Product Details

• Actors: Neil Young
• Directors: Neil Young
• Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region A/1 (Read more about DVD/Blu-ray formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 10
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Reprise Records
• DVD Release Date: June 2, 2009
• Run Time: 1200 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001B8PV4U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,120 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This is the first volume of the Neil Young Archives series of box sets, produced by Neil Young himself. This series is the definitive, comprehensive, chronological survey of his entire body of work. Volume I covers the period from his earliest recordings with the Squires in Winnipeg, 1963, through to his classic 1972 album, Harvest and beyond, including studio and live tracks with the legendary Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Neil Young with Crazy Horse. This Blu Ray disc edition contains 10 discs, each in its own custom sleeve. 9 of these discs hold a total of 128 tracks (12 hidden), all presented in ultra high resolution 24-bit/192 Khz stereo PCM state-of-the-art master quality sound, and featuring nearly 60 previously unreleased songs, versions, mixes, or rare tracks. Also found on these 9 multimedia discs are 20 special feature videos, film clips, and film trailers, an additional 55 audio tracks of rare interviews, radio spots, and concert raps, and an array of interactive features, including image galleries of archival photos, press, lyric manuscripts, documents, biographies, tour dates, and complete lyrics, as well as an interactive timeline feature which presents an in-depth overview of Young's life and career. Each of the 10 Blu Ray discs feature 1920X1080 high definition picture quality. In addition, a Blu Ray disc of Young's acclaimed first film, 'Journey Through The Past', available for the first time since its original theatrical release in 1973, is included, featuring pristine picture transfer, audio presented in both DTS 5.1 surround and stereo 24-bit/96 Khz PCM, plus archival materials. Included in the durable custom display box are a digital download card to access MP3 files of all 128 audio tracks, a lavish 236 page fullcolor hardbound book that features additional archival materials, tapes database, and detailed descriptions of the music and artwork, a foldout Archives poster, a custom keeper for the 10 sleeved discs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 148 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Blu-Ray Version June 2, 2009

By AR

Format:Blu-ray

This is a review of blu-ray set that I received today.

Yes, it was expensive (right now about $279 for the blu-ray version for Archives Vol. 1). But, for the hardcore Neil fans, it just may be worth it.

If some people are confused, the blu-ray set comes with 10 discs. The discs contain songs from 1963-1972 that you can listen to while browsing through the archives: an interactive vault where you can look at photos, lyrics, press releases, letters, etc (while you are still listening). There are lots of video clips throughout the discs as well. The songs are studio tracks, live stuff, alternate mixes, previously unreleased stuff etc. Some songs you may already have, but keep in mind they have never ever sounded this good. Not just a minor upgrade, but this stuff is mind blowing. All in all (without including the downloadable content and easter eggs/hidden stuff), there are 128 songs including 43 unreleased and 13 "never before heard."

The 10 discs:

-Three of those discs are live shows (Live at the Riverboat 1969 which hasn't been released yet, and then Live at the Fillmore East 1970 and Live at Massey Hall 1971 which have previously been released but just on CD in the past few years. But, these discs aren't really the same. They, of course, have the hi-def audio and all the special stuff like photos, press release stuff, bios, and more. For the Massey Hall disc, there is video footage that accompanies the audio, home video stuff of neil and murky but awesome video clips of the show itself).

-Six of the other discs have songs that are either unreleased, previously released in some cases, alternate mixes, or live. With each song, you can browse the archive. There are even more special features too, on each disc is a continuous NY bio and timeline as well.

-The last disc is Neil's old film Journey Through the Past.

The set comes with a 200-something page coffee table book (although not hardcover)with pictures, lyrics, etc as well. A thin but very long (4 feet or more) poster comes with the set as well, it looks like a big file cabinet with the song names written on the folders. Lastly, there is a special box that contains a card to download mp3s of all the songs, a physical copy of the CD version of Cantebury House-Live at Sugar Mountain, and a little note pad thingy.

I don't think anyone can really argue about the quality of the music, but some might be confused about what is in it actually or hesitant to buy, especially the blu-ray version.

There is a cheaper DVD version (you can't listen to the songs while browsing at the same time). Also, with the blu-ray set, you can get updates. Today for example, I put a disc in and was able to download a new (well... very old, of course) song that wasn't included already. As Neil said, as they find more stuff, they will update it and send it to us to download. Very cool. You can't do this with the dvd or CD version. The CD version is just cds of discs 1-8. with the Cds, The early years tracks have been put onto one disc and it doesn't include Joureny to the Past. The dvd version does have it.

There is days worth of stuff on these blu-ray discs. Easter eggs and special features that I haven't even gotten to yet. If you can afford the package, it's worth it.

Lastly, here's some technical stuff from Neil's site about the archives:

"Audio in the Blu-ray edition is presented in ultra-high resolution 24-bit / 192 kHz stereo PCM state-of-the-art master quality sound, while audio in the DVD edition is presented in high resolution 24-bit / 96 kHz stereo PCM audiophile quality sound. The CD edition is presented in standard resolution 16-bit / 44 kHz stereo PCM CD quality sound.

Each of the 10 Blu-ray discs feature 1920x1080 high definition picture quality while the 10 DVD discs have 720x480 standard definition picture quality."

