The world hasn’t had a shortage of “new” Neil Young material recently. Between the beginning of 2022 and July 2024, he’s released TWELVE different stand-alone titles, bulking up his already huge discography somewhat considerably.
In that time, fans have had the opportunity to buy three new studio records (‘World Record’, ‘F###in’ Up’ and ‘Before & After’) and one brand new live album (‘Noise & Flowers’). Neil has plundered the archives for studio material (we’ve had the long overdue release of 1977’s ‘Chrome Dreams’ and 2000’s ‘Toast’, along with an archive Crazy Horse release ‘Early Daze’), and he’s also issued a staggering FIVE archival live albums.
In addition to that, Neil has also released a multi-disc 50th Anniversary edition of 1972’s classic ‘Harvest’ album, and two different ‘Official Release’ box sets reissuing material from different stages in his career. The first was notable for including an expanded ‘Ragged Glory’, the second for making the late 80s ‘Eldorado’ available outside of Japan for the first time.
People may have joked that Ol’ Lambchops is saving up for retirement, but it seems that isn’t much of a joke, since he’s now confirmed a massive ‘Archives III’ box set, following on from 2021’s ‘Archives II’ – the deluxe version of which sold out in days.
‘Archives III’ is Neil’s biggest delve into the archive yet, running to seventeen discs for the standard edition. A very limited special edition couples those with five blu ray discs featuring several previously unavailable films. This is both good and bad news for the UK based fan, since the deluxe set with blu rays not be available domestically, or especially affordable as an import. There isn’t even any hint as to whether the blu rays will be region locked (the blu ray edition of ‘Archives I’ was locked for Region A – US/Canada).
The new CD content is equally frustrating. On the one hand, Neil gives to the fan: there are several unreleased recordings with Nicolette Larson and Devo featured, along with a wealth of live archive material. On the other hand, the devoted fan is expected to shell out over £200 (the price of the non-deluxe, non-blu ray edition) to get unreleased treats, but the huge box includes a reasonable amount of stuff everyone owns already. A disc containing half of ‘Trans’? No thanks. Various tracks from The Ducks’ live album necessitating a disc of its own, yet only representing a fraction of the already released live album? Is this a joke? Worse still, disc three contains a lot of studio and live material from 1976 that’s great, but aside from stage banter, it’s entirely available elsewhere. Some of it has only been issued as NY archive titles within the last five or six years…
‘Archives III’ looks flashy, but the seventeen discs contain just five hours’ worth of unreleased material… That just doesn’t seem right, somehow; especially as you know NY will likely be bashing out another selection of unreleased bits before the end of the year. All of this on top of the fact that the Crazy Horse ‘Early Daze’ CD featured unreleased material that should have been in ‘Archives I’ instead of a couple of live discs that were already available, you just have to assume our favourite Canadian is basically taking advantage of his fans. Some of them have massively deep pockets and he knows it, but you have to wonder how far loyalty will stretch. The unaffordable, semi-slapdash and hugely exclusive nature of ‘Archives III’ might just be a step too far for most. Greedy hand, indeed.
When you compare this to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Archive’ releases – affordable multi-disc sets, exclusively made up of material that’s either completely unreleased or only ever found on bootlegs – it becomes even more frustrating.
The full tracklisting for ‘Archives III’ can be found in full at Neil Young’s Greedy Hand Store, but don’t stand still too long, he might pick your pocket for something else…
Read our piece on Neil Young’s Buried Treasure (part one) here.
Lee Realgone
26/7/2024