Music Arcades: Neil Young: Everybody's Rockin'

More Neil. The first I heard of this was when Peter Powell played a track from it on Radio 1, in late August or early September 1983. In a rare departure from his gushing positivity, Powell admitted that Neil's new direction was "not my kind of thing". I scoffed arrogantly at the idea that Neil would ever stoop to produce something that would appeal to Peter Powell. But I had to admit it didn't sound like my kind of thing either.

I'd bought Trans almost as soon as it came out eight months earlier, but it would be another year or more — until I had become the kind of fan that had to have everything Neil had done — before I bought Everybody's Rockin'.

One rationale that Neil gave for it was that the critics had dismissed the electronic dabblings of Trans as being too innovative and contemporary for an artist like him — so he bloody-mindedly set off on a tack in the opposite direction. The critics hated this album even more. Later, when the tide turned and critics lauded This Note's For You, Neil was still flying the flag for Everybody's Rockin', claiming that This Note was the final piece in a trilogy that included Tonight's the Night and Everybody's Rockin'. Pull the other one.

The sad truth is that Peter Powell and the critics were right. I wouldn't mind if Neil did a handbag house album — if he did it well, which I suspect he could. But I've never heard him sound as anaemic as he does on this record. It's less than 25 minutes long, but those 25 minutes really seem to drag on a long time.

I think the live shows with the "Shocking Pinks" around that time still managed to be interesting affairs. I heard a bootleg once. And the best part of Scott Young's Neil and Me is his reporting from that tour. Twenty five years on, Anthony Crawford and Ben Keith from the Shocking Pinks were cornerstones of Neil's band in Europe this year.