Trans (Remastered) Neil Young

• 1Little Thing Called Love03:11
• 2Computer Age05:23
• 3We R In Control03:30
• 4Transformer Man03:22
• 5Computer Cowboy04:08
• 6Hold On To Your Love03:25
• 7Sample And Hold05:14
• 8Mr. Soul03:16
• 9Like An Inca08:12
• Total Runtime39:41

Info for Trans (Remastered)

Originally released in 1982, Trans was a bold and bewildering move into the 'modern age' for the veteran singer/songwriter. While it's been called his 'Electronic' album, Trans doesn't transport Neil into Depeche Mode territory. Instead, Trans finds Neil experimenting with an array of computers, keyboards and vocoders along with his standard guitar/bass/drums backbone. Nine tracks, including 'Little Thing Called Love', 'Computer Age', 'Transformer Man' and a drastically different version of his Buffalo Springfield classic 'Mr. Soul'.

"When it was released, Trans was Neil Young's most baffling album. He had employed a vocoder to synthesize his voice on five of the album's nine tracks, resulting in disembodied singing, the lyrics nearly impossible to decipher without the lyric sheet. And even when you read the words, "Computer Age," "We R in Control," "Transformer Man," "Computer Cowboy," and "Sample and Hold" seemed like a vague mishmash of high-tech jargon. Later, Young would reveal that some of the songs expressed a theme of attempted communication with his disabled son, and in that context, lines like "I stand by you" and "So many things still left to do/But we haven't made it yet" seemed clearer. But the vocoder, which robbed Young's voice of its dynamics and phrasing, still kept the songs from being as moving as they were intended to be. And despite the crisp dance beats and synthesizers, the music sounded less like new Kraftwerk than like old Devo. A few more conventional Young songs (left over from an earlier rejected album) seemed out of place. Trans had a few good songs, notably "Sample and Hold" (which seemed to be about a computer dating service for robots), a remake of "Mr. Soul," and "Like an Inca" (an intended cross between "Like a Hurricane" and "Cortez the Killer"?), but on the whole it was an idea that just didn't work." (William Ruhlmann, AMG)

Neil Young, vocals, vocoder, guitars, bass, Synclavier, electric piano
Nils Lofgren, guitars, piano, organ, electric piano, Synclavier, backing vocals, vocoder
Ben Keith, pedal steel guitar, slide guitar, backing vocals
Frank Sampedro, guitars, synthesizer
Bruce Palmer, bass
Billy Talbot, bass
Ralph Molina, drums, backing vocals
Joe Lala, percussion, backing vocals

Produced by Neil Young, David Briggs, Tim Mulligan

Digitally remastered

No biography found.

This album contains no booklet.