Tonight's the Night
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Tonight's the Night is a 1975 album by Neil Young.
Dark, heartfelt, and raw, Tonight's the Night was recorded in 1973 but initially rejected by Young's record company (a running theme in Young's career) as the second uncommercial release in a row and an unacceptable follow-up to his popular breakthrough, Harvest, and too stark a contrast with the slick productions of Young's work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
Young's album was a startlingly direct expression of grief: Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and Young's friend and roadie Bruce Berry had both died of drug overdoses in the months before the songs were written (Berry is mentioned by name in the title cut, and Whitten's guitar work highlights "Come on Baby, Let's Go Downtown", recorded live several years earlier). Emphasising the personal nature of the album, Young opened the self-penned liner notes with an apology: "I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you."
Dave Marsh wrote in the original Rolling Stone review:
"The music has a feeling of offhand, first-take crudity matched recently only by Blood on the Tracks, almost as though Young wanted us to miss its ultimate majesty in order to emphasize its ragged edge of desolation. (. . . ) More than any of Young's earlier songs and albums-even the despondent On the Beach and the mordant, rancorous Time Fades Away -- Tonight's the Night is preoccupied with death and disaster. (. . . ) There is no sense of retreat, no apology, no excuses offered and no quarter given. If anything, these are the old ideas with a new sense of aggressiveness. The jitteriness of the music, its sloppy, unarranged (but decidedly structured) feeling is clearly calculated."
The album peaked at #25 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.