Mirror Ball (1995)

The Pearl Jam album. There’s some shenanigans surrounding how Neil came to work with Pearl Jam as the backing band for this involving a clandestine rehearsal with the band instead of Crazy Horse, cutting out Briggs when the producer had been wanting to work with Pearl Jam for awhile, and activities surrounding the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies. It’s all detailed in Shakey, and it leaves you feeling like Neil knew he was doing a disservice to Crazy Horse because he had gotten jazzed about working with a younger band.

So we get a rock album from Neil without the Horse or Briggs. You can immediately tell. The mixing is different, full of mid-range, burying Neil instead of centering him, the drums crash and pummel you, and there’s a consistency of songwriting that’s unlike Neil’s usual variety. It makes the songs all sound too similar to pick out of a line-up. That’s not what you expect when you listen to a Neil album at all. I remember hearing about this and thinking “oh boy, Neil, you’ve really jumped the shark now” and I was a grunge/Pearl Jam fan just a couple years prior. I was in the midst of graduating from high school and my tastes were tending more and more toward the underground. If I had taken the time to listen to this at the time, I’m guessing it would have been a one and done listen.

See, personally, I'm pro-choice. But the song isn't! This isn't an easy subject to confront head-on. People who say that human beings shouldn't have the right to dismiss a human life - they have a point. You can't dismiss that point. But then there's the reality. There's idealism and reality, the two have got to come together yet there are always major problems when they do. Maybe that's the crux of what I'm trying to say in this new album. (Neil Young, MOJO Magazine, December 1995)

I’m not missing the coincidence of the timing of this album in my listen back. But here we go.

Considering that Neil and Pearl Jam first came together when Pearl Jam asked him and Crazy Horse to perform at a pro-choice benefit, it’s a bit odd that Mirror Ball starts off with two back-to-back songs that sidestep the issue quite a bit. Or maybe it’s not that odd considering Neil’s viewpoint is often about a push-pull between two seemingly opposing thoughts. His comment above is a very nuanced and personal view on the abortion debate. Neil has never been shy about his opinions and positions, but there’s a maturity to his analysis that took form on Sleeps with Angels. The braver thing would have been to take a stand on the songs, of course. I wish he had, as “both sides” is an increasing problem in modern analysis of social issues that effect real people. Obfuscating important messages doesn’t help any one and constitutes navel-gazing to me.

Of those two songs, “Song X” is the more interesting one, considering it’s a sea shanty (Neil, do more sea shanties!). “We’re on the road to never” is a bleak look at the topic, but sufficiently haunting. I just wish Neil wasn’t so buried in the mix. Like “Act of Love,” his mentions of a “holy war” are not wrong but a bit reductive. However, where “Song X” is a unique sounding song, “Act of Love” is pretty standard for rock music of the time, just a wall of guitars and crashing drums. The vocals are so buried, they are completely secondary to “rockin’ out!” It’s a trend for this album that doesn’t get at what makes Neil’s usual takes so compelling. That said, I do love all the beginning/ending moments on this album being left in, full of studio chatter and long feedback tails.

“I’m the Ocean” has been called one of Neil’s most personal and autobiographical songs, with Neil seeing himself as an outlier, but also a difficult force. It’s insightful and I like the melody quite a bit. This is a song I’d like to hear with a different band. I’m pretty sure he performs some of these songs with Crazy Horse/Promise of the Real in later years, so I’ll have to seek them out and see if they change my opinion of this mix. The next one, “Big Green Country,” doesn’t do much for me, but “Truth Be Known” sounds much more like a Neil song to me. It’s covered in Pearl Jam mid-range mud, of course, but the vocal and guitar lines are what I expect from a collaboration between these two entities.

“I think I fucked up,” says Neil at the beginning of single “Downtown” and this is one of those songs where I think the opposite is true. It has a good groove, Neil is more out front, and I can see why this was the song to put out from the album. There are better songs on here, but this familiar Jethro Tull kind of rhythm plays well with this band, and the dueling solos are fun. After this, the pump organ interlude of “What Happened Yesterday” is a welcome respite. It doesn’t last long, but it gives you a little break before the Eddie Vedder co-written “Peace and Love,” which isn’t too special, with a very Pearl Jam structure and fairly rote lyrics.

For my money, the next two songs are the strongest on Mirror Ball. “Throw Your Hatred Down” could have been a Ragged Glory song in another life (will have to find a Crazy Horse performance). It has that driving cadence that makes it feel like it’s in motion and the guitars are soaring over your head. “Scenery” is a great strung out guitar work-out, where Neil and the band start to drift into that live Crazy Horse experience where they lose themselves in the sounds. In some ways, this might be the most Pearl Jam song on the album, almost like Neil doing a Pearl Jam cover. But that works! Especially when he lets Old Black loose on it. This song is placed well at the end, as it sort of serves as the moment when you’ve heard a band practice for awhile and finally come together. The denouement “Fallen Angel” brings back the pump organ and “I’m the Ocean” melody. It’s a nice epilogue, even if I can’t really figure out what it’s about or why it was needed at the end here.

Top 3:

1. Throw Your Hatred Down
2. Scenery
3. I’m the Ocean

Cut song: Peace and Love

There’s a 1997 performance on the Neil Young Archives with Crazy Horse, where they perform a few of these songs and I definitely like the leaner sound of a smaller band. It’s almost a shame Neil felt he had to do an album with Pearl Jam at this time, because I would have loved to hear a studio album with the Horse at this time. “Throw Your Hatred Down” cements itself as a Ragged Glory song on this, too.