Neil Young

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the listeners of 2016 will struggle to find the relevance of Neil Young's Living With War and its songs about fraudulent wars, crooked elections, energy crises, and spying, lying, doublespeaking, hugely unpopular presidents. While some of the tunes, like "After the Garden," strike only a general tone of anti-authoritarianism -- one that easily could have been captured during Young's first go-round as a protest singer, circa "Ohio" -- other songs are more ripped-from-the-headlines, referencing the levees in New Orleans and Bush's "mission accomplished" photo-op. Barack Obama is even called out by name (Young seems to think he could lead America out of this mess).

No, intentions are not masked by metaphor, and mission statements are not diluted by abstraction. Young lays it all very plainly on the table, and, unlike some of the punk and rock bands that have also been making fiery political music recently, almost every word is easily comprehensible. As high-profile albums go, it's the most direct middle finger that has been lifted up to Bush & Co. There is a song, after all, called "Let's Impeach the President."

"Impeach" is written as a straight-ahead anthem, and it becomes even more of a rousing, ramshackle sing-along thanks to the audacious addition of a 100-member strong backing choir. This risk pays off again on the reflective title track, which sounds like a hymn set to electric guitar. Living With War benefits tremendously from this sense of community. Young isn't a lone voice in the wilderness here -- he's got the people behind him, and the songs gain strength from numbers. An unplanned album recorded in only nine days, it has the spontaneous feel of an old jazz session. (With all of that said, it would have been okay to have his new friends sit on the sidelines for a few songs; the effect is somewhat muted by the choir's continual presence.)

In recent years, it seemed like Young may have finally drifted away from noise and rough edges, but Living With War marks a triumphant and spirited return to "Rockin' in the Free World" and his similarly loose and electric Mirrorball collaboration with Pearl Jam. There's an emphasis on immediacy, so the hooks are big and the choruses are contagious -- with Young and his guitar, both sounding as fired up and pissed off as ever, snarling right alongside. Even the closing version of "America the Beautiful" sounds more like a wake-up cry than a proud salute. - Adam McKibbin, The Red Alert

In a move that deliberately echoes the rush release of "Ohio" in the wake of the Kent State shootings, Neil Young bashed out his 2006 protest record Living with War in a matter of days, sometimes recording songs the day they were written, and then seized the opportunities of the digital age by streaming the entire album on his website only weeks after it was recorded, with the official digital and CD releases trailing several days later. It's the best use yet of the instant, widespread distribution that the Web has to offer, and it also hearkens back to the days when folk music was topical, turning the news into song. But if the ballads of the 19th century were passed along gradually, growing along the way, or if the protest tunes of the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s grew in stature being performed regularly, gaining strength as singer after singer sang them, Living with War captures a specific moment in time: early 2006, when George W. Bush's approval ratings slipped to the low 30s, as discontent sowed by the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, rising gas prices, and much more turned into a general malaise in the country (or in political shorthand, it was the moment when George W. turned into Jimmy Carter). To some, the specificity of Young's writing on Living with War will forever date it, but that's a risk with any topical folk, rock, or pop, from "We Shall Overcome" to "We Are the World" -- or "Ohio," for that matter. Young is aware of this and embraces the allegedly short shelf life of his songs for Living with War by directly addressing the political turmoil in the U.S.A. in 2006 and the real human wreckage it has left behind. As such, it will function as a vivid document of its era, as much as any journalism of its time, but Living with War isn't rock-as-CNN: it's a work of art, and it's a canny one at that, with Young drawing on familiar words and music to create both historic and emotional context for his songs. It's not merely clever that "Living with War" quotes "The Star Spangled Banner," or that "Flags of Freedom" consciously reworks Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" -- it helps tie Young's work to the past and gives his new work greater resonance. And nowhere is that more true than on "Let's Impeach the President" and how its melody recalls "The City of New Orleans" to help underscore what was lost in the government's bungled reaction to Katrina's devastation to the legendary American city. With a grandstanding title like that, along with its George W. soundbites, "Let's Impeach the President" is the flashiest song here, and it crystallizes what's good about the album: sure, it pulls no punches and it's angry, but it's not just ranting; it's artfully written and effective, as is Living with War as a whole. It's not perfect, but it has a vitality lacking in Young's recorded work of the last 15 years or so, and its blend of Greendale's loud, meandering guitar rock and the bittersweet mournful, aging hippie vibe of Prairie Wind is not only appealing, it's better executed than either of those good yet flawed records -- and that execution not only applies to the ragged glory of the recording, but to the songs themselves. They manage to be unified in a way that Young wanted Greendale to be but didn't quite pull off, yet they also stand on their own and are, overall, more memorable than those on Prairie Wind. And that's the reason why, politics aside, Living with War stands as a very strong, effective Neil Young album that will continue to have a punch long after the George W. Bush administration has faded into the history books. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide