YOUNG,NEIL - UNPLUGGED Price: €9.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

For all its shortcomings, MTV's UNPLUGGED series, presenting artists in an ostensibly stripped-down, acoustic setting, has provided the world with a few recorded gems, including this album. Young's turn on the show amounts to a live best-of, focusing (out of necessity) on the ballad end of his repertoire. Supported by longtime cohorts like Nils Lofgren, Tim Drummond and Ben Keith, Young reaches back to his earliest solo recordings ("The Old Laughing Lady") as well as well as offering up some new tunes ("From Hank To Hendrix", "Unknown Legend").
Amid the electrical storm of Crazy Horse, it's often easy to forget how brightly Young shines as an acoustic balladeer, his high, lonesome whine taking on a plaintive quality, as on this recording. From the surrealism of "Pocahontas" to the existential angst of "World On A String", Young works his idiosyncratic magic. As a bonus, UNPLUGGED offers some interesting rearrangements of old tunes, particularly "Like A Hurricane", which is presented as a pump organ-driven slow burner.