Neil Young Opens His Vault
It’s taken nearly 30 years, but Young’s entire catalog is now available to fans via an interactive website
After 30 years, Young’s entire catalog is now available to fans via an interactive website.
IN November 1991, Neil Young told RolliNg StoNe about his ambitious plans to dig into his personal archives and release “18 to 20 albums’ worth” of unreleased music in some form or another. “I’m not so much concerned with how or when it comes out,” Young said. “I only have so much time to do these things.”
It took nearly 30 years, but Young’s vision became a reality last year, when the Neil Young Archives went online. No artist on Young’s level has ever attempted such a treasure trove: The site includes a fully interactive timeline of his career, with every song he has ever released, plus unseen photos, manuscripts and videos. Young also promises rare bootlegs to come, including shows he played in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1973, and Japan and London in 1976. “I’ve kept everything,” he says. “It’s just kind of a nerdy thing that I do.”
Young is most proud of the Xstream streaming platform, which allows visitors to hear his music with a high-quality bit rate that’s significantly better than what you can find on Spotify and Apple Music. “The people at the music services have a responsibility to the arts,” says Young. “It’s like having a Picasso show and finding out they’re all Xeroxes. That’s what Spotify is.”
Full access to the Neil Young Archives costs $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, with additional benefits like early access to tickets to Young’s ongoing run of tiny shows in vintage theaters across America. He hasn’t launched a full-scale tour in four years, choosing instead to play when inspiration strikes. Tickets often sell out during the Neil Young Archives presale, meaning the room is full of hardcore Young devotees. He treats them to intimate sets packed with rarities such as “The Last Trip to Tulsa,” “Broken Arrow,” “Thrasher” and “Razor Love.” “It’s a gesture toward them for supporting me for, in some cases, 50 years,” he says.
Most of these shows are solo acoustic, but last year he did five under-the-radar gigs in California with Crazy Horse, and in February he did two more in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Longtime guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro has missed the shows for unexplained reasons, but in his place is Nils Lofgren, who has played with Young since After the Gold Rush in 1970 and was briefly a member of Crazy Horse the following year. “He’s all over my early albums,” says Young. “It just gives me a whole wealth of material to draw from when I have the original players.”
Young hasn’t put out an album of new material since 2017’s The Visitor, and as of now he has no firm plans to make another. “I’m writing songs, and I’ve written some really interesting songs, I think, for me,” he says. “But I don’t know where I’m going. I’m just going.”