Neil Young

Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall 1971 (2007/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:07:36 minutes | 2,29 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

The acclaimed Toronto performance features classics “Old Man” and, in a suite, “A Man Needs A Maid” and “Heart Of Gold” (before they were recorded for Harvest) along with some of his most popular songs (“Cowgirl In The Sand,” “Ohio”) as well as the most obscure (“Bad Fog Of Loneliness”). Live At Massey Hall is a rock gem.

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Neil Young – Le Noise (2010/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:05 minutes | 347 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

“Le Noise” is the thirty-first studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Daniel Lanois. “Le Noise” received generally positive reviews with Uncut magazine proclaiming it as the second best album of 2010 in its year-end Top 50 Albums list. This album was number 20 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 30 Best Albums of 2010.

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Neil Young – Homegrown (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:22 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Neil Young’s “lost album,” Homegrown, gets its debut 41 years late. Young shelved it because he “just couldn’t listen to” the heartache, which followed the collapse of his romance with actress Carrie Snodgress. Meant to fall between Harvest and Comes a Time, the 1974 time capsule fits neatly in that space. “Separate Ways” and “Try,” both featuring drums by Levon Helm, truly feel like an extension of Harvest: the former a noir-country lament and the latter an ambling plea for love lifted aloft by Emmylou Harris’ backing vocals. Throughout, train-whistle harmonica is a Greek chorus, popping up on the gorgeous and hopeless “Star of Bethlehem” (“All your dreams and your lovers won’t protect you”) and stripped-bare “Love Is a Rose”—which would be made famous in ’75 by Linda Ronstadt and here ends with urgent guitar chords like exclamation points of warning. There are moments of indulgence—you’re safe to skip any title that’s the name of a place—but also songs that stand with his best. The blistering “Vacancy” (“You poison me with that long, vacant stare”) and high-lonesome “White Line,” with Robbie Roberston, aren’t to be missed. – Shelly Ridenour

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Neil Young – Hawks & Doves (1980/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 30:03 minutes | 539 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Hawks & Doves is the tenth studio album by Canadian folk rock musician Neil Young, released in October 1980.

Hawks & Doves’s two sides were recorded in different circumstances, side one being culled from sessions dating from approximately 1974 through 1977, and side two from sessions set in early 1980 specifically for the album. It is also one of Young’s shortest albums, its running time just under half an hour.

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Neil Young – Harvest (1972/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 37:42 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Neil Young’s most popular album, Harvest benefited from the delay in its release (it took 18 months to complete due to Young’s back injury), which whetted his audience’s appetite, the disintegration of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Young’s three erstwhile partners sang on the album, along with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor), and most of all, a hit single. “Heart of Gold,” released a month before Harvest, was already in the Top 40 when the LP hit the stores, and it soon topped the charts. It’s fair to say, too, that Young simply was all-pervasive by this time: “Heart of Gold” was succeeded at number one by “A Horse with No Name” by America, which was a Young soundalike record. But successful as Harvest was (and it was the best-selling album of 1972), it has suffered critically from reviewers who see it as an uneven album on which Young repeats himself. Certainly, Harvest employs a number of jarringly different styles. Much of it is country-tinged, with Young backed by a new group dubbed the Stray Gators who prominently feature steel guitarist Ben Keith, though there is also an acoustic track, a couple of electric guitar-drenched rock performances, and two songs on which Young is accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra. But the album does have an overall mood and an overall lyric content, and they conflict with each other: The mood is melancholic, but the songs mostly describe the longing for and fulfillment of new love. Young is perhaps most explicit about this on the controversial “A Man Needs a Maid,” which is often condemned as sexist by people judging it on the basis of its title. In fact, the song contrasts the fears of committing to a relationship with simply living alone and hiring help, and it contains some of Young’s most autobiographical writing. Unfortunately, like “There’s a World,” the song is engulfed in a portentous orchestration. Over and over, Young sings of the need for love in such songs as “Out on the Weekend,” “Heart of Gold,” and “Old Man” (a Top 40 hit), and the songs are unusually melodic and accessible. The rock numbers, “Are You Ready for the Country” and “Alabama,” are in Young’s familiar style and unremarkable, and “There’s a World” and “Words (Between the Lines of Age)” are the most ponderous and overdone Young songs since “The Last Trip to Tulsa.” But the love songs and the harrowing portrait of a friend’s descent into heroin addiction, “The Needle and the Damage Done,” remain among Young’s most affecting and memorable songs. –William Ruhlmann

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Neil Young – Greatest Hits (2004/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:17:10 minutes | 2,66 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

How does one represent the career of one of the most distinctive, powerful singer/songwriters of the 20th century in the space of a single CD? By keeping it simple and sticking to the milestones. That’s exactly what „Greatest Hits“ HITS accomplishes, by presenting 16 of Neil Young’s most beloved compositions. The gritty, fuzz-guitar fury of Young’s work with Crazy Horse (‘Cinnamon Girl,’ ‘Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black]’) brushes up against the acoustic-based, country-tinged ‘Old Man’ and ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart,’ as well as haunting, soul-baring ballads such as ‘The Needle and the Damage Done.’ Few would deny that the 1970s were Young’s richest decade, and this collection strongly focuses on those years, skipping most of Young’s genre-hopping ’80s albums and grandfather-of-grunge ’90s recordings, but the gems from those years would make a rewarding sequel to this concise, sterling anthology.

