On September 6th, 2024, Neil Young released his third Archives box set. There are actually two versions. The Deluxe Edition is limited to 5,000 copies and is priced at $450 (available on Neil Young’s official site). It has 17 audio CD’s and five Blu-ray Discs. There are approximately 14 hours of audio and 14 hours of video. Plus there’s a 176 page hardcover book. The second box set has the 17 CD’s, but no video discs and a 36 page booklet instead of a book. It’s priced at $240 (which is about $14 a disc).
Here’s the timing of the three Archives releases. Archives I came out in 2009, and covered Young’s career from 1963-1972. It took eleven years (November of 2020) for the release of Archives II, which covered 1972-1976. And now it’s about four years later when we get Archives III, covering 1976-1987. The 17 CD’s have 198 tracks including 15 songs that have never been released, and 121 alternate or live versions.
Review comments are posted following the song lists below. By the way, when you see “Rap” on a tracklist, it’s just a quick comment from Neil about the music.
The promo for the set says three unreleased albums are included, but some of the songs were already on other albums, often in other versions. Here are the track lists which include details (click to enlarge).
If you had to play someone a “classic Neil Young concert”, this might be it. The first 7 songs are solo acoustic versions, and the other 7 songs are rocking with Crazy Horse. “Lotta Love” makes an appearance 2-and-a-half years before it’s 1978 studio release on Comes A Time. This concert was recorded in Tokyo.
The next Across The Water concert was in London. This one has just eight tracks, but that’s because three of them are quite long. The first three songs are solo acoustic, and the last five are with Crazy Horse. It’s all good, but Disc 1 is the better show.
All but the last track on Disc 3 are previously released. Most of them are studio songs from Hitchhiker and live solo recordings from Songs For Judy.
Imagine sitting in a room while Neil Young plays acoustic guitar and sings about a dozen new songs for Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson. As they get to know the songs a bit, Linda and Nicolette lightly add some harmonies. That’s this recording done at a table in Ronstadt’s Malibu home in 1977. These are not completed definitive versions of the songs, but there is a kind of magic to hearing them coming to life. Even in this casual setting, Neil’s guitar playing is impressive.
Disc 5 above (The Ducks) is a group of musicians Neil worked with briefly in 1977. It’s mostly Country music. Of the 8 songs, Neil sings lead on three, others take the lead on three songs, and two are instrumentals. Seven of the eight songs are live recordings.
The first three songs on Disc 6 are full-band old-fashioned Country & Western recordings. The remaining songs are mostly Neil Young playing all the instruments and doing the lead and harmony vocals. They sound good, and could have appeared this way on albums like Comes A Time, but they’re not quite up to the quality they became with Nicolette Larson singing the harmony parts.
Disc 7 is mostly a rehearsal from 1977. This one suffers from not having a great sound mix. The impression is that it’s “just a rehearsal”, and is less expertly recorded than an actual performance would have been. You can hear the difference when a completed recording “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” is heard near the end. The old Classic Country song is a duet with Neil Young & Nicolette Larson and has superior audio.
Disc 8 is part one of a good 1978 solo acoustic concert Neil performed at The Boarding House in San Francisco. Three of the new songs from that concert are the highlights… “Sail Away”, ”Powderfinger” and “Thrasher”. The studio versions would later appear on Rust Never Sleeps.
Disc 9 above completes the live solo concert with five more songs, but also inserts an unnecessary and out of place version of “Hey Hey, My My” with Devo. The track marked “dressing room” at the end is just a short audio recording in the dressing room after the show.
Disc 10 is all previously released recordings from Young’s excellent Rust Never Sleeps & Live Rust albums, except the previously unreleased studio song “Bright Sunny Day”, which is fine, but not a classic.
Disc 11 is mostly previously released songs from two of Young’s lesser albums, Hawks & Doves and RE-AC-TOR. Of the three new studio songs, “Winter Winds” is a good country song, and “Sunny Inside” & “Get Up” don’t really work.
Disc 12 finds Neil Young in 1982, with synthesizers and a vocoder (to electronically alter voices). First we get the six vocoder tracks from the Trans album. I find myself in the minority of fans, because I actually like “Sample And Hold”, “Mr. Soul” and “Transformer Man”, but overall it’s not a well-liked album. Next the disc moves into one of the “unreleased albums”, Johnny’s Island. It might be described as “Yacht Rock”, or perhaps “Yacht Pop”. It features a full band of some of Young’s regulars…Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Ralph Molina, Bruce Palmer, and Joe Lala. It’s not bad, but the pop music style would probably not have been well received if Neil had released the album in 1982.
Disc 13 is an odd mix of music. It starts with two live solo performances with Neil Young on Banjo. Then we get a couple of very Country songs, before going into Neil’s mostly-disliked album of 1950’s Rock & Roll songs, Everybody’s Rockin’. The disc ends with 6 more of Neil’s “just me on all the instruments & vocals” recordings.
This disc is the country version of Neil Young. The best tracks are near the end… “This Old House”, “Southern Pacific”, and “Interstate”.
Disc 15 above is another live album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Not as good as Disc 1 & Disc 2.
Disc 16 has songs from the Landing On Water album, plus three previously unreleased tracks. If “Road Of Plenty” sounds familiar, that’s because it was developed into “Eldorado” for 1989’s Freedom album.
This last disc includes Neil’s piano version of “Someday”, which is superior to the previously released Freedom album version, but not quite as good as his solo live version. Most of the songs on Disc 17 are early takes of acoustic studio recordings, close to demos.
Overall, it’s great that Neil Young releases these historic Archives collections. There are always unreleased tracks and live versions that add to our enjoyment of his impressive musical legacy.
The eleven films last 14 hours, and four of the films were previously unreleased.
The only vinyl is a 16-track 2-record set, Takes, which takes one track each from 16 of the CD’s. It’s priced at $35. It’s also available for digital purchase, and you can check it out on the streaming services.
The Archives II release was especially good with a lot of great unreleased tracks from 1972-1976 after his career high of Harvest. Since the new Archives III covers 1976-1987, it includes the albums Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust, Trans, Landing On Water, and more.