Of all of the brilliantly perverse strikes Neil Younger has made in his profession, the 1982 launch of Trans simply could be the most sensible. Not that the parents at Geffen, his label on the time, essentially felt that approach. They’d simply signed him as one in every of their flagship artists, at a time when Younger’s business and significant credibility was at an all-time excessive. Little doubt they had been anticipating one other Loopy Horse barnstormer, or a return to the smooth country-rock of the Harvest period. What they obtained was a plunge into uncharted territory.
A profound backstory
Launched on December 29, 1982, Trans is commonly thought-about to be Neil Younger’s synth-pop album, however that’s not likely the case. There are, in truth, few keyboards on it, and in order for you a guitar band, it’s obtained an important one. All of Loopy Horse make appearances, together with longtime utility man Ben Keith and someday member Nils Lofgren, plus percussionist Joe Lala (from Stephen Stills’ Manassas and the Stills-Younger Band) and, for the one time on a Younger solo album, ex-Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer (Trans even options an 80 replace of Buffalo Springfield’s 1967 single “Mr Soul”).
What it didn’t have, for essentially the most half, was the recognizable voice of Neil Younger. With three exceptions, all of the vocals had been sung via a vocoder, which twisted his voice into robotic type. This was completely becoming for a idea album about how humanity was going to make sense of the pc age, however it instantly threw followers out of their consolation zone, and largely doomed the album’s possibilities at radio.
As a result of Younger wasn’t doing interviews on the time, he by no means defined the album’s backstory till a few years later, but when he had, many extra followers would have in all probability taken it to coronary heart on the time. They didn’t know that Younger’s son Ben was stricken with cerebral palsy and unable to talk, and that Younger was utilizing new digital gadgets to speak with him. The songs he was writing evinced the frustrations of this course of, in addition to the precise sounds the machines had been making.
Ben and his mother and father couldn’t at all times perceive the phrases, so neither might listeners. At first Younger didn’t even intend to launch the songs. His preliminary submission to Geffen was a way more business album, Island In The Solar, which had a breezy tropical really feel. Geffen turned this down, nevertheless, so Younger went again to the Loopy Horse recordings, upped the digital ingredient, and turned the lead to as Trans.
Digital-era dread
Three songs from Island In The Solar had been retained on Trans; two of them opened a facet every of the unique vinyl, and are so sunny and jovial that you need to marvel what they’re even doing there (there would have been an extra Island music, “If You Got Love,” however Younger yanked it on the final minute – therefore its look on Trans’ unique cowl and lyric sheet). The album’s opener, “Little Thing Called Love,” marked one of many solely instances that Younger ever delivered a tailored hit single. Positive, it’s out of character, with the boozy ambiance and slide guitar, however it’s nonetheless obtained the requisite edge. He notes that “only love brings you the blues”, as if you happen to’re purported to need them, and it’s so catchy that radio missed out by snubbing it.
From there it’s an instantaneous impolite awakening as “Computer Age” begins the album correct. That music and “We R In Control” each communicate of digital-era dread, with ominous crashing chords and taunting inhuman voices. “Control” might be the clearest homage Younger ever made to Devo, who he’d befriended and admired on the time. There’s loads of humor right here, too: “Computer Cowboy” tells of a digital rounder with an ideal herd, however, after all, he nonetheless yodels. “Sample And Hold,” which fees out like the very best Loopy Horse rockers, imagines that robots must hit the courting scene like the remainder of us: “I need a unit to sample and hold/But not the angry one, a new design.”
An aching human high quality
Don’t dare counsel that Trans lacks humanity, as a result of “Transformer Man” ranks as some of the emotionally open songs of Younger’s catalog. Lyrically it sends love and encouragement to Ben, who’s the “transformer man” reaching out to the world: “Transformer man/Unlock the secrets/Let us throw off the chains that/Hold you down.” Bits of Younger’s pure voice peek via the combination right here, however even the vocodered lead has an aching and really human high quality.
Because it turned out, one of many Island In The Solar leftovers gave Trans an ideal send-off. On “Like An Inca,” Younger will get his voice again, however delivers a imaginative and prescient of a world about to alter drastically: “Said the condor to the praying mantis/We’re gonna lose this place, like we lost Atlantis.” You may name this the center a part of a trilogy that started with “Cortez The Killer” and ended just a few albums later with “Inca Queen” on Life. Musically, nevertheless, it’s a one-off for Younger: its sound is breezy and foreboding directly. The music ran to simply underneath ten minutes, however was truncated on the unique vinyl launch. Present CD and digital releases now function it in its full glory.
What occurred subsequent is the stuff of Neil Younger legend. Geffen demanded a “rock’n’roll” album. Younger snubbed his nostril at them with the retro-goofy All people’s Rockin,” and a decade-long battle was on. Younger generally will get a nasty rap for his perspective in that period, however historical past would have been completely different if Trans had been acknowledged for the leftfield traditional that it was.
