The genre Neil Young called the “new kind of rock ‘n’ roll”
Neil Young has always been open-minded towards music and the ever-changing landscape, which has regenerated many times before his eyes. Without innovation, there would never be any advancement in the art form. Young has been at the forefront of pushing boundaries, most notably in the early 1980s when electronic music started gathering momentum.
Two decades prior, Bob Dylan was a key inspiration for Young and prompted him to pursue a career as a folk artist. Dylan’s impact was revolutionary, changing how musicians approached their lyricism and permanently affecting the trajectory of popular culture. Similarly, although The Beatles didn’t invent rock ‘n’ roll, they helped elevate its position in mainstream consciousness, leading to the development of new bands all across the world.
Over the next decade, rock took on many new faces and never stood still. However, groups such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath sounded significantly different from The Beatles, but they still used the same set of instruments to capture their work.
However, the development of synthesisers changed everything, and in the 1970s, acts such as Kraftwerk proved that bands no longer needed to conform to standardised ideals. With every passing year, technology advanced further, and Young was intrigued by the developments, dipping his toes in the water for his 1982 album Trans.
The record was Young’s first for Geffen, who was unhappy with his decision to go down the electronic avenue on the release. When they signed the Canadian singer-songwriter, they expected his traditional brand of folk rock. He deliberately irritated them further by following up the LP with a rockabilly album, which flopped to his delight.
However, his decision to step into the arena of electronica was entirely authentic and motivated by the right reasons. During an interview on television in 1982, Young said of the genre: “Electronic music is a lot like folk music to me… it’s a new kind of rock ‘n’ roll — it’s so synthetic and anti-feeling that it has a lot of feeling… So I think that this new music is emotional — it’s very emotional — because it’s so cold… I have my synthesisers and my computers, and I’m not lonely.”
Furthermore, an incredibly personal factor encouraged Young to follow this path. His son Ben, who was born with cerebral palsy, required the assistance of technology to communicate. The musician explained to Rolling Stone in 1988: “You’ll hear a lot of references to my son and to people trying to live a life by pressing buttons, trying to control the things around them and talking with people who can’t talk, using computer voices and things like that. It’s a subtle thing, but it’s right there.”
He continued: “But it has to do with a part of my life that practically no one can relate to. So, my music, which is a reflection of my inner self, became something that nobody could relate to. And then I started hiding in styles, just putting little clues in there as to what was really on my mind. I just didn’t want to openly share all this stuff in songs that said exactly what I wanted to say in a voice so loud everyone could hear it.”
Using elements of electronic music allowed Young to explain his situation without spelling it out in black and white for listeners, providing him with a curtain to hide behind. If he made a typical Neil Young record, it would have been impossible to communicate these feelings in the nuanced manner he wished.
