Greatest Hits

1	Down by the River 9:20
2	Cowgirl in the Sand 10:08
3	Cinnamon Girl 3:02
4	Helpless / Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 3:40
5	After the Gold Rush 3:48
6	Only Love Can Break Your Heart 3:11
7	Southern Man 5:33
8	Ohio / Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 3:02
9	The Needle and the Damage Done 2:13
10	Old Man / Stray Gators 3:25
11	Heart of Gold / Stray Gators 3:09
12	Like a Hurricane 8:23
13	Comes a Time 3:07
14	Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) 5:02
15	Rockin' in the Free World 4:44
16	Harvest Moon 5:03

Barnes & Noble

Neil Young has long been perched atop rock's list of true perfectionists, a fact that ensured he wouldn't release a standard "best-of" until he knew he could get everything just right. Well, thanks to sonic advances, he's finally agreed that the time has come for this wide-ranging sampler to make its way to fans. Mixed in DVD-stereo from the original masters, the disc boasts warm and utterly enveloping versions of material as varied as the gossamer acoustic plaint "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and the sinewy stomper "Southern Man." The reworked sound is amply evident on those songs -- "Like a Hurricane" and "Cowgirl in the Sand," to name a pair -- that spotlight Young's singular soloing. In these surroundings, his playing is even more vivid, more stinging than on any CD version heard before. The set covers nearly a quarter century of Young's career, presenting him alone, with Crazy Horse, and with CS&N, culminating with the winsome title track of 1992's Harvest Moon. And while it's not a complete portrait of Neil as an artist -- that would require a hefty box set -- it's certainly the sort of snapshot any fan would be proud to display. David Sprague

All Music Guide

It may be hard to believe, but 2004's Greatest Hits is not only the first retrospective Neil Young has released since 1977's Decade, it's the first ever single-disc collection of his best-known songs. That's a span of 27 years separating the two collections, which is an awful long time to resist a Greatest Hits disc -- many of his peers succumbed, offering countless comps during those years -- and such a resistance to a compilation may not be much a surprise from the legendarily prickly Young, but what is a surprise is that 11 of the 16 songs on Greatest Hits were also on Decade. Of the five songs that were not on Decade, only two date from after the '70s -- 1989's "Rockin' in the Free World" and 1992's "Harvest Moon" -- while one of the remaining three (1970's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart") comes from the time chronicled on Decade; the other two, 1978's "Comes a Time" and 1979's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)," arrived in the two years of the '70s not covered on the 1977 compilation. All this means is that Greatest Hits offers the basic canon, with no frills and none of Neil's trademark idiosyncrasy. Some may miss that cantankerous spirit, pointing out that this contains nothing from his towering twin masterpieces of dark introspection -- Tonight's the Night and On the Beach -- or that there's nothing from Buffalo Springfield (which was covered on Decade) and that noteworthy songs like "Powderfinger," "Cortez the Killer," "Lotta Love," and "Long May You Run" are missing. Ultimately, that doesn't matter much, because Greatest Hits has all the songs that every Neil Young fan, from the devoted to the casual listener, agrees are his biggest and best: "Down by the River," "Cinnamon Girl," "Helpless," "After the Gold Rush," "Southern Man," "Ohio," "The Needle and the Damage Done," "Old Man," "Heart of Gold," "Like a Hurricane." And that's why it works as an all-business introduction for the uninitiated and as a concise summary for those not willing to travel down all the long, winding roads Young has traveled over the years. In other words, it's as good a compilation as it could have been. [Greatest Hits was released in several editions. In addition to the basic single CD, there was a limited edition containing a DVD video with the promo clips for "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Harvest Moon." There was another limited edition with a bonus 7" record. Finally, it was also released as a high-resolution DVD Audio disc.] Stephen Thomas Erlewine