The only number one album Neil Young ever had in America
Looking back at the plethora of incredible artists that emerged in the 1960s and ’70s, and very few of them who have a back catalogue that comes close to Neil Young‘s.
One of the most gifted songwriters of his generation, Young managed to do what so many of his contemporaries failed to do and continuously write great songs for decades after his initial peak. Refusing to compromise on his artistic values, Young has matured itno his role as an elder statesman of rock and carved out a niche as the genre’s ultimate truth teller.
Neil Young would never measure success by whether his album was in the charts. From day one, Young was known for doing whatever the hell he wanted to, and he couldn’t have cared less if his new vision for his sound sold 40 records or 40million records. When he was fresh out of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, though, the Canadian songsmith had his only number-one album just as the 1970s began with Harvest.
It’s not like Young had been a stranger on the charts, though. When working on his first handful of songs with Buffalo Springfield, some of Young’s trademark licks were being heard all over the radio, taking subtle folk songs and having his guitar cut through like a buzzsaw. As soon as he struck out on his own, he had started to mellow a little bit on record.
When working on After the Gold Rush, Young started bringing more folk elements into his sound, making songs that were dominated by acoustic guitar and piano. Despite being known as ‘The Godfather of Grunge’, Young was practically turning into a singer-songwriter before listeners’ ears, sounding like he was trying on his best James Taylor impression.
For all of the great songs on the album, though, the top spot seemed to elude him in his native Canada and beyond, only reaching the top spot in the Netherlands and quickly fading from view. Young needed a change of scenery, anyway, so his next album would see him venturing into Nashville to work with the best players he could find.
While Young had the idea of working with various session musicians from the area, he wasn’t going to go about it the way one would think. Even though anyone with common sense would have a guitar great like James Taylor…you know…play the guitar, Young demoted him to banjo when playing in the sessions, which Taylor had never even touched before.
Outside of the backwards approach to production, Young captured some kind of musical innocence on the album. By taking only the fundamental pieces needed for the album, Harvest became his first international number-one album, reaching the top spot in Canada, America, and England.
Powered by the knockout single ‘Heart of Gold’, Young was finally at the top of the musical food chain…and didn’t necessarily like what he saw at the top. For all those who appreciated his music, Young was just as likely to switch things up on every album, not wanting to be stuck in one musical lane for the rest of his life.
While most musicians would make a thousand more Harvests for the rest of their lives, Young was mortified about the idea of watching himself become a nostalgia act playing his hits to schlubs later down the road. The occasional album may have done well, but Young would never see the top of the charts in America, only notching up the odd album to the top of the charts in countries like Norway like on the disastrous Fork in the Road.
Even when he suddenly became cool again thanks to acts like Pearl Jam, Young still stalled out short of the top spot, only reaching the Top 10 with albums like Freedom and Mirror Ball. That kind of chart action didn’t seem to matter, though. Young was an artist, and he wasn’t going to lose sleep at night thinking about the amount of records he could have sold.
