Neil Young

In an effort to understand the long, idiosyncratic career of Neil Young, remember that in 1983, Geffen Records sued him, effectively, for not sounding enough like himself.

Even in his early days with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, he was a mercurial presence, injecting the communal optimism of the hippie era with darkness and skepticism (“Ohio,” “Broken Arrow”) and pushing the conventions of folk rock to noisy extremes (1979’s Rust Never Sleeps).

To the extent that he represents the spirit of the '60s, it’s in his uncompromising commitment to his own journey, no matter how surprising (1982’s electronic Trans or 1991’s guitar collage Arc).