I’m sitting here in my office and Harvest Moon comes on the radio.
What the FUCK is that man doing? It certainly isn’t singing, at least not in any sense that any other professional vocalist would do. I dug into the back of the awesome supercomputer that is bernse’s mind. I have come to the conclusion that the man must be physically incapable to hold a tune, or at the very least be tone deaf as I cannot think of a single song that he was able to completely sing in key. The idiots of American Idol should be clammering to sing his songs as they would all sound like the gods were singing compared to him.
HOWEVER, I am not saying he is not a musican. I suspect he can play the axe (or some other insturment) pretty damn well. However, the man sings like an elephant is standing on his testicles while he does it. I cannot imagine how anyone would think he is pleasant to listen to.
Neil is just continuing the tradition of successful Canadian musicians that aren’t particularly good singers:
Leonard Cohen (a personal fave)
Brian Adams (could the man’s voice be any more grating?)
Cory Heart (OK but sings through his nose)
Celine Dion (OK, she can sing but she’s really absurdly rediculous)
You obviously have not heard the entirety of Neil Young’s work. What you hear on the radio is only a fraction of what he has done. I absolutely love Neil Young, and his unique voice is one reason why! And yes he is also a great musician and songwriter.
Pardon? You have to be sophisticated to appreciate someone that can’t hold a tune to save their life?
Man, I feel sorry for you.
Tell you what, we’ve got a Christmas CD of jingle-cats somewhere. They sound marginally similar to Neil Young, IMHO, but maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough to appreciate it. I’ll send it to you.
Have to respectfully disagree with the OP. Young may not have the greatest voice in the world, but it is a voice that, to me at least, sounds perfectly suited for the songs that he sings. I also think he’s an excellent songwriter. Harvest was a sensational album, and he’s done a heap of great stuff over the last three decades or so.
Well, that’s some elitist self-fellating if I’ve seen it. Anyone who disagrees with you is neither knowledgable or sophisticated. Fascinating. What are your other infallable opinions? Oh wait… I don’t care.
birdgirl - I do have to point out that bernse and I are both in Canada, where the CRTC has mandated that a minimum percentage of music played has to be Canadian content.
For a long, long time, that meant radio stations in Canada had to play a hulluva lot of Rush (Getty Lee - another successful Canadian musician that can’t sing), The Guess Who and, yes, Neil Young.
Trust me - Canadian radio plays WAAAAY more Neil Young than US stations do - I’m sure bernse has heard plenty.
The painful part, for me at least, is that it sounds like he is trying to sing in tune. Think of Harvest Moon. You can almost hear him struggling to keep the odd note he actually hits.
The raspy vocals of for example, Brian Johnson of AC/DC are a loud, shouting vocal and that is the way it is meant to be. And even then, he is at least hitting his notes. Something that Mr. Young seems to have the utmost difficulty doing.
BTW - I will not knock his songwriting ability. God knows I couldn’t write a decent song to save my life. I just think I could probably hit better notes with my farts than he can with his voice.
But you know who can’t sing, and should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever open his throat to the public ear again?? John Ashcroft, that’s who. You wanna get fired up about crappy singing, John Ashcroft is the man, the pinnacle, the sine qua non of digestive vocalization. He sounds like a sick hound in bagpipe sack rolling down a bumpy hill. I heard him only once and I will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never get the memory of that quavering desecration of wind out of my mind.
