Sixty years, 40-something albums—why not start a new band?

Neil Young once famously told a heckler who said all his songs sounded the same that it’s all one song—a comeback that feels philosophically truer the more of them he writes. Recorded with Micah Nelson, Corey McCormick and Anthony LoGerfo of Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, and veteran Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham (who first played with Young on 1978’s Comes a Time), 2025’s Talkin to the Trees joins Barn and World Record in a growing body of late-period albums that affirm his almost supernatural ability to continue to make art. His outrage is there (“big change”, “Lets Roll Again”), as is his tenderness (“Bottle of Love”, “Thankful”), as is his ability to make global concerns feel as personal and digressive as diary entries (“Talkin to the Trees”, “Family Life”). You know what they say about rolling stones.