Good question. And why isn’t On The Beach on CD either? I had to buy it from an old used record store. And I don’t even have a record player!
Found this web site calling for the re-release of On The Beach. Go sign the petition! It has 5,150 signatures.
http://www.dergunerz.freeserve.co.uk/
If you think Neil’s voice is hard to hear, go have a listen to J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Neil will sound really tuneful in comparison. Mascis gets by on his stunning guitar playing and pretty good song writing though. Like Young, it’s not the singing that you’re listening for.
Young’s voice can be pretty nice though when it’s harmonized with other voices. CSNY’s Deja Vu is an excellent example of this. Young’s voice was used to great effect on that album.
For madmen only! 
Naw, that would be Steppenwolf. 
Sam’s got it right on this.
A couple of singers who are both technically proficient and can bring the song home emotionally: Aretha Franklin and Bono.
Sonny Bono?
Thanks for the great quote, Odieman. I seek to go through the wall, because that way lies ecstacy.
This weekend I’ll be singing in the chorus for Beethoven’s Ninth. There’s great potential for going through the wall. Beethoven will take you there if you let him. Sometimes I feel his overwhelming presence on stage. When he walks on stage, the floor shakes.
There are single notes in the Ninth that take me beyond the starry sphere. There are passages where it takes an effort of will not to fall to my knees.
Ihr sturst nieder, Millionen
(I now translate this as “fall to your knees, teeming millions”.)
I am unapologetically a musical elitist. For each of you I wish something that takes you through the wall.
Good Lord, no.
Bono Hewson, the lead singer of U2. But generally known just as Bono.
Beethoven addressed the Teeming Millions in the Ninth Symphony?
Ye gods, he really was a visionary!
I’m torn on the whole Neil Young thing…it’s a love hate relationship in that I often love the lyrics and music but his vocals often make me (in the words of Lola) “want to gouge my eyes out”. I don’t know why certain music makes her want to do that and I think covering your ears would be more effective anyways.
On another note…
Odie… welcome back man.
I had a hard time getting into Neil Young’s singing at first. I knew he wrote great songs because I had heard and enjoyed covers of some of them by other bands like Pearl Jam, but when I listened to the originals I couldn’t help but notice that ol’ Neil hasn’t got what you’d call a conventionally good voice…or even a conventionally good rock and roll voice. But it grew on me in time. I still don’t think he’s got a truly great voice, but it’s the right voice for most of his songs.
I remember reading a quote by Pete Townshend once saying something to the effect that many audiences want to hear a song that sounds sincere and honest, and if they believe that you really mean what you’re singing they’ll forgive you if you aren’t that great of a vocalist. I would add that sometimes it actually helps if the singer isn’t a great vocalist.
As LordVor said, if a song deals with pain and suffering then it may lose something if performed by a singer with a “pretty” voice. Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” works so well because Johnny Cash sounds like someone who’s been around for a long time and has had plenty of experience hurting and being hurt by others. There are plenty of songs that would sound ridiculous or awful if covered by Johnny Cash, or Neil Young, but they both do a pretty good job of choosing their material.
As has already been stated, Neil Young reaches me in the way that Janis Joplin reaches me. I remember watching Janis for the first time when I was about 9. There was an Ed Sullivan marathon on Nick-at-Nite, if I remember correctly, and my dad stumbled into the den around 3 in the morning. I was in the middle of my first Janis-induced musical mental orgasm when my dad spouts off, “My God, that’s an ugly woman.” One man’s junk and all that jazz.
Neil rocks my socks.