Home » Jazz News » Recording

119

Neil Young's Massive Blu-Ray Project

Source:

Sign in to view read count
Neil Young
Neil Young has been working on his Archives project for so long that the big news in the tech world when it was first announced was Windows 3.0.

Back in 1988, the curmudgeonly musician conceived the mother of all box sets, a multimedia data dump that presents the breadth of his workthe good, the bad, and the uglyin hi-def audio. Young envisioned Archives as not just a spiffed-up music collection but a virtual autobiography, including video footage, photos, press clips, and memorabilia such as original lyric sheets and personal correspondence, retained against all odds. To Young fansand anyone interested in how digital media can enable new means of self-expressionthis sounded pretty nifty.

But in preparing this harvest of material, Young has made even Microsoft look like a short-order cook. Year after year, Archives remained in perpetual just-about-there mode. ("It's already together," Young gushed to an interviewer back in 1991.) Then, a couple of years ago, the advent of hi-def optical formats removed a significant barrier. Larry Johnson, Young's media wizard, explains that fans could at last enjoy super hi-fidelity audio while simultaneously poring over set lists from a 1969 coffeehouse appearance and newspaper reviews of Buffalo Springfield.

Well, Archives has finally arrived. The full version includes 10 Blu- ray discs (128 songs in 24-bit/192 kHz stereo and a reissue of the seldom-viewed documentary Journey Through the Past), a 236-page hardbound book, a poster, and code for downloading the music (even though Young regards MP3s as the aural equivalent of Satan). And this is only volume 1, covering his prolific career up to 1972.

Longtime Youngophiles like me will be giddily overwhelmed from the get-go. When you follow an artist closely for many years, your own consciousness inevitably becomes intertwined with theirs, and sudden access to their personal vault of unreleased tunes, alternative mixes, and private paraphernalia is a bounty that requires a lot of unpacking. Archives drops you into the Neil Wide Web. At first I jumped from one gem to another. It thrilled me to hear gorgeous versions of tunes I'd experienced only on fuzzy bootlegs, to discover cheesy instrumentals from Young's high school band, and to view evocative items like the article his father (a well-known Canadian journalist) wrote after seeing his son play Carnegie Hall.



Continue Reading...

Visit Website

For more information contact .

Comments

Tags

Concerts

Apr 24 Wed

News

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.