Neil Young's 'Computer Age' - "that haunting, alien vocoder melody"

Over on Fluxblog a MP3 download of Neil Young's 'Computer Age'. Grant blogs:

" I have a strong feeling I rediscovered this song when most people did, after Sonic Youth covered it on the early 90s tribute album
The Bridge. But I bought the original album, Trans, shortly after it came out in 1982 - in the 'used' rack, obviously chucked out by a disgusted Young fan who couldn't figure out what the heck all this computer crap was doing in his countrified rock and roll. I bought it because I'd heard this song on a New Wave show, and fallen in love with its bridge - to my teenage ears, that haunting, alien vocoder melody promised something new and strange and beautiful just around the corner. After a few listens, like everyone else in the world, I grew to loathe the album, because it's two-thirds proto-electronica sci-fi soundtrack, and one-third failed folky art-rock (most of that being the one, interminable song 'Like an Inca'). Listening to it again, though, some of it is absolutely brilliant, about 15 years ahead of its alternate timeline, and I fall back in love with this particular song every time I hear it."

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