Tonight’s the Night by Neil Young

Tonight's the Night, Neil Young's sixth album, came out on Reprise in June 1975, nearly two years after it was cut. Young recorded it in August and September 1973, most of it in a single session on August 26, and produced it himself. It closes out the so-called Ditch Trilogy, the run of records he made after Harvest's huge success in 1972 left him alienated from his own music and career, and it sounds like it.

This is ragged, bleary, late-night rock and roll: loose tempos, cracked vocals, a band playing like the lights are going out and nobody cares about a second take. "Albuquerque" drifts, "Roll Another Number (For The Road)" stumbles with a grin, and the title song lurches back and forth like a drunk at closing time. It stalled at 25 on the Billboard 200, but its reputation has only grown, and Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums has ranked it higher with each update, reaching 302 in 2020.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.