Significant longplayers from yesteryear
12 August 2025
Living legend NEIL YOUNG released his 15th LP OLD WAYS today 40 years ago,
on 12 August 1985. It was his first pure country album, but his record label Geffen
Records didn’t like it, ’cause they thought it was unsaleable. Fuck them. Another sad
example of how money-greedy corporate monsters disrespect the artist’s vision when
they think they can’t get enough money out of it. It happened then, it still happens now.
They refused to promote it, so the truly wonderful LP
stranded at #39 in the UK and #75 in the US.
Young said a few years later to Rolling Stone Magazine: “There was a whole other record, the original Old Ways, which Geffen rejected. It was done in Nashville in only a few days, basically the same way Harvest was done. Old Ways II was more of a country record – which was a direct result of being sued for playing country music.
The more they tried to stop me, the more I did it. Just to let them know that no one’s gonna tell me what to do. I was so stoked about that record. I sent them a tape of it that had eight songs on it. I called them up a week later, ’cause I hadn’t heard anything, and they said, “Well, frankly, Neil, this record scares us a lot. We don’t think this is the right direction for you to be going in.” … They didn’t look at me as an artist; they looked at me as a product, and this product didn’t
fit in with their marketing scheme.”
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