Neil Young

Neil Young – Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972 – 1976) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 20, 2023 · Comments off

This is the second volume of theNeil Young Archives series of box sets produced by Neil Young. A definitive, comprehensive, chronological record of his entire body of released work.This box set covers the extremely productive period from 1972 through 1976. A prolific era for Neil when he released several classic albums including On The Beach, Tonight’s The NightandZuma. Homegrown, just released, is part of this history as well.The box set features a total of 131 tracks of which 62 are either unreleased songs or unreleased alternate versions, different mixes, rare or live tracks. The retail edition of the box set will be available on March 5th 2021, available to pre-order via Neil Young’s Greedy Hand web store and all retailers. This version of the box set includes the same 10 CDs and oversized fold-out ArchivesPoster as the deluxe edition, plus a 24-page booklet (replacing the hard-bound book). The retail edition is packaged in a cube-shaped slip-case box, smaller than the deluxe edition box. The 10 CDs, each in its own custom sleeve feature a total of 131 tracks from Neil Young solo, plus with bands Crazy Horse, The Stray Gators, The Santa Monica Flyers, the Stills/Young Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

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Neil Young – American Stars ‘N Bars (1977/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 20, 2023 · Comments off

Neil Young made a point of listing the recording dates of the songs on American Stars ‘n Bars; the dates even appeared on the LP labels. They revealed that the songs had been cut at four different sessions dating back to 1974. But even without such documentation, it would have been easy to tell that the album was a stylistic hodgepodge, its first side consisting of country-tinged material featuring steel guitar and fiddle, plus backup vocals from Linda Ronstadt and the then-unknown Nicolette Larson, while the four songs on the second side varied from acoustic solo numbers like “Will to Love” to raging rockers such as “Like a Hurricane.” Just as apparent was the album’s unevenness: side one consisted of lightweight compositions, while side two had more ambitious ones, with “Will to Love,” for example, extending the romantic metaphor of a salmon swimming upstream across seven minutes. The album’s saving grace was “Like a Hurricane,” one of Young’s classic hard rock songs and guitar workouts, and a perennial concert favorite. Without it, American Stars ‘n Bars would have been one of Young’s least memorable albums, and since it turned up the following year on the compilation Decade, the LP was rendered inessential.

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Neil Young – After The Gold Rush (1970/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 20, 2023 · Comments off

In the 15 months between the release of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush, Neil Young issued a series of recordings in different styles that could have prepared his listeners for the differences between the two LPs. His two compositions on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album Déjà Vu, “Helpless” and “Country Girl,” returned him to the folk and country styles he had pursued before delving into the hard rock of Everybody Knows; two other singles, “Sugar Mountain” and “Oh, Lonesome Me,” also emphasized those roots. But “Ohio,” a CSNY single, rocked as hard as anything on the second album. After the Gold Rush was recorded with the aid of Nils Lofgren, a 17-year-old unknown whose piano was a major instrument, turning one of the few real rockers, “Southern Man” (which had unsparing protest lyrics typical of Phil Ochs), into a more stately effort than anything on the previous album and giving a classic tone to the title track, a mystical ballad that featured some of Young’s most imaginative lyrics and became one of his most memorable songs. But much of After the Gold Rush consisted of country-folk love songs, which consolidated the audience Young had earned through his tours and recordings with CSNY; its dark yet hopeful tone matched the tenor of the times in 1970, making it one of the definitive singer/songwriter albums, and it has remained among Young’s major achievements. –William Ruhlmann

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Neil Young – A Letter Home (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 20, 2023 · Comments off

