''Greendale'' is the 25th studio album by

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fur ...

. Young and Crazy Horse's ''Greendale'', a 10-song

rock opera A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas, although several have been ad ...

, is set in a fictional California seaside town. Based on the saga of the Green family, the musical "audio novel" has been compared to the literary classics of

Thornton Wilder Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel '' The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and '' The Skin of Our Teeth'' — ...

's ''

Our Town ''Our Town'' is a 1938 metatheatrical three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 thro ...

'' and

Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...

's '' Winesburg, Ohio'' for its complexity and emotional depth in exploring a small town in America.

Themes

''Greendale'' combines numerous themes on corruption, observation of the passing of time, environmentalism and mass media consolidation. The album, concert, film and DVDs have produced a vast divergence of critical opinion ranging from being called "amateur" to being voted as one of the best albums of 2003 by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine music critics.

Releases

The CD was originally released with a DVD of live "Neil-only" acoustic performance of the Greendale material from

Vicar Street Vicar Street is a concert, performing arts centre and events venue in Dublin, Ireland. Located on Thomas Street, Dublin 8, Vicar Street has capacity for 1,050 people for seated performances and 1,500 people for standing gigs. The venue is own ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, Ireland. The performance has since been made available as a stand-alone live album on digital download and streaming services such as iTunes and Amazon. In 2004, the CD was released with a new DVD containing ''Inside Greendale'', a documentary featuring in-studio performances of the album being recorded. A

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The st ...

version and box set vinyl LP version were also released, with both Advanced Resolution Stereo and 5.1

Surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener (surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to s ...

mixes, and a video of "Devil's Sidewalk" from the film. In late 2004, the feature-length DVD with actors

lip-synching Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , the same as the word ''sink'', short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. Audio for lip syncing is generated th ...

the material was released. ''Greendale'' was the last Neil Young album to feature Crazy Horse until 2012's ''

Americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

'', and his ninth with that band. In November 2020, a live album of the songs from ''Greendale'' was released as '' Return to Greendale''.

Track listing

All songs written by

Personnel

- guitar, organ, harmonica, vocal ;Crazy Horse *

Ralph Molina Ralph Molina (born June 22, 1943) is an American musician, best known as the drummer for Neil Young's backing band Crazy Horse. Born in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth o ...

- drums, vocal *

Billy Talbot William Hammond Talbot (born October 23, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of Crazy Horse. Music career Born in New York City, Talbot started his musical career singing on street corners at the age o ...

- bass, vocal with: *The Mountainettes: **

Pegi Young Margaret Mary "Pegi" Young (née Morton; December 1, 1952 – January 1, 2019) was an American singer, songwriter, environmentalist, educator and philanthropist. Music career After marrying Canadian folk rock musician Neil Young in 1978, her d ...

- vocal **Nancy Hall - vocal **Twink Brewer - vocal **Sue Hall - vocal *Producer- Neil Young *Engineer- John Hausmann *2nd engineer- Will Mitchell *Audio effects- Will Mitchell *In house music production - Mark Humphreys *Recorded at Plywood Analog *Mixed & Mastered at Redwood Digital *Mixed by Neil Young, assisted by John Hausmann and Will Mitchell *Mastered by Tim Mulligan

Comics adaptation

Vertigo Comics Vertigo Comics, also known as DC Vertigo or simply Vertigo, was an imprint of American comic book publisher DC Comics started by editor Karen Berger in 1993. Vertigo's purpose was to publish comics with adult content, such as nudity, drug us ...

made the production of the

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

adaptation of the album with the same title. Writer

Joshua Dysart Joshua Dysart (born June 21, 1971) is an American comic book writer. He has done work for DC Comics, Vertigo Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, Valiant Entertainment, IDW Publishing, Penny-Farthing Press, Virgin Comics and Random House ...

and Neil Young were involved in the project. ''Greendale''

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

() was released in June 2010, with Cliff Chiang providing the art.

Charts

References

External links

Website with the music, the lyrics, and some images of Neil Young's Greendale
(broken link)

- Reviews of album/CD, film and DVD
IMDb - Greendale (2003)DC/Vertigo Comics - Neil Young's Greendale
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greendale (album) 2003 albums Albums produced by Larry Johnson (film producer) Albums produced by Neil Young Crazy Horse (band) albums Neil Young albums Rock operas Vertigo Comics graphic novels Warner Records albums