This album, “more than anything else, is the record that made Drake the cult figure he remains.” NR “Pink Moon is the bleakest of them all.” NR This “is the sound of Nick Drake cracking up. That’s not exactly true – some have long thought that his death by an overdose of an anti-depressant was an accident, and not suicide – but this album, recorded over two late nights, certainly sounds like a fever dream.” JM
“After two albums of tastefully orchestrated folk-pop, albeit some of the least demonstrative and most affecting around, Drake chose a radical change for what turned out to be his final album. Not even half-an-hour long, with 11 short songs and no more – he famously remarked at the time that he simply had no more to record.” NR “The calm, focused anguish of this album [is] as harrowing as it is attractive.” NR
“No side musicians or outside performers help this time around – it’s simply Drake and Drake alone.” NR “Aside from a splash of piano, the only instrumentation on this stark and spooky collection is Drake’s eloquent acoustic guitar.” JM It was “recorded by regular producer Joe Boyd but otherwise untouched by anyone else.” NR
“The lead-off title track was eventually used in a Volkswagen commercial nearly 30 years later, giving him another renewed burst of appreciation – one of life’s many ironies, in that such an affecting song, Drake’s softly keened singing and gentle strumming, could turn up in such a strange context.” NR
“The remainder of the album follows the same general path, with Drake’s elegant melancholia avoiding sounding pretentious in the least thanks to his continued embrace of simple, tender vocalizing.” NR
“Meanwhile, the sheer majesty of his guitar playing – consider the opening notes of Radio or Parasite – makes for a breathless wonder to behold. If anyone needs confirmation as to why artists like Mark Eitzel, Elliot Smith, Lou Barlow, or Robert Smith hold Drake close to their hearts, it’s all here, still as beautiful as the day it was released.” NR
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