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Released: October 3, 1989


Rating: 4.192 (average of 13 ratings)


Genre: rock


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. Rockin’ in the Free World [acoustic version]
  2. Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero, Pt. 1)
  3. Don’t Cry
  4. Hangin’ on a Limb
  5. Eldorado
  6. The Ways of Love
  7. Someday
  8. On Broadway
  9. Wrecking Ball
  10. No More
  11. Too Far Gone
  12. Rockin’ in the Free World [rock version]


Sales:

sales in U.S. only ˝ million
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated 1.5 million


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart 35
peak on U.K. album chart 17


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • Rockin’ in the Free World [rock version] (9/23/89) #2 AR
  • No More (12/23/89) #7 AR
  • Crime in the City (3/24/90) #34 AR


Freedom
Neil Young
Review:
“Neil Young is famous for scrapping completed albums and substituting hastily recorded ones in radically different styles. Freedom, which was a major critical and commercial comeback after a decade that had confused reviewers and fans, seemed to be a selection of the best tracks from several different unissued Young projects. First and foremost was a hard rock album like the material heard on Young’s recent EP, Eldorado (released only in the Far East), several of whose tracks were repeated on Freedom. On these songs – especially Don’t Cry, which sounded like a song about divorce, and a cover of the old Drifters hit On Broadway that he concluded by raving about crack – Young played distorted electric guitar over a rhythm section in an even more raucous fashion than that heard on his Crazy Horse records” (Ruhlmann).

“Second was a follow-up to Young's previous album, This Note’s for You, which had featured a six-piece horn section. They were back on Crime in the City and Someday, though these lengthy songs, each of which contained a series of seemingly unrelated, mood-setting verses, were more reminiscent of songs like Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ than of the soul standards that inspired the earlier album” (Ruhlmann).

“Third, there were tracks that harked back to acoustic-based, country-tinged albums like Harvest and Comes a Time, including Hangin’ on a Limb and The Ways of Love, two songs on which Young dueted with Linda Ronstadt” (Ruhlmann).

“There was even a trunk (or, more precisely, a drunk) song, Too Far Gone, which dated from Young’s inebriated Stars ‘n Bars period in the ‘70s. While one might argue that this variety meant few Young fans would be completely pleased with the album, what made it all work was that Young had once again written a great bunch of songs. The romantic numbers were carefully and sincerely written. The long imagistic songs were evocative without being obvious” (Ruhlmann).

“And bookending the album were acoustic and electric versions of one of Young’s great anthems, Rockin’ in the Free World, a song that went a long way toward restoring his political reputation (which had been badly damaged when he praised President Reagan’s foreign policy) by taking on hopelessness with a sense of moral outrage and explicitly condemning President Bush’s domestic policy. Freedom was the album Neil Young fans knew he was capable of making, but feared he would never make again” (Ruhlmann).


Review Source(s):


Related DMDB Links:

Neil Young’s DMDB page


Last updated November 18, 2008.