In many ways, Broken Arrow follows the same path as Neil Young's other '90s albums with Crazy Horse.
Broken Arrow floats on waves of lumbering guitars and cascading feedback, ebbing and flowing with winding solos and drifting melodies.
In a typical display of artistic perversion, Young has front-loaded the album with three epics with a combined running time of just over 25 minutes.
Following the three epic-length songs come four concise tunes that range from the country-rock stomp of "Changing Highways" to the reflective "Music Arcade." Like the three songs that preceded them, these songs are uneven, with hazy melodies and underdeveloped lyrics.
Finally, a long, live workout of Jimmy Reed's "Baby, What You Want Me to Do" -- which sounds like it was taken from an audience recording -- is tacked onto the end of the album.
Although the song is a standout, it raises the question: what is the purpose of Broken Arrow? The album floats from song to song, with the guitars drowning out the sound of Young's voice.
There are some fine songs buried amid the long jams, but the album is directionless, and that lack of direction never manages to develop a consistent emotional tone.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Big TimeNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 07:26 | 17 MB | 48 MB |
| 2 | Loose ChangeNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 09:49 | 22 MB | 69 MB |
| 3 | Slip AwayNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 08:36 | 19 MB | 59 MB |
| 4 | Changing HighwaysNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 02:23 | 5 MB | 15 MB |
| 5 | Scattered (Let's Think About Livin')Neil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 04:13 | 9 MB | 27 MB |
| 6 | This TownNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 03:01 | 6 MB | 18 MB |
| 7 | Music ArcadeNeil Young | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 04:01 | 9 MB | 19 MB |
| 8 | Baby, What You Want Me to DoJimmy Reed | Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Neil Young | Play | 08:08 | 18 MB | 47 MB |
| 47 mins | 109 MB | |||||
| 47 mins | 305 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Greg Archilla | Engineer, Mixing |
| 2 | Gary Burden | Art Direction, Design |
| 3 | George Carlin | Cover Art |
| 4 | George Catlin | Cover Art |
| 5 | Larry Cragg | Photography |
| 6 | Crazy Horse | Performer, Primary Artist |
| 7 | Dann Davis | Design |
| 8 | Jenice Heo | Computer Design |
| 9 | Ralph Molina | Drums, Percussion, Vocals |
| 10 | Tim Mulligan | Digital Editing, Engineer, Live Sound Engineer, Mastering |
| 11 | John Nowland | Digital Transfers |
| 12 | Jimmy Reed | Composer |
| 13 | Elliot Roberts | Direction |
| 14 | Frank "Poncho" Sampedro | Guitar (Electric), Vocals |
| 15 | Billy Talbot | Bass, Tambourine, Trombone, Vocals |
| 16 | Neil Young | Composer, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Harmonica, Mixing, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Vocals |
| 17 | Neil Young & Crazy Horse | Primary Artist |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |