Colorado | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | October 25, 2019 | |||
Recorded | 2019 | |||
Studio | Studio in the Clouds, Rocky Mountains, Colorado | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 50:21 | |||
Label | Reprise | |||
Producer | John Hanlon, Neil Young | |||
Neil Young chronology | ||||
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Crazy Horse chronology | ||||
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Singles from Colorado | ||||
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Colorado is the 39th studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young (and his first studio album with Crazy Horse since 2012),released on October 25,2019,by Reprise Records. [1] The album was preceded by the singles "Milky Way" (released on August 30,2019) and "Rainbow of Colors" (released on September 12,2019) and is dedicated to Elliot Roberts,Young's manager since 1967,who died aged 76 on June 21,2019. [2] It was also the first album to feature Nils Lofgren as a member of Crazy Horse since 1971.
Colorado is Young's first album with Crazy Horse since 2012's Psychedelic Pill . After their 2014 tour of Europe,Guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro retired from the group due to arthritis in both hands. [3] The band went on hiatus and Young recorded three albums with Lukas and Micah Nelson's Promise of the Real. For their first shows together in 2018 without Sampedro,and for Colorado,Young enlisted longtime collaborator Nils Lofgren to play guitar.
Young recorded the album near Telluride,Colorado,his new home after moving to be with his wife Daryl Hannah in the wake of losing a second Malibu home to fire. [4]
Like his last several albums,many of the lyrics are inspired by social issues. In a 2021 post to his website,Young describes "Rainbow of Colors" as "a song about the diversity of America and how strong it remains even under attacks from the harbors of White Supremacy. White Supremacy,now in its early death throes here in America,is the root cause of violence around the country,with the Dept of Homeland Security calling it the largest threat to peace inside the USA today.”In a 2019 post,Young explains the urgency for unity as the world seeks to address its social and environmental challenges:
"Rainbow of Colors" is a song about the USA and the whole world. The idea of this song is that we all belong together. Separating us into races and colors is an old idea whose time has passed. With the Earth under the direct influence of Climate Change, we are in crisis together needing to realize that we are all one. Our leaders continually fail to make this point. Preoccupied with their own agendas, they don't see the forest for the trees. We need to all be one because we are all threatened. Climate Change is the unifying force we have needed for a long time. Now that it is here we just need to recognize it and stop turning on our brothers and sisters and help them instead. We are all in this together."
According to a 2019 post to his website, "Help Me Lose My Mind" is about overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Green Is Blue" addresses climate change. Young explains to NPR: "Mostly, I would like a lot of people to see what's going on on the planet that is so obvious to me. I don't - I just don't know why people don't get it. Or if they do get it, then why don't they get with it?" [5]
The album was recorded at Studio in the Clouds near Telluride, Colorado over an 11 day stretch in April, 2019. Young and the group employed oxygen to help combat the 9200 foot elevation at the studio during recording. [6] Young recalls to Conan O'Brien:
"This is a record that took eleven straight days and nights. I had written everything, we went in and did the whole record, and we made a documentary about making the record. It was this whole thing and we created it all in that amount of time, it's a really special record! It's tough when you first get up there, you have to acclimate. When you get involved in things you use a lot of energy and you don't realize how much energy you use until you stop using it. You go, 'I have zero energy, I can't even breathe.' So, we had to have [the oxygen tanks] around in the beginning in case that should happen!" [7]
Young also produced a documentary of the sessions, entitled "Mountaintop". [8] [9]
Three of the songs on the album were recorded live the previous winter in Minneapolis and Winnipeg, and then overdubbed during the sessions. Young explains, "We started off doing something that we'd never done before, just to see what would happen. Every time you do a song, it's an opportunity to define it and what it means and how it feels. So if you feel it while you're doing the song [live], you're fucked, you've already done the song. It's only going to happen once like that, when you get that feeling. And so I had that feeling on a couple of the songs, that I'd done the song. I didn't want to do it again." [10]
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 79/100 [11] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [12] |
Clash | 8/10 [13] |
Exclaim! | 9/10 [14] |
The Guardian | [15] |
NME | [16] |
The Observer | [17] |
Pitchfork | 7.4/10 [18] |
Rolling Stone | [19] |
Slant Magazine | [20] |
Colorado received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 79, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 19 reviews. [11]
All tracks composed by Neil Young.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Think of Me" | 3:02 |
2. | "She Showed Me Love" | 13:36 |
3. | "Olden Days" | 4:04 |
4. | "Help Me Lose My Mind" | 4:14 |
5. | "Green Is Blue" | 3:48 |
6. | "Shut It Down" | 3:43 |
7. | "Milky Way" | 5:59 |
8. | "Eternity" | 2:43 |
9. | "Rainbow of Colors" | 3:35 |
10. | "I Do" | 5:37 |
Total length: | 50:21 |
Song | Single |
---|---|
"Truth Kills" | "Rainbow of Colors" (live) [21] |
Chart (2019) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Digital Albums (ARIA) [22] | 19 |
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [23] | 10 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [24] | 17 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [25] | 25 |
Canadian Albums (Billboard) [26] | 83 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [27] | 21 |
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [28] | 14 |
French Albums (SNEP) [29] | 36 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [30] | 6 |
Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ) [31] | 3 |
Irish Albums (IRMA) [32] | 23 |
Italian Albums (FIMI) [33] | 36 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [34] | 40 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [35] | 5 |
Portuguese Albums (AFP) [36] | 28 |
Scottish Albums (OCC) [37] | 7 |
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) [38] | 15 |
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [39] | 13 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [40] | 9 |
UK Albums (OCC) [41] | 17 |
US Billboard 200 [42] | 46 |
Nils Hilmer Lofgren is an American rock musician, recording artist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Along with his work as a solo artist, he has been a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band since 1984, a member of Crazy Horse, and founder/frontman of the band Grin. Lofgren was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band in 2014.
