By Billy Florio

There are a lot of songs missing off of Neil Young’s Greatest Hits. “Powderfinger” is missing, as is “My My Hey Hey,” “This Note’s For You,” and just about everything off of ‘Tonight’s The Night’ and ‘On The Beach’. Not to mention there’s no ‘Buffalo Springfield’. But if someone really wanted to get that deep into Neil Young, they would probably already own those important albums or at least his first (and only other) ‘Greatest Hits’ album, 1977’s Decade. ‘Greatest Hits’ is not meant to be a compilation for the die-hard Neil Young fan. It’s meant as a starter for those who may not be as well-versed on Neil Young. For that reason, many of his popular songs are not here; and in case there’s an argument over if the songs included are his best songs, Young offers this explanation on how the songs were selected:

“Greatest hits inclusion based on original record sales, airplay, and known download history.” So blame your favorite classic rock station for not playing “Cortez The Killer” enough.

The songs selected though do provide a very good background to Neil Young’s career. The album mostly sticks to his earlier stuff (the only post 70s songs are “Rockin In The Free World” from 1989, and “Harvest Moon” from 1992), and there’s nothing wrong with that, since it’s doubtful that many people want, or need to hear tracks from his 80s techno disaster Trans, or recent botched attempt at a concept album, Greendale. The album is mostly filled with material from his early 70s masterpieces After the Gold Rush and Harvest, which provide six songs including Gold Rush’s amazing title track and Harvest’s darkly brilliant “The Needle And The Damage Done.” Also, filling up a good three songs is Young’s 1969 masterwork Everybody knows this is nowhere with epic length songs like the over nine minute “Down By The River” and the ten minute “Cowgirl In The Sand,” and stuck in between all his solo and Crazy Horse works, are two songs from Crosby Stills Nash and Young: “Helpless” and “Ohio” (though Young’s band-mates go unrecognized in the liner notes).

Despite the absence of many Young classics, this greatest hits compilation is a solid starter for Neil Young fans, and a nice single disc compilation of his major singles. It would have been nice to have “For What It’s Worth” or “Tonight’s The Night” on here, but it’s not essential, especially if someone who’s never heard Young before picks this up. They should hear this first, then go buy Neil Young or Rust Never Sleeps.

The Chronicle gives ´Greatest Hits´ by Neil Young five out of five stars.