The Monsanto Years

AlbumJun 29 / 201518 songs, 1h 43m 51s
Folk Rock
Popular

As political as he is prolific, Neil Young has written albums about both war and hybrid cars. On *The Monsanto Years*, the legendary singer/songwriter teams up with Willie Nelson’s sons Micah and Lukas—as well as the latter’s roots-rock band, Promise of the Real—to take aim at corporations like Monsanto, the American chemical goliath with ties to genetically engineered farming. The result is an inspired collection of loose protest folk (“Wolf Moon”) and rugged guitar jams ( the majestic “People Want to Hear About Love”) that bristle with Young’s trademark idealism.

5.2 / 10

When Neil Young gets angry, he gets impulsive. The Monsanto Years, his latest album, is a screed against big agribusiness and the corporations that support it, but it is ultimately less a call to topple an evil empire than an expression of helplessness in trying to fight it.

F

For most artists, the concept album is the one half your career has led up to. For Neil Young, it’s the thing he throws together in a few raucous-seeming weeks every three or four years.

5 / 10

The Canadian legend's timely protest against corporate omnipotence is muted by half-baked material.

9.2 / 10

Neil Young isn’t afraid of controversy or pile-driving expectations. On The Monsanto Years, the iconoclast skewers economic…

Check out our album review of Artist's The Monsanto Years on Rolling Stone.com.

The Monsanto Years is a crystallisation of some of Young’s hardest-fought political positions. And it comes at a time of minor global awakening on many of these fronts.

7 / 10

Neil Young is formidable on his 36th studio album, The Monsanto Years, raging against Monsanto, GMO agribusiness, big box stores and Starbuc...

7.5 / 10

Neil Young is angry. As the title suggests, this time around the subject of his ire is corporate greed.

From impoverished farmers to bankers ‘too rich for jail’, rock’s elder statesman is determined to get listeners to give a damn with his 36th album

While Young’s anger and focus are admirable, The Monsanto Years doesn’t come anywhere close to matching his passion.

7 / 10

“It’s a bad day to do nothin’ / with so many people needin’ our help,” Neil Young obstreperously verbalizes within the opening moments of intro...

Neil Young’s anti-GM, anti-Starbucks, generally anti-corporate album proves he is still a force to be reckoned with

8 / 10