During the 2014 promo campaign for Pono, his high-end digital audio device, Neil Young called his forthcoming album A Letter Home “an art project,” which is an appropriate term for this curious collection of covers from his contemporaries. It’s not so much that the choice of songs is unusual — nearly all of them are from the ’60s and ’70s, years when Young was also active, but a handful (“Crazy,” “Since I Met You Baby,” “I Wonder If I Care as Much”) date from the late ’50s or early ’60s — but the recording method. Young headed down to Jack White’s Third Man Records in Nashville where Jack installed a refurbished Voice-O-Graph booth, a device designed to allow a user to “Make Your Own Record” by cutting a song or message directly to vinyl. These contraptions were designed in 1947 and were once a common sight in arcades and fairs but they died away in the ’70s, turning into an artifact of a weird old Americana beloved by both Young and White. Neil decided to use the Voice-O-Graph to record a full album, an experiment that’s strictly about the method of recording, not the music itself. By design, the Voice-O-Graph allows for no overdubs — it captures everything that happens in the booth and nothing more — so the performances are intimate and sometimes rushed, qualities that are alternately enhanced and undercut by the thin, crackly recording. This aural affectation can be affecting — in particular, his readings of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Can Read My Mind” are quite sweet, as is Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country,” while there’s a genuine pang of pathos lying in Bert Jansch’s “Needle of Death” — but the trebly, wavy audio can also seem cacophonous, whether it’s capturing Neil alone (Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown”) or in tandem with White (a version of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” that always seems just on the verge of falling apart, which could be perceived as a compliment depending on your view). Usually, the flaws of A Letter Home can be pegged on the archaic recording technology — only a couple of performances feel shambolic — but Young is also having fun with what the Voice-O-Graph meant, opening the album with a wry, winding spoken letter to his departed mother and then addressing another missive to her later on the record. These words are simultaneously sentimental and impish, a wink to the audience that Young is in on the joke but also doesn’t quite consider A Letter Home a joke. Sure, there’s artifice and humor here, but there’s also heart, and this blend of emotions is what makes A Letter Home one of Neil Young’s quintessential, endearingly odd records. –Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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Neil Young – Summer Songs (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 16, 2023 · Comments off

Neil Young - Summer Songs (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Neil Young gave fans of his ‘Archives’ project an extra-special Christmas gift this year, dropping the eight-track ‘Summer Songs’ record that he first teased last month.

The archival album was initially recorded in 1987, tracked at the Broken Arrow Ranch in Redwood City, California. It’s unclear who Young made the album with – if anyone – but every instrument played on it was played by Young himself. The version released on Saturday (December 25) was produced by the Volume Dealers and mastered by Tim Mulligan.
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Neil Young – Landing On Water (1986/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 16, 2023 · Comments off

Neil Young - Landing On Water (1986/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Landing on Water is the 15th studio album by Neil Young. The album was released on July 21, 1986, by Geffen Records. Several of the songs on the album were resurrected from Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s failed 1984 sessions – a set of sessions where, according to longtime producer David Briggs, the musicians “played like monkeys”.
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Neil Young – Colorado (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 12, 2023 · Comments off

Neil Young - Colorado (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Colorado is the 39th studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young (and his first studio album with Crazy Horse since 2012), released on October 25, 2019, by Reprise Records. The album was preceded by the singles “Milky Way” (released on August 30, 2019) and “Rainbow of Colors” (released on September 12, 2019) and is dedicated to Elliot Roberts, Young’s manager since 1967, who died aged 76 on June 21, 2019.It was also the first album to feature Nils Lofgren as a member of Crazy Horse since 1971.
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Neil Young – Somewhere Under the Rainbow 1973 (Live) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 25, 2023 · Comments off

In a night of high-wire performances and semi-unhinged sonics, the concert has taken on a mythic legend in the past 50 years. All the musicians were in a free-form state of mind and swung for the fences on every track. The double-disc album captures a sound and soul that still resonates loudly for its daring, and among Neil Young fans is an achievement that is as unconventional as it is unforgettable. Recording engineer Pete Long’s liner notes dive right into the thick of the controversial concert, and help listeners relive a place and time that won’t be repeated.

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Molina, Talbot, Lofgren & Young – All Roads Lead Home (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 1, 2023 · Comments off

An album born out of pure inspiration as well as social necessity. Molina, Talbot and Lofgren kept recording their original songs, each with other musicians and in various locations during the pandemic years. They were forced to change from working as a trio with Neil Young, and used that opportunity to see what their new individual configurations would lead to.

