunderous rock n'roll albums I have ever heard.
_________________
My Top 100 :
www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=4...amp;page=1

My music:
- www.hyperfollow.com/dommedamian

[AAL2014]

Although I couldn’t possibly match the previous comment, I’ll say I agree with the majority of it.

Tonight’s the Night is a pretty singular record on top of being another one of Neil’s finest moments. Staunch, cryptic, cathartic, heavy.
_________________
Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.