The first Neil Young album to use the two sides of an LP to demarcate two disparate moods, Rust Never Sleeps features an acoustic side and an electric side, and was largely created by overdubbing instruments onto live recordings of performances from the tour preceding the album. Side 1 begins with an acoustic reading of “My My, Hey Hey,” a declarative anthem of longevity which has ironically achieved notoriety for supplying Kurt Cobain with a well-publicized quote used in his suicide note: “It’s better to burn out than fade away.” Elsewhere, “Thrasher” is a vivid daydream that jabs at former associates; “Pocahontas” manages to cram Native American myth, the Astrodome, and Marlon Brando into the same improbable campfire hallucination; “Sedan Delivery” sounds like some glorious, five-minute long car crash; and the blockbuster “Powderfinger” is an exquisite narrative threaded together by some of the most expressive guitar playing of Neil’s career. It ends with a snarling “Hey Hey, My My” (an electric reprise of opening cut “My My, Hey Hey”), and if you’ve ever wondered what sort of record Hendrix might have made if he lived long enough to experience punk, wonder no more. With Rust Never Sleeps, Neil Young ended the seventies with a great album; it would be over a decade before he would make another one.