My initial misgivings about volume 1 of Neil Young’s Archive Box Set, based on a faulty Blu-Ray preview disc, are quickly being dispelled by the actual set, which arrived this past week.
The 10-disc set I have is in DVD format and it contains a plethora of re-mastered work, unreleased tracks, alternate mixes, videos and much more from 1963-72, my favorite period of Young’s career. It’s also available in Blu-Ray or as an eight-disc set in CD, minus the feature film Journey Through The Past and videos.
I have a dedicated SACD/DVD player connected to my stereo and that’s where I have listened to it the most, although I’ve played it through one of my computers to access the visuals available while songs are playing, hidden tracks and other goodies that you can only see with a monitor.
I don’t care for listening to music through my TV setup but this set has tempted me to add a small monitor to my player to access the extras.
Speaking of extras, to my surprise, the set came with a few unexpected items. The first thing you see when you open the large rectangular tower the set is housed in is a vinyl 45 by The Squires, one of Young’s first rock groups in Canada, of the instrumentals Mustang and Aurora, which are on Disc 0 of the set, covering 1963-65. The DVDs are in a special cardboard box that folds in half revealing five discs in each half and a poster of the file cabinet screen, which is used on the discs to access individual tracks. Continue reading Much to explore in Young’s Archive
Not electrifying in a showy, glitzy, glamorous sense, but in a musical sense. The two giants whose careers started in the 1960s and have paralleled each other, intersecting once for an extended period in 1969, show they are still fully capable of producing inspring and creative performances on their own material and covers of some of their contemporaries.