Monday, March 23, 2009

HOLY CRAP, IT EXISTS: NEIL YOUNG'S ARCHIVES VOL. 1

So, supposedly Neil Young's Archives Vol. 1 box set has a definite street date, June 2. Given that I first read about this box set when I was in college -- twenty years ago -- I'll believe it when I see it. But at South By Southwest, some people did see it, and even touch it. The always excellent Neil site, Thrasher's Wheat has a full report of tracklisting (it contains more previously released stuff than I would have expected, but whatever, I'm not complaining!). I think this is the next evolution of prestige releases from legends, or just artists with deep catalogs, deep vaults and a deep connection with fans. Like I said, you can read about it at Thrasher's Wheat, but it's worth mentioning that (a) you can now get it on CD, not just DVD and Blu Ray (the CD box set is $100, which is a good price for ten discs and a hard cover book) and (b) if you get it on DVD or Blu Ray, you get the entire thing in mp3 form, so you can listen in the car, on your iPod or whatever. It's now a much more fan-friendly package than it was originally going to be. Neil posted a note at the site where you can buy it explaining why you should really get it on Blu Ray - but that's a $300 box set, and I don't even have a Blu Ray player, so I just don't have the bucks to cough up (to paraphrase one of his new songs).

In other Neil news, Jonathan Demme premiered the Trunk Show DVD recorded in December of 2007 at South By Southwest, and Neil now has a new video for "Cough Up The Bucks" from his upcoming album Fork In The Road.

1 comment:

B. Ives said...

Thanks a lot Joannah! I appreciate it and hope you leave more comments. I do this just for the love of it, I don't sell ads, I just thought it would be cool to have a music blog for people who aren't worried about following the "next big thing," here-today-gone-tomorrow indie rock and tabloid gossip... but who are, at the same time, still interested in the new work of great artists and who may occasionally be interested in hearing someone brand new!