Experimental?
I hated all of what you might call his 'experimental' albums, and especially stuff like Trans and Reactor, what a racket, but apart from that his best albums for me are Harvest, Silver and Gold, On the Beach, Old Ways, Harvest Moon, Prairie Wind, and Comes a Time. As a rule I prefer his more C&W style records to his rock/electric stuff, though I also highly rate the album he made with the guys from Pearl Jam, Mirror Ball.
Not sure I would classify
re*ac*tor as "experimental", especially by Neil Young standards.
I'll grant you TRANS and ARC, too, for that matter, but, to my ears, anyway,
re*ac*tor just sounds like standard, ass-kicking rock & roll, Crazy Horse-style.
Listening to it right now, actually, and it's one of my faves.
My top five would be: 1. AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
2. RUST NEVER SLEEPS
3. re*ac*tor
4. RAGGED GLORY
5. FREEDOM.
There's still quite a bit of his stuff that I haven't heard yet, though. I still need to get his first album, JOURNEY THROUGH THE PAST, TIME FADES AWAY, TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT, ZUMA, COMES A TIME, EVERYBODY'S ROCKIN', LIFE, and THIS NOTE'S FOR YOU. And a lot of the stuff that I have got is still old vinyl copies that need to be upgraded to CD.
Of the rest of the stuff I have heard, though, I guess I would have to rate them like this: 6. AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS
7. OLD WAYS
8. HAWKS & DOVES
9. ON THE BEACH
10. HARVEST
11. WELD
12. LANDING ON WATER.
The only thing I've ever heard of his that I
didn't like was 1992's HARVEST MOON. That, I believe, was simply a case of putting out one album too many.
The muse just seemed to have left him at that point. Never bought anything he put out after that, and what little I saw and heard of it on MTV didn't impress me at all. Totally uninspired. Guess he should've hung it up after WELD.