10 Most Overrated Rock Albums Of The '70s
8. Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
Before he was waging war with Spotify or inventing grunge, Neil Young was becoming one of the most important artists of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and to slate almost any of his work from this era is playing with fire.
After The Gold Rush stands out, though, because it’s often singled out as his best work of the era despite being anything of the sort. Yes, there are fantastic songs on this record, not least the state of the nation title track, the lovely "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", and his heartstring-tugging version of Don Gibson’s “Oh, Lonesome Me”.
Compare this to the albums that surround it, though - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Harvest, On The Beach - and relatively speaking, it’s a bit limp. Young’s balladeering can walk a fine line between breakably beautiful and just shrill, and when he rocks out on “Southern Man”, it’s as basic a take on US race relations as you could hope to hear.
No doubt After The Gold Rush is superb in parts, but it feels like it was in the right place at the right time, while his albums of the same era often transcend all that.