On the Beach is the fifth studio album by Neil Young, released in 1974. It was unavailable on compact disc until it was released as a HDCD-encoded remastered version on August 19 2003 as part of the Neil Young Archives Digital Masterpiece Series.
Recorded after (but released before) Tonight's the Night, On the Beach shares some of that album’s bleakness and crude production—which came as a shock to fans and critics alike, as this was the long-awa...
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On the Beach is the fifth studio album by Neil Young, released in 1974. It was unavailable on compact disc until it was released as a HDCD-encoded remastered version on August 19 2003 as part of the Neil Young Archives Digital Masterpiece Series.
Recorded after (but released before) Tonight's the Night, On the Beach shares some of that album’s bleakness and crude production—which came as a shock to fans and critics alike, as this was the long-awaited studio follow-up to the commercially and critically successful Harvest—but also included hints pointing towards a more subtle outlook, particularly opener "Walk On".
While the original Rolling Stone review described it as "One of the most despairing albums of the decade", later critics such as Allmusic’s William Ruhlmann used the benefit of hindsight to conclude that Young "[w]as saying goodbye to despair, not being overwhelmed by it". The despair of Tonight's the Night, communicated through intentional underproduction and lyrical...
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