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Neil Young

"Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968"

Reprise Records

Neil Young seems to chat nearly as much as he sings during this revealing and endearing solo performance. Recorded in November 1968, several months after the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, the album was issued a few days prior to the release of Young’s solo debut.

In between amusing stories about songwriting, rock stardom, and how he got fired from a bookstore, the 22-year-old sings 13 songs, half of which—including "On the Way Home," "Expecting to Fly," and "Mr. Soul" (that he admits took all of five minutes to write)—were in Buffalo Springfield’s repertoire. Young seems to be heading in a somewhat darker direction, though, in "The Loner" and in three other songs from "Neil Young."

Young’s acoustic guitar sounds rudimentary compared to how his playing would develop. In the end, it’s that strange, high-tenor voice that made Neil sound real. It’s what distinguished him from countless other contemporary singer-songwriters—not least of all when he’s aping Bob Dylan’s free-associative verbosity in "The Last Trip to Tulsa."

David Byrne & Brian Eno

"Everything That Happens Will Happen Today"

Todo Mundo/Opal

Former Talking Heads front man David Byrne reunites with the experimental British musician who produced some of the Heads’ best music (and most of U2’s greatest hits) for an album containing what Byrne refers to in a liner note as "simple, heartfelt" tunes and that Eno describes as a kind of electric gospel.

"Everything That Happens" traffics mostly in gorgeous affirmations of everyday life, but with a twist. In the opening track, "Home," for example, Byrne evokes a place where familiar smells and "compassion—for things I’ll never know" are as prevalent as fighting neighbors and a world "breaking in two."

Optimism in the face of adversity is the theme of such beautiful anthems as "One Fine Day," "The River," and "Everything That Happens" (which describes a car crash on a day when "nothing has changed but nothing’s the same"). Eno’s subtle electronics, meanwhile, substitute for the swelling choirs one easily imagines singing these sublime choruses.