Snappy newsletters. Simple Facebook sharing. Spirited comments. Sweet features are waiting… GET THEM NOW!

Neil Young's Latest Redefines Compilations

10-disc set bursting with music, photos, video

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 17, 2009 2:53 PM CDT

(Newser) – Neil Young leaves other retrospectives in the dust with a look back at his career that spans 10 Blu-ray discs or DVDs, or eight CDs, the Chicago Tribune reports. Neil Young Archives: Volume 1, 1963-1972 contains everything from high school band recordings through Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to his first solo work, a 20-years-in-the-making collection that's "gone on to usurp even Chinese Democracy as the ultimate lost-album punchline," writes Stuart Berman of Pitchfork.

Fans have their pick of three formats—with different bells, whistles, and price tags—but any choice "makes the same convincing case," writes Berman. That these years "were marked by a rapid maturation and a series of successful stylistic reinventions that rivaled the Beatles." But Volume I isn't "the vault-clearing revelation that fans may have been hoping for. Of the advertised 43 unreleased tracks, most take the form of alternate mixes or live versions of familiar material," making its remastering the album's "real selling point."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

Neil Young performs at the Isle of Wight festival in Newport, England, on Sunday. (AP Photo)

Neil Young performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, May 3, 2009. (AP Photo)

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

I've been a collector of a lot of things over my life, from cars to toy trains. ... So I put my music kind of in the same classification as technical things. It's just an evolving creation of songs. - Neil Young

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

To report an error on this story, notify our editors.

More Newser Stories

Redemption? Lana Del Rey Impresses Letterman

Singer's performance on live TV better received this time

(NEWSER) - Lana Del Rey didn't exactly get rave reviews for her Saturday Night Live performance, but she seems to have made a fan of David Letterman. After she sang a simpler version of her "Video Games" hit last night, Letterman jokingly asked if she could come back tonight, notes the Huffington Post . "My pleasure," she replied. "How about Monday?" he then added. More»

10 Notable Bands With Only 1 Album

Lauryn Hill, Jeff Buckley, and the Sex Pistols make the list

(NEWSER) - It's one way to avoid the sophomore slump: Paste counts down 10 singers or bands whose first album set the music world abuzz and whose official second album simply never materialized: More»

Rock Music Has Worst Year Ever

It's old acts clinging to relevance, and new ones aping them: Critic

(NEWSER) - How dire is the state of mainstream rock? So dire that “Sublime With Rome,” a band with no higher ambition than mimicking Sublime, has had a song on the Billboard charts every week since May. “2011 may well be remembered as the most numbing year for mainstream rock in music history,” declares New York Times critic Jon Caramanica. “Declaring a genre dead is the worst, least imaginative sort of proclamation, so let’s call it zombified.” More»

Long-Lost Elliott Smith Song Resurfaces

Obscure recording made during 1997 student radio session

(NEWSER) - Elliott Smith fans are in for a treat: The singer-songwriter, who died in 2003 and now has a strong cult following, has a new song available. It’s a rarely-heard tune from a 1997 session at the University of Maryland’s student radio station. Called “Misery Let Me Down,” it’s just two minutes long, the Washington Post reports. A former DJ for the station realized in May he had the recording when he found it on a MiniDisc player he was selling. More»

Stipe: REM Breakup 3 Years in the Making

He explains to Salon why the band didn't do a farewell tour

(NEWSER) - REM’s break-up, announced in September , wasn’t a snap decision. The band had been talking about it during its 2008 tour, Michael Stipe tells Salon in a lengthy sit-down. “The decision came about quite organically, like most things in REM,” he says. By the end of that tour—which became their last—“we all kind of knew that these were most likely going to be our last shows. It was already, for us, bittersweet and weird and hard.” He says the thought of not performing live again is “actually painful to think about,” but the band didn’t want to leave things open-ended because the members needed “closure” in order to move forward with new projects. More»

NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS

What is Newser?

Face it: there's too much news. At Newser, we choose the most thought-provoking and entertaining stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs. And we do it 24/7—you can come back morning, noon, night (and in between) for something new that matters. Read less, know more.

Learn more »

Partnering with: Slate

View Newser on the mobile website

Neil Young's Latest Redefines Compilations