Happy 35th Anniversary to Neil Young's Freedom

Happy 35th Anniversary to Neil Young's Freedom.

Neil Young's mid career masterpiece turns 35 today. 

More thoughts and tunes after the jump.

This is what we said about Freedom in our Masters Series when we tackled Neil Young's top five studio albums:

After a decade where Neil burned bridges, filed law-suits and put out some pretty sub-par records, he surprisingly wrapped up the 80's strong with Freedom. Bookend with acoustic and electric versions of his soon to be anthem "Keep On Rockin In The Free World" he repeated the trick he pulled on Rust Never Sleeps in 1979.  Following up on the great Eldorado EP, Young took three songs from there, "On Broadway" "Eldorado" and "Don't Cry" to flush things out, he also reached way back to the 70's to revisit one of RtBE Personal Favorites "Too Far Gone".

(We should state here and now that while not official, Chrome Dreams which "Too Far Gone" first appeared on, is one of our all-time favorite things Neil ever did..err didn't do. It would have made our list if it was a real release. For more info check this out.)   

Freedom solidified that Young had things left to say in 1989 and still remains a powerful force. It has a wide range of styles and sounds, but that suites Neil fine. The winding cinematic "Crime In the City" and the acoustic folk strumming of the delicate "Hangin' On A Limb" to the powerful final track which just buzzes with intensity. We could go on and on about "Rocking The In The Free World", one of the best rock songs of its place and time, and even while widely known still criminally underrated, but we will save that for another post. Freedom was/is a huge statement record and remains one of the best he ever released. 

All of that stays true, except the part about Chrome Dreams, which he ended up releasing. We ranked Freedom third from Neil's studio work (not including albums with Crazy Horse). That is some pretty high praise and we think it holds up.  

It is a big record, and an important record for Neil who had completely lost his edge in the decade prior to it. Let's celebrate it the best way possible, by playing it loud.