Greendale is the 25th studio album by Neil Young. Young and Crazy Horse's Greendale is a 10-song musical novel set in a fictional California seaside town of the same name. Based on the saga of the Green family, Greendale combines numerous themes on corruption, observation of the passing of time, environmentalism and mass media consolidation.
After the Gold Rush is the third studio album by the Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released in September 1970 on Reprise Records. It's one of four high-profile solo albums released by members of folk rock group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu. Young's album consists mainly of country folk music along with several rock tracks, including "Southern Man." The material was inspired by the unproduced Dean Stockwell-Herb Bermann screenplay After the Gold Rush.
Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for their association with Neil Young. Beginning in 1969 and continuing to the present day, they have been co-credited on a number of Young's albums, with 15 studio albums and numerous live albums being billed as by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. They have also released six studio albums of their own, issued between 1971 and 2009.
Weld is a live album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse released in 1991, comprising performances recorded on the tour to promote the Ragged Glory album. It was initially released as a limited edition three-disc set entitled Arc-Weld, with the Arc portion being a single disc consisting in its entirety of a sound collage of guitar noise and feedback. Arc has since been released separately.
Sleeps with Angels is the 20th studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released on August 16, 1994, on Reprise as a double LP and as a single CD. The album is Young's seventh with Crazy Horse. Co-produced by David Briggs, the album is Young's last with his long-time producer, who died the following year. The title track was written and recorded as a tribute to Kurt Cobain in wake of his suicide. Although the rest of the album was recorded before that event, the album takes on a somber, subdued tone throughout. Musician and author Ken Viola described the album as one of Young's "top five records. It examines the nature of dreams — both the light and dark side — and how they fuel reality in the nineties. Dreams are the only thing that we've got left to hang on to."
Live Rust is a live album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, recorded during their fall 1978 Rust Never Sleeps tour.
Zuma, the seventh studio album by Canadian/American musician Neil Young, was released on Reprise Records in November 1975. Co-credited to Crazy Horse, it includes "Cortez the Killer", one of Young's best-known songs.
Ragged Glory is the 18th studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, and his sixth album with the band Crazy Horse. It was released by Reprise Records on September 10, 1990. Ragged Glory was voted the 36th best Grunge album of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2019.
Are You Passionate? is the 24th studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, his only album to feature Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and his eighth with Crazy Horse, released on April 9, 2002 as a double LP and as a single CD. the album represents Young's foray into soul music, one of many explorations into different genres during his career. Exceptions are rocker "Goin' Home", recorded with Crazy Horse, and the brooding "Let's Roll", a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The album ends with "She's a Healer", an extended jam.
Broken Arrow is the 22nd studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, and his tenth with Crazy Horse, released in 1996.
This Note's for You is the 16th studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released April 11, 1988 on Reprise. The album marked Young's return to the recently reactivated Reprise Records after a rocky tenure with Geffen Records.
Homegrown is the 40th studio album by Canadian-American Neil Young. It was released on June 19, 2020, by Reprise Records. The album consists of material recorded between June 1974 and January 1975. The album was recorded after the release of On the Beach and before the sessions for Zuma. Like those two albums, much of the material was inspired by Young's relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress, which was deteriorating in 1974. The album was compiled and prepared for release in 1975. Instead, Tonight's the Night was released in its place, and Homegrown remained unreleased for 45 years. It was finally set for release as part of Record Store Day 2020, amid Neil Young's ongoing Archives campaign. Its release was again delayed by Record Store Day's postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before finally seeing release on June 19.
Americana is the 31st studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, released on June 5, 2012. The album was Young's first collaboration with backing band Crazy Horse since their 2003 album, Greendale, and its associated tour.
Psychedelic Pill is the 32nd studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, released on October 30, 2012. It is the second collaboration between Young and Crazy Horse released in 2012 and their first original work together since the Greendale album and tour in 2003 and 2004. The album was streamed on Young's website on October 24, 2012, and leaked onto the Internet the same day.
Neil Young Archives Volume II: 1972–1976 is a 10-CD box set from American-Canadian folk rock musician Neil Young that was initially released in a limited deluxe box set on November 20, 2020. The release is the second box set in his Neil Young Archives series, following 2009's The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972, and covers a three-and-a-half-year period from 1972–1976. The track list was officially announced on the Neil Young Archives site on September 20, 2020, with the first single, "Come Along and Say You Will", being posted to the site as the Song of the Day on October 14. The set then went up for pre-order on October 16, 2020, as an exclusive release to his online store, with only 3,000 copies being initially made available worldwide. After selling out the following day, Young announced several weeks later that a general retail version, as well as a second pressing of the deluxe box set, is expected to be released to market on March 5, 2021. This was followed by the release of a second single, "Homefires", on October 21, and a third, an alternate version of "Powderfinger", on November 3.
Way Down in the Rust Bucket is a live album and concert film from Canadian-American rock musician Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse, released on February 26, 2021. It is Volume 11.5 in the Performance Series of Neil Young Archives.
Barn is the 41st studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young and his 14th with American rock band Crazy Horse. The album was released on December 10, 2021, by Reprise Records. A stand-alone film of the same name directed by Young's wife Daryl Hannah was also released for streaming and on Blu-ray.
Toast is the 42nd album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young and Crazy Horse. One of Young's several "lost" albums, it was recorded in 2000-2001 but shelved in favor of Are You Passionate?, and was finally released on July 8, 2022. It is Volume 09 of Neil Young Archives' Special Release Series.
World Record is the 43rd studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young and his 15th with Crazy Horse, released on November 18, 2022, through Reprise Records. The album was produced by Young and Rick Rubin, and preceded by the lead single "Love Earth".