Homegrown vinyl

What proportion of the rock 'n' roll pantheons Neil Young will occupy when he finally (God forbid) stables the Crazy Horse is anyone's guess, but you'd better believe it will be more than most artists. 'Homegrown', until now at least, was at risk of being missing from those chapters, which would have been a crying shame given it epitomises what a songwriting tour de force he was in the 1970s. There's a raw feel to the album that goes beyond the near-50-year-old born-on date, perhaps best encapsulated in the fact we open mid-note - the tape started rolling after the maestro began playing. At the time Young was reeling from a breakup, and eventually decided not to release the album at all due to its personal subject matter. Now ready to let the world in, it's quintessential Young but also one of the closest we've ever got to his soul, albeit retrospectively.