Neil Young – On the Beach [Stereo] (Neil Young Archives Official Release Series Edition)

(AAA) — Lacquers cut from the original analog master tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.

Remastered 2016 140-gram vinyl reissue

Neil Young at his most uncompromising

Remastered from the original master tapes. Regarded as a masterpiece, the 1974 release On The Beach was was Neil Young's first studio album after Harvest had transformed him into a mainstream superstar two years before. It was a career move akin to "pissin' in the wind," as the artist himself describes life on one of the album's most famous lines.

Young had already recorded the harrowing Tonight's the Night, his indictment of '60s drug culture and the damage done, but his label rejected it as too abrasive. So the artist gave them this instead. Less mournful but still haunting, the album is basically Young's rejection of rock stardom and what had become of the counterculture, covering a range of subjects, including Richard Nixon and Patty Hearst (the epic "Ambulance Blues"), his affair with actress Carrie Snodgress ("Motion Pictures"), and, most famously, years before it became "chic" to do so, Charles Manson (the rocking "Revolution Blues"). "Vampire Blues," meanwhile, seemed to be about all those topics, as well as Young himself.

(Above description from AcousticSounds.com)