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Neil Young & Crazy Horse – World Record (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 31, 2023 · Comments off

Given Neil Young’s range and output, it’s just as helpful to describe what World Record isn’t before getting to what it is: It’s not a previously unreleased studio album from the 1970s; an instrumental guitar album a la Le Noise or Arc; an Old Ways-style country album; a romantic stroll through Harvest Moon balladry; a Devo-inspired electronic rock album like Trans; or a mad-as-hell-not-gonna-take-it-anymore rager Ragged Glory.

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Neil Young – Harvest (50th Anniversary Edition) (1972/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 31, 2023 · Comments off

As much for the wider public as for his great many fans, Neil Young’s Harvest represents the pinnacle of his rich discography from the seventies. Founded upon country-rock and melancholic folk, the so-called Loner’s art shines ever brightly throughout this fourth album, released back in February 1972. It is a gold mine full of bucolic, pastoral gems, recorded with a new group of brilliant musicians called the Stray Gators, with Ben Keith on steel guitar, Kenny Buttrey on drums, Tim Drummond on bass, and the great Jack Nitzsche on piano and arrangement. Harvest, which frequently displays his tumultuous relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress (mother of his first son Zeke) also incorporates some impressive somber moments, such as in ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ – a stunning ballad about his guitarist Danny Whitten’s heroin addiction, who died of an overdose in November that same year, just after being kicked out of the band by Neil Young.

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Neil Young + Promise of the Real – Noise and Flowers (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 21, 2022 · Comments off

Neil Young + Promise of the Real’s live album ‘Noise & Flowers’ captures the group in all their glory on their 2019 European tour. The release will be accompanied by a concert film that shares the same title and is included in the album’s 2xLP+CD+Blu-ray Deluxe Edition. ‘Noise & Flowers’ documents a 9-date tour that began just two weeks after Young’s lifetime friend and manager of more than 50 years, Elliot Roberts, passed away at the age of 76. Performing alongside a photograph of Roberts taped to his road case, Young approached each show as a celebratory memorial service to honour his late friend. In paying tribute to the manager who guided Young’s career for over a half-century, ‘Noise & Flowers’ explores all corners of his vast discography. It balances all-timer anthems with rarely aired ’70s deep cuts and ’90s gems. His frequent backing band since 2015, Promise of the Real effectively bridges the extremes in Young’s sound, infusing his raging rockers and country serenades with their casual brilliance and telepathic intuition.

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Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Toast (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 11, 2022 · Comments off

Aptly, the album is heavy and distressed, brimming with electrifying tension. Even its sweet-sounding opening track, ‘Quit’, features the refrain, ‘Don’t say you love me’. ‘Standing in the Light of Love’ and ‘Goin’ Home’ let the Horse off the tether in fields of overdriven guitar; an out-of-work logger grapples with his faith on the breakneck ‘Timberline’; and on ‘Gateway of Love’, Young dreams of a less painful future over a hypnotizing 10 minutes, leading into the somber, brokedown ‘How Ya Doin’?’ The songwriter sums up the album best during its shadowy finale ‘Boom Boom Boom’: ‘All I got is a broken heart, and I don’t try to hide it when I play my guitar’.

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Neil Young & The Restless – Eldorado (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 27, 2022 · Comments off

Eldorado is an EP originally released only in Japan and Australia by Neil Young backed by The Restless, which consisted of Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas.

It contains different mixes of three songs that subsequently appeared on Young’s 1989 album Freedom, “Don’t Cry,” “On Broadway,” and “Eldorado,” and two tracks not available on any other recording, “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love.”

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Neil Young – Dorothy Chandler Pavilion 1971 (Live) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 27, 2022 · Comments off

The album is the last US show of Young’s 1971 solo tour. The original bootleg artwork has also been replicated wherever possible, lending each release that treasured collector’s vibe and conjuring the era they were first created in. The album is from the original analog masters.

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