Any project in the works for two decades is bound to generate its fair share of myths and so it is with Neil Young's Archives, a series of a multi-disc box sets chronicling Young's history. Originally envisioned in the late '80s as a Decade II, the project quickly mutated into a monster covering every little corner of Neil's career. With its escalation came delays, so many that it sometimes seemed that the project never really existed; it was just a shared fantasy between Neil and his faithful. During that long, long wait, fans held tight to the idea that Archives was a clearinghouse of rarities similar to Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series, a treasure trove of unreleased songs and epochal live performances that would trump whatever bootleggers had to offer. While rare and unheard music is certainly a key part of Archives, particularly on the first disc covering the pre-history of 1963-1965, viewing this project as merely a CD box set is wildly misleading. Neil Young has designed Archives as nothing less than an immersive multimedia autobiography, an interactive experience where the music, text, video, and pictures feed off each other, creating a virtual journey through Neil's past.
Because this is a biography, Archives, Vol. 1 winds up relying very heavily on previously released recordings, containing almost all of Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest, key Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cuts, and the previously released archival live albums Live at the Fillmore East 1970 and Live at Massey Hall 1971. Such a large chunk of familiar material is bound to disappoint any listener expecting Archives to be a rarities-only set, forgetting that its origin was as a sequel to Decade, the triple-LP set that mixed up hits with unreleased tunes. Archives follows a similar blueprint, excavating many rare gems -- some, like "Bad Fog of Loneliness" quite familiar to bootleggers; some, like an extraordinary "Dance Dance Dance" cut with Graham Nash, not -- and placing them neatly alongside his well-known jewels, so the end effect isn't a rush of discovery but ongoing quiet revelation, an impression underpinned by the set's leisurely pace.
The entire Archives is designed to trace Neil's evolution, to explain how his dead ends were really detours and how his mood swings weren't all that wild; it preserves Young's history as he perceived it. To that end, the DVD and especially BluRay editions of the set are essential to understanding both the project and Neil himself, so much so that the CD edition feels almost like an afterthought, a skimming of the surface of a deep lake. Often, Young delayed Archives due to the limits of technology, a claim that seemed no more than an excuse to keep the project incomplete, but Archives in its BluRay incarnation lives up to all of Neil's promises over the years, coming close to collecting everything -- lyrics, press, artwork, TV performances, doodles, scraps of every sort -- in one place, letting users linger for as long as they'd like in a specific era. Surely, the sound quality on BluRay is extraordinary -- the music leaps out of the speakers yet never sounds overly clean, digital, or modern -- but it's the interactive nature of the set that impresses most. While the DVD set also is complexly interactive, BluRay is designed to be continually updated via the Internet, so Young can add songs and videos whenever he wants, placing the new material as a virtual pushpin on each disc's time line. Acting as a supplement to the text biographies on each disc -- the biography only covering the years on the disc -- the time line places Young's evolution on a broader scale and is illuminated by this extra material, such as a downright thrilling CSNY performance of "Down by the River" on ABC-TV, but this is merely a teaser for the main event: the virtual filing cabinet, where every song on the set has its own folder bulging with handwritten lyrics, press clips, photos, snippets of in-concert introductions, alternate takes -- the list is almost endless and it's always different, so it's easy to flip back to a song and discover a bunch of information you missed the first time around. Add to this, there are an untold number of Easter eggs, sometimes housing the best stuff here, such as videos of Young combing through the archives and reminiscing in 1997, or a 15-minute film clip of Young discovering a CSNY bootleg while record shopping in the early '70s and then taking it from the store.
This level of detail may suggest the one serious flaw in Archives: it cannot be taken casually. It demands complete, undivided attention, requiring users to dig as deep as they'd like, and it's no stretch to say that it could take a week or two to discover everything here. Also, the set comes so tantalizingly close to being complete, it's a major irritation to have one song lopped off of each the albums; surely, the extra storage space on DVD and BluRay could have allowed for complete runs of Everybody, Gold Rush, and Harvest. But really, these complaints feel churlish when faced with a box that is an embarrassment of riches, offering so much more than anybody could have imagined during that long, long wait. Not only was the wait worth it, Archives feels like it was 20 years in the making. It's an extraordinary work that redefines what an autobiography can be.