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best music release ever? March 24, 2011

By db

Format:Blu-ray

Kindly ignore the other "reviews". This box is fantastic. At this point in time, it is arguably the finest musical release EVER. While it is true that there is the image of a record player or tape player when you play the songs, that isn't the only option. This only happens if you choose to play all of the songs from the menu. If you select the songs INDIVIDUALLY from the file cabinet, you you will have all sorts of nifty bonuses to enjoy. For example, there are concert videos, video and audio interviews with Neil, photographs of Neil and his various bands that were shot around the time the songs were recorded, handwritten song lyrics, typed lyrics, detailed song info, and photos of memorabilia - like 45 sleeve art, concert ticket stubs, letters Neil had written, etc. Plus, there are LOADS of "easter eggs" on each disc. Most of these are really cool. Even hunting for them is a blast. My favorites include hilarious video footage Neil shopping in a record store in the early '70s and finding bootlegs of his music. He gives the store clerk such a hard time and it's a lot of fun to watch. Also, there is nifty footage of Neil visiting the factory at the time the 'Harvest' album covers were printed. Fun stuff. In addition to all of this, there is a clever "timeline" feature where you can see a month by month timeline of Neil's life complete with photos and little pushpins that you can click on to play other songs and videos and if your blu-ray player (like the PS3) is connected to the internet, you will be able to download addition "bonus" content, which appear as blue pushpins on the timeline. Since its release, there have been around 10 bonus songs that can be downloaded at no additional cost (featuring a couple Mynah Birds songs!). The film 'Journey Through the Past' is also included in this box and while it isn't the greatest movie ever made, it's a wonderful treat for any Neil Young fan, as this film was never released before. Best of all, all of the songs in this box have been remastered at the best possible resolution available (linear PCM 24bit/192kHz) and if your equipment is up to speed (high quality speakers and a nice receiver that accepts HDMI connection), you will never hear these songs sounding better. Neil himself says this is as close as you are gonna get to hearing the songs in master tape quality. Finally, with the purchase of this set, you also get a card with a special code that allows you to hop online and download the songs in mp3 format (320kbs). Neil is supposed to release 3 or 4 more of these boxes, each one basically covering a decade of Neil's career. Hopefully the uneducated reviews haven't dissuaded people from buying this first installment. Yes, it is expensive. But I managed to get it for around $240. At $24/disc it is worth it when you consider the tons of stuff you get along with the best audio quality possible. 5 stars.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Truly a new way to appreciate an artists work June 6, 2009

By Marc B

Format:Blu-ray

I feel I have spent enough time with this set now to give a good overview of what this is all about. First of there is a lot more to this than we can gather from the official tracklist and takes a big investment in time and effort to explore and discover the treasures within. For example just looking through the first disc while listening to the music took about 2 or 3 hours The Early Years material I found surprisingly listenable when I thought it would be only interesting from a historical perspective and wouldn't stand up to repeat listening, it will definitely get another outing.
Most of the fun is in discovering for yourselves what is here and I feel I would be spoiling the fun to list everything, but there is a lot of extra video content to discover including a live performance from Fillmore of CSNY doing On the Way Home. Are you disappointed there has been no live Springfield audio released?... Fear not there is about 15 mins worth not in the tracklist. Do you see how this is shaping up? This is a totally different way to experience and appreciate an artist's work. It truly is an ego driven labour of love, an audio-visual autobiography of an artist's life's work and years ahead of his time.
Neil has made it plainly clear in an open letter to fans that the blu-ray set is the way to go, it is the highest possible audio quality currently available and the only one which has the updates and downloads of any new material that is discovered, after you have bought your set. There is one when you first boot up the set, they are free and appear in your timeline when you accept them. You also receive a download of all 128 tracks in 320k digital downloads and the Sugar Mountain CD/DVD set as a free bonus.

Some of my highlights.

Springfield out-takes Sell Out and Slowly Burning
Comrie Smith material, especially Hello Lonely Woman featuring some killer Jaggeresque harmonica playing.
Goldrush era material with CSNY
1969 Sunset Studios Crazy Horse sessions including an alternate Birds and out-take Everybody's Alone.
Riverboat
Royce Hall Heart of Gold.
The alternate versions of released material are significantly different to the well known versions e.g. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere dates from the first album sessions and sounds more Springfield than Crazy Horse. A real surprise was the version of Helpless with harmonica.
Some of the criticisms of the set are valid if some over the top. The well documented inclusion of Massey Hall and Fillmore is less of an issue for the Blu-ray set as they are presented in 24-bit/192 kHz stereo PCM audiophile quality and that goes for every track on the set, none have been released in this resolution. There are omissions that are frustrating though. The Harvest era BBC performance is missing. CSNY studio versions of Sea of Madness and Everybody's Alone are absent as is the acoustic performance of the latter.
We have had 3 tracks from Royce Hall Jan 31st 1971 officially released... Needle and the Damage done on Harvest, Love in Mind on Time Fades Away and Heart of Gold on Archives, why not release the whole show? Also the Springfield material is missing On the Way Home which beggars belief as does the omission of Out on the Weekend from Harvest.

In summary if you have spent a lot of quality time with the 4 official albums from this era there is a lot of interesting material here you will love and treasure as much as those albums. More casual fans who have a few albums or hits collection like Decade there are cheaper ways to discover more about Neil Young. Start with all the 70's albums, plus CSNY déjà vu and 4 Way St plus the 3 Buffalo Springfield albums. This is an expensive set and if you add the cost of a blu-ray player to the mix it's difficult to justify in these recessionary times, but 10 blu-rays at about Ł17 is not unreasonable value, the value of the material within more than justified the expense for me.