Send "Neil Young " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 It's getting hard to keep up with Neil Young. In addition to a new studio LP, 2009 has seen the release of the green-car concept album Fork in the Road, a new live set (Dreamin' Man Live '92), and of course the 10-disc Blu-Ray/DVD/CD extravaganza Archives Vol. 1, which documents the first 10 years of his musical life. Not to mention that just over a year ago Sugar Mountain - Live at Canterbury House 1968 came out, so that even seems relatively new. We're drowning in Neil Young this year, which for hardcore fans (and it seems like the percentage of his fanbase that meets this criteria increases every year) isn't such a bad thing.Add to the above the "Neil Young Archives Official Release Series," which is the umbrella term for the wholesale reissue of Young's catalog in remastered form. The first four albums, from 1968's Neil Young to 1972's Harvest, were released CD under the banner a few months back, which made the Archives set even more confusing than it seemed initially. Since much of Archives turned out to be previously issued material, with some albums appearing almost in their entirety, it stood to reason that it would serve as the best way to hear these songs for a while. Anyone ponying up between $100 and $300 for Archives surely already had all those albums, and they'll probably want the better-sounding versions in their original form, too. Young, like Bob Dylan, is almost impossible to read as far as stuff like this goes. It's easy to say that he's ripping people off by getting them to buy the same music over and over. But so many of his puzzling moves over the years, such as refusing to put out On the Beach on CD even though fans were clamoring for it, would seem to be to his financial detriment. Here's one more for the shelf: the first four albums have been packaged in two limited edition box sets. The CD version is pressed on 24-karat gold discs, and the packaging is new; the vinyl is pressed on 180-gram records (as opposed to 140-gram for the standard issue of the LPs). The vinyl set, which is what I listened to for this review, is going for $150, which certainly isn't cheap. It packages the records in extra-heavy gatefold sleeves that will probably outlive me, and includes full-size reproductions of the original inserts, but there's no extra documentation otherwise. For me, there's an irony in listening to these deluxe versions, because I've long regarded used vinyl copies of Harvest as a litmus test for record stores. If they're selling a used copy in excellent shape for $4 or $5, it's my kind of shop; if they're selling it for $8 or $9, I'm probably somewhere in the New York Metropolitan Area. Fact is, Harvest was the #1 selling album of 1972, and it continued to sell all through the 1970s. Literally millions of copies were pressed, and used copies are very easy to find. It's a record that shouldn't cost a lot of money....full text |
| Independent |
| Next week, after two decades of fussing, fiddling, amassing and sifting, the first massive instalment of Neil Young's long-awaited career retrospective, The Neil Young Archives, finally becomes available. It's a huge thing, both conceptually and physically: this first batch of 11 DVDs, covering the singer's career from his teenage origins in Winnipeg guitar band The Squires in 1963, through his time with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills and Nash, up to the point that he became a household name with the success of his Harvest album in 1972, arrives housed in a box the size of a couple of breeze-blocks, accompanied by a book of press clippings, lyric jottings, photos and ephemera. It is literally monumental: if the rest of Young's career is covered in similarly exhaustive fashion, his fans will not just be able to immerse themselves in it, they will probably be able to build a home from the boxes and live in it....full text |
| Thrasherswheat |
| FUNHOUSE! The cyberzine of degenerate pop culture vol. 1 - no. 5; October 20, 1994 Released on Bela Lugosi's would-be 112th birthday editor: Jeff Dove (jeffdove@well.sf.ca.us) associate editor: Jeff Frentzen (jfrentzen@pcweek.ziff.com) back issues: ftp - ftp.cic.net or ftp.etext.org; gopher - gopher.well.sf.ca.us The Rust@Death Mail List Evaluates the Neil Young Catalog --------------------------------------------------------- When I put out a request for reviews of Neil's albums to the rust@death list members, there were no rules. I simply asked that a commentator pick a record that they have strong feelings about one way or the other - a positive disposition toward the title was not necessary. It was no surprise, however, that each person picked an album they liked a lot. In light of Neil's comments that anyone who claims to like every one of his records must be crazy, there are probably some members of Rust@Death who could use some therapy. With that in mind, I believe these evaluations will help others sort through a diverse catalog, in which Mr. Young puts his unique twist on varying musical styles - from folky acoustic to hard and distorted, and from feedback-drenched to pure country, big band R&B, rockabilly, synth and techno. So if you're into some of Neil's stuff and want to know which titles in his vast back catalog might be of a similar style, or if you're just trying to put it all into place, the following should be a useful source. Only records on which Neil Young was the principal artist are considered, which means nothing by Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y, or the Stills-Young band is included. You will, however, read about Crazy Horse, the Stray Gators, the Bullets, the International Harvesters, the Shocking Pinks, the Bluenotes, and the Restless. Booker T. and the MGs haven't yet appeared on an official release, but hopefully that is something we can look forward to....full text |
Neil Young lyrics