The Neil Young Archives Comment of the Moment is from Commentary Open Thread by Pinto (or Flounder): Writing about the Archives is really difficult, because the scope is so large and leads to so many trains of thought. But a few off the cuff observations after a month of Neil-immersion, from the Archives back to the bootlegs and some of the albums I spent less time with, and a re-reading of
More >
The Neil Young Archives Comment of the Moment is by gobacktogo: Well my parcel from Amazon.ca arrived on Monday, June 15th, and well, I've been downstairs listening to this box set ever since. It's honestly that amazing...Comprised of 128 audio tracks, hours of video footage, and countless pieces of memorabilia all spread out over 10 Blu-Ray discs. And to think a Blu-Ray disc's storage
More >
The Ark of the Covenant:The Neil Young Archives Vol 1 (1963-1972)It's been almost 2 months now since the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972) was released. We thought it best to do a review justice only once we had gone through nearly every song, menu, easter egg, hidden track and feature. And yet, we're still absorbing it with even more to go.Putting this review together has been a challenge.
More >
Archives Guy has been providing us with lots of innarestin' insights into NYA of late.Here's some that caught our eye when AG was asked about some things even he found to be "unique":- Songs - "1956 Bubblegum Disaster" & "Slowly Burning"- Video - film clip from a bootleg record store- Artifact - that's tough, but I like the original lyrics to Cinnamon Girl, and Neil's Sultan/Aurora letter to
More >
A resolutely private artist who seldom looks back, Neil Young has never before unfolded his career on camera. With unprecedented access to one of the world's renowned music legends, American Masters presents Neil Young: Don't Be Denied premiering nationally Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). The film explores how Young's unbending dedication to the muse has c...
More >
Neil Young has always found a way to buck the system in the music industry, so it’s no surprise that his views on music piracy lean towards the more anarchic side of the debate. In an interview with reporters at San Francisco’s JavaOne conference...
More >
The Ark of the Covenant:The Neil Young Archives Vol 1 (1963-1972)It's been almost 2 months now since the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972) was released. We thought it best to do a review justice only once we had gone through nearly every song, menu, easter egg, hidden track and feature. And yet, we're still absorbing it with even more to go.Putting this review together has been a challenge.
More >
The Neil Young Archives Comment of the Moment is from Commentary Open Thread by Pinto (or Flounder): Writing about the Archives is really difficult, because the scope is so large and leads to so many trains of thought. But a few off the cuff observations after a month of Neil-immersion, from the Archives back to the bootlegs and some of the albums I spent less time with, and a re-reading of
More >
The Neil Young Archives Comment of the Moment is by gobacktogo: Well my parcel from Amazon.ca arrived on Monday, June 15th, and well, I've been downstairs listening to this box set ever since. It's honestly that amazing...Comprised of 128 audio tracks, hours of video footage, and countless pieces of memorabilia all spread out over 10 Blu-Ray discs. And to think a Blu-Ray disc's storage
More >
Archives Guy has been providing us with lots of innarestin' insights into NYA of late.Here's some that caught our eye when AG was asked about some things even he found to be "unique":- Songs - "1956 Bubblegum Disaster" & "Slowly Burning"- Video - film clip from a bootleg record store- Artifact - that's tough, but I like the original lyrics to Cinnamon Girl, and Neil's Sultan/Aurora letter to
More >
To say that 2009 here at Thrasher's Wheat have been extraordinary would be a mild understatement.Our conversations with Archives Guy surrounding the release of the Neil Young Archives Volume #1 have been fascinating, insightful and illuminating. The recent tours in Australia, Canada/US, and Europe have been richly rewarding with new and old songs. And we had Sir Paul McCartney encore with Neil
More >
As we mentioned earlier, we'll start having a daily open thread on the Neil Young Archives where you can post thoughts and questions.We're not sure what Archives Guy's plans are but he may check in from time to time. But if you know the answer to folks' questions, try and help out.As we've noted, a Archives FAQ is in the works. In the meantime -- as always -- see Everything You've Ever Wanted
More >
Needless to say, the making of The Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972 has been unquestionably a quixotic quest that is unprecedented in the history of commercial music releases.We've given you our thoughts on what the Archives really represents critically speaking. But there were a number of key players behind the scenes over the past twenty years developing the revolutionary "Shakey Platform"
More >
So by now all us good Canadians know that the first installment of Neil Young`s Acrchives (1963-1972) came out today.8 CDs, God only know show many DVDs and a 236-page hardcover book are among the highlights.Well now you can get a taste of a sliver of the record with the previously unreleased stream of "Dance Dance Dance", this version recorded with Crazy Horse:"Dance Dance Dance"- Stream Neil
More >
© 2006-2010 Mog Inc. All Rights Reserved
 "Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972")
