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Trans
Studio album by Neil Young
Released	December 29, 1982
Recorded	September 24, 1981-May 12, 1982 Modern Recorders, Redwood City, California and Commercial Recorders, Honolulu, Hawaii
Genre	Rock
Length	44:26
Label	Geffen
Producer	Neil Young, Tim Mulligan, David Briggs
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Robert Christgau (A-) link Rolling Stone link
Neil Young chronology
Re-ac-tor (1981) Trans (1982) Everybody's Rockin' (1983)

Trans is an album by Neil Young, released in 1982. Recorded partially and released during his notorious Geffen era in the 1980s, Trans baffled many Neil Young fans. Some suggested that the album could be a satirical message that Young was trying to send about the direction music was headed in the future. A vocoder features prominently in five of the nine tracks. While the album was poorly received, some critics point out that the melodies are strong and that the album involves Young addressing new musical movements, as he did previously on Rust Never Sleeps and later with the grunge movement.

Neil Young found that when using a vocoder when communicating to his son (who was born with cerebral palsy), he was able to elicit a better response. The emotional power of this experiment shows in the lyrics, particularly in the track "Transformer Man" with the lines "So many things still left to do / But we haven't made it yet."

Portions of several tracks appeared in Young's 1982 feature length comedy film Human Highway.¹

One song, "If You Got Love," appeared on the LP's printed track listing, but was not included on the album in a last minute change of mind.²

Originally released as an LP, the album was re-issued in 1998 on CD, although not in the US.

Track listing

All songs written by Neil Young.

Side one

1. "Little Thing Called Love" – 3:13
2. "Computer Age" – 5:24
3. "We R in Control" – 3:31
4. "Transformer Man" – 3:23
5. "Computer Cowboy (AKA Syscrusher)" – 4:13

Side two

1. "Hold on to Your Love" – 3:28
2. "Sample and Hold" * – 5:09 (CD - 8:03)
3. "Mr. Soul" – 3:19
4. "Like an Inca" * – 8:08 (CD - 9:46)

*Different mixes of these tracks appear on the CD release

Personnel

• Neil Young: guitar, bass, synclavier, vocoder, electric piano, vocal
• Nils Lofgren: guitar, piano, organ, electric piano, synclavier, vocal
• Ben Keith: pedal steel guitar, slide guitar, vocal
• Bruce Palmer: bass
• Ralph Molina: drums, vocal
• Joe Lala: percussion, vocal
• Frank Sampedro: guitar, stringman
• Billy Talbot: bass

References

1. ^ Human Highway film credits
2. ^ Album ReviewParke Puterbaugh, RollingStone.com, February 3, 1983, Retrieved October 14, 2007

External links

• Lyrics at HyperRust.org
• review in Rolling Stone

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• This page was last modified on 13 November 2008, at 15:26.

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