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Released: November 1975


Rating: 4.142 (average of 10 ratings)


Genre: rock


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. Don’t Cry No Tears
  2. Danger Bird
  3. Pardon My Heart
  4. Lookin’ for a Love
  5. Barstool Blues
  6. Stupid Girl
  7. Drive Back
  8. Cortez the Killer
  9. Through My Sails


Sales:

sales in U.S. only ½ 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 25
peak on U.K. album chart 44


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • none


Zuma
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Review:
“Having apparently exorcised his demons by releasing the cathartic Tonight’s the Night, Neil Young returned to his commercial strengths with Zuma (named after Zuma Beach in Los Angeles, where he now owned a house). Seven of the album's nine songs were recorded with the reunited Crazy Horse, in which rhythm guitarist Frank Sampedro had replaced the late Danny Whitten, but there were also nods to other popular Young styles in Pardon My Heart, an acoustic song that would have fit on Harvest, his most popular album, and Through My Sails, retrieved from one of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's abortive recording sessions” (Ruhlmann).

“Young had abandoned the ragged, first-take approach of his previous three albums, but Crazy Horse would never be a polished act, and the music had a lively sound well-suited to the songs, which were some of the most melodic, pop-oriented tunes Young had crafted in years, though they were played with an electric-guitar-drenched rock intensity. The overall theme concerned romantic conflict, with lyrics that lamented lost love and sometimes longed for a return (‘Pardon My Heart’ even found Young singing, ‘I don’t believe this song’), though the overall conclusion, notably in such catchy songs as Don’t Cry No Tears and Lookin’ for a Love, was to move on to the next relationship” (Ruhlmann).

“But the album's standout track (apparently the only holdover from an early intention to present songs with historical subjects) was the seven-and-a-half-minute epic Cortez the Killer, a commentary on the Spanish conqueror of Latin America that served as a platform for Young's most extensive guitar soloing since his work on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” (Ruhlmann).


Review Source(s):


Related DMDB Links:

Previous album: On the Beach (1974) Neil Young’s DMDB page Next album: Stills-Young Band: Long May You Run (1976)


Last updated April 8, 2008.