The Monsanto Years is a studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young and American rock group Promise of the Real, released on June 29, 2015 on Reprise Records. A concept album criticizing the agribusiness Monsanto, it is Young's thirty-fifth studio album and the third by Promise of the Real. The group is fronted by Willie Nelson's son Lukas, and the album also features Lukas' brother Micah. The album was produced by both Young and John Hanlon, and is accompanied by a film documenting the recording process.
Recording and release
Young had a long-time friendship with Willie Nelson and his sons, Lukas and Micah and jammed with Lukas' bandmates in Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real after 2014's Farm Aid. Recording for this album began the following January. Young announced that he was recording an album with the band—including non-member Micah—at a converted movie theater Teatro in Oxnard, California, the site where Willie Nelson's Teatro album was recorded. Young sent a CD to his collaborators with demos to allow them to learn some of the new songs before arriving to perform together on the new compositions. The recording was filmed by Don Hannah alongside live rehearsals in April 2015 for a film also entitled The Monsanto Years. Young debuted a music video for "Wolf Moon" on June 10, 2015.
Reception
Critical
In a highly positive review, The Guardian's Jon Dennis gave the album five stars out of five. Praising the contributions of Promise of the Real, Dennis wrote: sound not unlikeCrazy Horse, and supply all the big riffs, crashing major chords and harmonies that have characterised Young’s best records for five decades." Zach Schonfeld of The A.V. Club gave the album a "C" rating, opining that the concept of the album and its execution were "underproduced, underwritten, and not likely to take up more than a few months of Young's promotional energies before he moves to the next thing" but with some highlights among the harder rock songs. Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.com gave the album 3.5 stars out of 5 claiming that: "Young uses his sturdy footing to lash out at what he perceives as destructive forces -- to our dinner tables and social fabric -- and if the individual message may wind up fading like yesterday's newspapers, the music will keep The Monsanto Years burning bright". Billboard solicited the opinions of corporations criticized on the album, including Monsanto, whose representative said: "Many of us at Monsanto have been and are fans of Neil Young. Unfortunately, for some of us, his current album may fail to reflect our strong beliefs in what we do every day to help make agriculture more sustainable. We recognize there is a lot of misinformation about who we are and what we do—and unfortunately several of those myths seem to be captured in these lyrics." Notably all the corporations mentioned in album lyrics except for Chevron provided their responses for the request to comment on the album songs. Reacting to the "Big Box" track Walmart said: "As you might have seen recently, Walmart raised its lowest starting wage to $9 an hour. We’re proud of the opportunity we provide people to build a career and have a chance at a better life." Starbucks commented on "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop" track: "Starbucks has not taken a position on the issue of GMO labeling. As a company with stores and a product presence in every state, we prefer a national solution." An Associated Press review of the album argued that Young's criticisms of corporate greed descend into preachiness, saying Young's anger is "so real that it could be tasted, but there is something discomfiting about Young positioning himself as an all-knowing seer, putting people down for wanting simpler, cheerier songs."
Commercial
The album debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 albums chart on its first week of release, selling around 18,000 copies in the United States in its first week. It also debuted at No. 4 on Billboard's Rock Albums chart. and No. 2 on the Folk Albums chart. As of June 2016, the album has sold 41,000 copies in the US.
Monsanto
Criticism of the company led Monsanto to hire a private investigator to track Young and attempt to discredit him.
