On the Beach | 
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| Artist: Neil Young
Label: Reprise / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $7.18
You Save: $4.80 (40%)
New (39) Used (14) from $7.00
Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 4017
Format: Enhanced, Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 48497
UPC: 000009358614
EAN: 0093624849728
ASIN: B00009P1O0
Release Date: August 19, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new. Shipped from the UK by Airmail direct to 5 airports in the United States. Delivery takes approximately 5 working days from posting - we're frequently faster than a lot of US based sellers.
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| Tracks:
| • | Walk On | | • | See the Sky About to Rain | | • | Revolution Blues | | • | For the Turnstiles | | • | Vampire Blues | | • | On the Beach | | • | Motion Pictures | | • | Ambulance Blues |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Sparse, underproduced, and at times downright dour, On the Beach 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 Snodgrass ("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. Full of despair and little hope, On the Beach would nevertheless eventually come to be reappraised as a rock culture masterpiece. --Bill Holdship
Album Description
2003 remastered reissue of 1974 album. This dark yet triumphant album, with guests Graham Nash, David Crosby & The Band's Rick Danko & Levon Helm, initially peaked at #16 & achieved gold status. Eight tracks. Reprise.
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| Customer Reviews:
"Though your confidence may be shattered..." December 13, 2008
Laszlo Matyas
Neil Young is worthless to me when he's happy. Well, okay, maybe that's an exaggeration; I'm sure he had a smile on his face when he wrote "Cinnamon Girl." But aside from that, Young's best songs have almost always come from the darker regions of the human experience. His music is at its most powerful when dealing with angst, disillusionment, and uncertainty. By that token, this may very well be Neil Young's best album. Released in 1974, On The Beach rounds out a trio of albums commonly referred to as the "Ditch Trilogy," the other two being Tonight's The Night and Time Fades Away. Of the three, this is probably the most fully realized and fleshed-out installment. It's a collection of tense, brittle, rock songs and sickly ballads, of apathetic insults and haunted introspection. It's an album full of bitterness and black humor, and it's dark and mean and weary and absolutely, positively perfect. Well, maybe not "perfect," per se- "See The Sky About To Rain" is somewhat tedious - but it comes close. Very few songs in this world can match "Motion Pictures" or "For The Turnstyles" in terms of sheer spooked ennui, Fewer still can hope to compete with the vicious sarcasm of "Walk On." "Vampire Blues" is a cruel slab of mid 70s disillusionment that features, among other things, a guitar solo (or should I say anti-guitar solo?) that sounds exactly like a vampire suckling the last few drops of blood from a victim's neck. It's also got lines as deliciously bummed out as "good times are coming/ I hear it everywhere I go/ good times are coming/ but they're sure coming slow." Brilliant! The whole thing closes with "Ambulance Blues," which is a gorgeous and absolutely epic take on life after the storm, with its weary melody (nicely lifted from a Bert Jansch tune) and lyrics that are full of poetic imagery and symbolism. Great stuff.
This is what the singer-songwriter genre was always supposed to be about. December 4, 2008
Jeffrey Blehar (Potomac, MD)
Neil Young's finest album by a fair margin. It's ungimmicky and aggressively uncommercial: let's see, we've got 3 or 4 twelve-bar blues songs, one banjo-pickin' slice of the Ozarks, two straight folk songs, and one ponderous ballad. Not exactly Harvest, Part II.
This is the album where Young finally learned to just not give a dang what anyone else thought he should be doing with his music. "Walk On" is a stoic but upbeat kiss-off to the people who'd claimed Young was artistically 'dead,' and it's intentionally mirrored in the last song on the album, "Ambulance Blues." The point of "Motion Pictures" has little to do with movies and everything to do with the lines "All those people think they've got it made/But I wouldn't buy, sell, borrow, or trade/Anything I have to be like one of them/I'd rather start all over again." Similarly, the cryptic lyrics of "For The Turnstiles" (which showcases one of the most taut, finely-calibrated arrangements of any Young song, period) are clarified by the final verse, where the narrator passively observes the fickle crowd abandoning its team, leaving them to "die on the diamond" while they scatter for the turnstiles.
As for "Ambulance Blues" (the best song) it may be poor taste to go directly after your critics, but the resigned manner in which Neil does it is absolutely essential to the concept of this album, whose overriding themes speak about strength through irony and wry detachment, and about throwing off the crippling yoke of others' expectations.
So I wonder if the symbolism of the title & cover isn't often lost on people. While most of these songs may sound extremely doomy, Neil is ON THE BEACH: he's come through the fire and made it to the water's edge. This shouldn't be heard as a dark and depressing musical experience, but rather as a passionately redemptive one. Which is why, if you buy into the confessional ethos of the singer-songwriter genre in the first place, this should be your alpha-omega album. Whatever it is you're looking for emotionally: it's in here.
Mother Goose Is On The Skids September 19, 2008
Todd D. Alt (Ohio)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just recently bought this on CD. I really never got into this one back when it came out as an LP. I had always been into Neil, but after a while I guess I just burnt out on him and it was about when this one appeared. Bottom line is I have re-visited Neil on many occasions and have periods where I want to hear him all the time and then I get out of the mood for a while but I always return. On The Beach is one that I never heard and as I read other reviews I became intrigued. I have not been disappointed! This CD is full of everything that is Neil Young. The guitarwork is typical Neil in that it is simple and yet hauntingly effective as a framework for what I feel have got to be some of his best lyrics and singing. A lot of the reviews refer to this as a "dark" Neil Young album and there is no denying the truth of that analysis. It doesnt get any more serious, or relevant to todays society than "Revolution Blues" where as an outcast living on the edge of society talks of murdering Hollywood stars in their cars. However, the unique dark Neil Young humor, wit and sarcasam abounds in cuts like my personal favorite "Ambulance Blues" where he spouts that "Mother Goose is on the skids and the shoe aint happy and neither are the kids". Only Neil could come up with this kind of stuff and use it in a serious manner. Walk On, For the Turnstiles, and On The Beach are also standout cuts that are as good as anything he has ever written. In my opinion it is one of the most consistant of all the Neil Young offerings. In short, I love this one and recommend it to anyone who likes Neil.
Haunting and Moody, Neil's Best January 11, 2008
Jack Baker (LeRoy,IL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In my opinion, this is Neil Young's finest album. The album is sparse, with personal, enigmatic, and sometimes bleak lyrics. I first heard this when I was lucky enough to find a used LP in a head shop when I was in college back in the late 90s. Needless to say, the album blew my doors off. I'd already gotten in to Neil, courtesy of a classmate, but this album proved to be a real find. I was elated when it was finally released on CD.
On the Beach is probably my favorite Neil song of all time. The lyrics are interesting and the emotion conveyed is incredible. In addition, I don't think Neil's guitar ever seemed as plaintive as it does here. Simply beautiful despair. Crack a bottle of wine and put this one on with the lights low.
Neil's 'Dark Years' January 7, 2008
Julia O'Donovan (Royal Oak, Mich)
After the success of HARVEST, Neil went through a murky period where he released some albums leaving fans begging for another HARVEST. Personally, I really like ON THE BEACH and had to wait a long time for it to be released on Disc. It contains some of my favorite Neil Young lines. In his recent 2007 tour he performed "Ambulance Blues" from this CD and I was about one of five people screaming. Some of the songs off this CD appeared on DECADE.
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