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"LUCKY THIRTEEN"
Neil Young (Geffen)
"Lucky" may not be quite the word Geffen executives would use to describe their position in their often-testy, mid-'80s association with Neil Young, which just happened to coincide with the five-year period many fans consider the most negligible in his mercurial career.
In any case, there wouldn't be much point in the charade of a "greatest hits" package covering the Geffen years, so Young and the label have put aside differences long enough to come up with a more suitably oddball 1983-88 retrospective, half of which is outtakes or alternate versions.
This sideways approach has pluses and minuses: While some of Young's work from the era has been underrated, this collection doesn't really make a great case for a critical reassessment, because it blithely skips over many of the best (and/or most popular) tunes from the albums under review. But it is representative in its spotty way, and the rarities would make it a must for any fan, even though most of Young's Geffen catalog remains unavailable on CD.
These were his most severely chameleonic years, so fasten in for a bumpy ride - from the Vocoder-voiced "Trans" stuff (ambitious and badly dated) to the lilting country...