Album Review: Neil Young – Archives, Vol. 1: 1963 – 1972

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 6.2.09

Label: Reprise

This is a monster.

At least two decades in the making, Neil Young’s long-gestating, massively inclusive multimedia retrospective/ box set/ autobiography Archives, Vol. 1: 1963 – 1972 serves not only as a definitive window into the first decade of Shakey’s mercurial, sidewinding career, it also stands as a glimpse into the future of music as home entertainment–in the box’s nine-disc Blu-Ray incarnation (the set is also available in DVD and CD formats), along with hours and hours of music there comes countless videos of lost TV performances, as well as interactive artwork and press sheets and forgotten concert clips and hidden Easter Eggs and interviews and biographical text and home movies and concert films and photography and timelines and more, all interwoven and cross-referenced; further, in the set’s Blu-Ray format, Archives can constantly be updated online by Young himself, truly making this an ever-comprehensive and growing archival project–and, beyond that, this box sets the standard for (and points to the future of) what interactive home entertainment and art can be.

The downside? You’ll need to quit your day job and stop sleeping for a week to even scratch the surface of this immersive, intensive and intense journey through the past.

It’s a dizzying collection, albeit a little frustrating–in addition to the monolithic amount of officially unreleased material (such as Disc 00’s 1963-65 demos, collaborations with Comrie Smith and work with The Squires; Disc 3’s oft-bootlegged 1969 live set from Toronto; and a seemingly endless supply of outtakes, alternate versions and demos), the set also includes the majority of Young’s first four albums (which are highly likely to be owned by anyone who’d purchase this set), and Discs 5 and 7 are the previously released Live at the Fillmore East and Live At Massey Hall, respectively. While these can be seen as relatively small quibbles when considering the sheer volume of unreleased material that comprises the remainder of the set, as well as the set’s overall brilliant design and technological concepts (not to mention the fact that, as a definitive archive, official releases must be included), it can be a bit frustrating/ overwhelming at first when dealing with gargantuan influx of media that Archives provides. But that’s the point–this is meant to a a trip, an exploration of a decade of one man’s music, of his offical story but also his underground, his side-trips and detours and dead-ends and surprising alleyways.

That said, for those willing to take the journey that Archives offers, with such limitless treasures as the oddball surf-rock of the Squires’ “Aurora,” the stinging stomp of “Sell Out” (a previously unreleased Buffalo Springfield track), the unreleased lazy sway of “Everybody’s Alone” with Crazy Horse, and so many, many, many more, what you’ll find is perhaps the most comprehensive (and accurate) aural portrait of one of rock’s most definitive, yet hard to define artists. What you’ll find in this box of rock’s past is also a vision into the future of rock’s delivery and formatting, which is, of course, just like Neil to do.

“Dance, Dance, Dance” live at Massey Hall (1971), Disc 07:

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June 2, 2009 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Exclusive Features 

Comments

4 Responses to “Album Review: Neil Young – Archives, Vol. 1: 1963 – 1972”

  1. gary vernon on June 2nd, 2009 11:38 am

    this seems like neither a review nor an “exclusive feature” and more like a press release.

  2. travis on June 2nd, 2009 12:35 pm

    It’s a review in that it’s an attempt to critically judge this release–by highlighting whatever negatives (a lot of previously released material is wedged in here) and positives (everything else)–while placing it in appropriate context as a new wave of box set formatting/ technology. A review can be positive without being a promo, and were it a press release I wouldn’t have mentioned it’s excesses and repetitious material.

    And it’s an exclusive feature in that it is a feature exclusive to this site. I can provide arrows and diagrams to make this last point clearer if necessary.

  3. PigzInZen on June 2nd, 2009 12:42 pm

    I wouldn’t call this review pr at all really. It might be really positive, but a good review does not a pr release make

    He does mention that the box/set gets frustrating at times due to all the already out there songs and albums that are still included in it, and then says why that material was used anyway which is pretty evenhanded and undickish. It looks at the good and bad

    Or

    The first comment seems like neither a comment or informed opinion and more like trolling

  4. travis on June 2nd, 2009 1:11 pm

    On the count of three, internet slap fight…. one…two…




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