Young, Mitchell and Cohen - Canadian Refusniks

I’ve had an ambition to cover all of Neil Young’s studio album catalogue for quite some time, but there are a couple of barriers. Firstly it’s huge, and at the rate I go it will take me well over a year to get through them all. Secondly, he has famously rejected the streaming model of music distribution, at least via Spotify, which is the platform I use. Neither of these are insurmountable problems. It just took me well over a year to run through the joint and individual outputs of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and they’ve done about half the number of albums that Young has, so if I’m worried about takling a long time, that ship has already well and truly sailed. For the second problem, there are plenty of other streaming services that would solve it and subscriptions are not prohibitively expensive.

However, this also means that it is going to take a long time and some financial outlay will be required. If that is the case maybe it can be made more worthwhile? Another artist I’ve been interested in covering has been Joni Mitchell, who shares a nationality and a distaste for Spotify with Neil Young. And if I’m doing them, why not throw in another Canadian in the form of Leonard Cohen. All three have their solo output originating in the late sixties so they are contemporaries. As a viewpoint from the world of popular music outside the domination of the United States and the United Kingdom, they could provide interesting insight both indiviually and collectively.

For Neil and Joni, I’m going to have to purchase the albums and since vinyl is now back in a big way, I’m considering trying to find second hand copies as I progress my way through. It may not be possible. If they are rare the cost could be prohibitive and maybe in some cases from the mid-eighties to the end of the last century they might not ever have even existed, but the idea of the original physical objects, used and played, maybe a bit scratchy with the orignal packaging is very appealing and will provide new angles for me to think and write about.