Americana icon Neil Young co-founded California ensemble Buffalo Springfield in the mid-’60s before joining up with Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969. By then he had already embarked on a solo career that would last for more than a half-century and see him repeatedly recognized as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He quickly proved to be every bit as at home chasing down shaggy rock epics with Crazy Horse (“Cinnamon Girl”) as he was stripped right back (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”), with 1970’s After the Gold Rush making it onto Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list. Young’s distinctive tenor enjoyed an even wider impact with “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man,” both off his 1972 outing Harvest. But he was never interested in catering to commercial demands, and he spent the ’70s ranging through lo-fi rambles (1974’s “Walk On”), impassioned marathons (1975’s “Cortez the Killer,” 1977’s “Like a Hurricane”), and overdriven dirges (1979’s “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)”). He has continued to invest in divergent modes in decades since, contributing a generational anthem with 1989’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” before growing ever more outspoken about the shabby state of both politics and the environment (2006’s “Lookin’ for a Leader”) while also gazing back upon his formative years (2021’s live-in-a-barn jam “Heading West”). If Young fits so comfortably into so many musical lineages—country, grunge, folk, noise—it’s only because he’s covered so much ground with such unerring conviction.