At the end of 1990, around the time they recorded yesterday's Copenhagen, Galaxie 500 featured in one of those "best and worst things" end-of-year magazine round-ups. They named Ragged Glory one of the best things — no big surprise.
Having swum against the tide through the '80s, claiming that Neil Young still mattered when everyone else had written him off, it was a bittersweet time when, with Eldorado/Freedom, and then this album, everyone decided he was the forerunner of everything that mattered at the turn of the decade. Especially when "everything that mattered" seemed to mean "Nirvana and Pearl Jam" — ewwww!
Of course I wanted to love the album, and I was desperate to hear it as the release approached. I was on holiday with my mum and dad, and the first track I heard was Over and Over, listening to Andy Kershaw's programme while moored up off the coast of the Isle of Wight. I bought the CD when back on land, but my parents didn't have a CD player back then, so I had to take it round to their friend in the village and record it onto tape so I could play it before going back to Sheffield.
Ragged Glory has lots of great moments, but a few flaws too. Its shape and size feel all wrong, possibly because, around the late '80s, albums stopped being compiled as two halves adding up to 45 minutes, and were sequenced as one lump of 60-70 minutes for the CD format. This was early days, and they got it wrong. Having three songs over eight minutes disturbs the balance of the album. I don't know which if any of them I'd drop, possibly Love to Burn, but I could definitely do without Country Home (an old song from the mid-'70s) which is a really plodding way to start proceedings.
Happenstance or synchronicity? Ragged Glory came out on 4th September 1990, the same day that Meadowhall opened in Sheffield. During the following twelve and a half years that I lived in the city, I managed to avoid visiting a single shop there. Happenstance.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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