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Neil Young – Fork in the Road (2009/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 38:41 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Has there ever been anything like an ordinary Neil Young album? No! Even after the release of more than 60 works in almost 45 years, the old Young premise applies: the constant constant remains the unsteady. His recordings move either completely to tease or to admire. “Fork In The Road” has a bit of both.

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Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 40:46 minutes | 1,50 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the second studio album by the Canadian musician Neil Young, originally released on Reprise Records catalogue RS 6349. His first with backing band Crazy Horse, it peaked at number 34 on the US Billboard 200 and has been certified a platinum album by the RIAA.

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Neil Young – Dead Man (Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture) (1996/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:23 minutes | 646 MB | Genre: Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Vapor Records

Dead Man is one of those unusual (and often legendary) soundtracks that a director or fan simply “hands over” to a jazz or folk star who improvises to the film that has already been edited. Released in 1996, Jim Jarmusch’s feature film tells the story of the wanderings of William Blake (Johnny Depp) and the Indian Nobody (Gary Farmer) through the Wild West in the late 19th century. Neil Young’s music is light years away from the epic scores found in the golden era of Hollywood westerns and is instead based on just the electric guitar, which is only replaced by an organ for the duration of one track (Organ Solo). The haunting sound of the electric guitar together with the magnificent black and white film plays a key part in creating Dead Man’s strange and psychedelic atmosphere, which is why there are six Guitar Solos on the soundtrack. Sensual, tortured and endearing, Neil Young’s guitar seems bewitched by the film’s visuals and he makes full use of effects like reverberation, distortion and delay. It is rare to find music so physically connected to a film and the marginality of the characters. Among the album’s bravura pieces are the lyrical Solo No.5 (which is almost 15 minutes long), as well as Solo No.6, whose effects sound like the cries of an injured animal. The track ends with the very poignant repetition of two simple notes, and with that the film ends too. It should also be pointed out that there are passages interspersed throughout the album during which Johnny Depp recites poems by William Blake. – Nicolas Magenham

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Neil Young – Comes A Time (1978/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 36:59 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Six and a half years later, Comes a Time finally was the Neil Young album for the millions of fans who had loved Harvest, an acoustic-based record with country overtones and romantic, autobiographical lyrics, and many of those fans returned to the fold, enough to make Comes a Time Young’s first Top Ten album since Harvest. He signaled the album’s direction with the leadoff track, “Goin’ Back,” and its retrospective theme augmented with an orchestral backup and the deliberate beat familiar from his number one hit “Heart of Gold.” Of course, Young remained sly about this retrenchment. “I feel like goin’ back,” he sang, but added, “back where there’s nowhere to stay.” Doubtless he had no intention of staying with this style, but for the length of the album, melodies, love lyrics, lush arrangements, and steel guitar solos dominated, and Young’s vocals were made more accessible by being paired with Nicolette Larson’s harmonies. Larson’s own version of Young’s “Lotta Love,” released shortly after the one heard here, became a Top Ten hit single. Other highlights included the reflective “Already One,” which treats the unusual subject of the nature of a divorced family, the ironic “Field of Opportunity,” and a cover of Ian Tyson’s folk standard “Four Strong Winds” (a country Top Ten hit for Bobby Bare in 1965). –William Ruhlmann

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Neil Young – Chrome Dreams II (2007/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:18 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Chrome Dreams II is the 28th studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young. The album name references Chrome Dreams, a legendary Neil Young album from 1977 that had originally been scheduled for release but was shelved in favor of American Stars ‘N Bars.

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Neil Young – Carnegie Hall 1970 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:31:28 minutes | 3,52 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

The show rounded off a seminal year for Young who had released the ‘After The Gold Rush’ record just 3 months earlier in September which followed on from the ‘D’ej`a Vu’ album he recorded as part of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young in March of the same year. This show is a never before heard recording with Young playing solo on vocals, acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica. Young played two solo acoustic shows at Carnegie Hall that week.

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Neil Young – Are You Passionate? (Remastered) (2002/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:05:40 minutes | 2,29 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Are You Passionate? is the 24th studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, the only album to feature Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and his eighth with Crazy Horse, released on April 9, 2002 as a double LP and as a single CD. It represents Young’s foray into soul music, not sounding like anything he had previously released. Exceptions are rocker “Goin’ Home”, recorded with Crazy Horse, and the brooding “Let’s Roll”, a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The album ends with “She’s a Healer”, an extended jam.

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Neil Young – Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972 – 1976) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 08:46:02 minutes | 18,64 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

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)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 38:08 minutes | 763 MB | Genre: Folk Rock, Pop Rock, Country Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

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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