www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/04/neil-young-archives
And that’s why Neil Young Archives feels like a breakthrough. Here at last is an online presentation of an artist’s catalogue that presents the hits and the rarities, alongside all the relevant information about every track – the lineup, the location, the producer, where it was released, plus supporting documents, photos. It’s like one of the first wave of box sets expanded to its logical extreme, but still – despite its huge breadth – manageable in a way that the 18 CDs of Dylan’s The Cutting Edge just weren’t. You can concentrate on individual albums, or on periods of work; you can compare the solo work with the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young music from the same time. You can listen to study, or for pure pleasure.
Of course, Neil Young has certain key advantages over other artists that have enabled him to do this: a fascination with the possibilities of technology, a bloody-minded determination to do what he wants, and the clout to get it done. But flicking through Neil Young Archives, the possibilities for other artists beam out like headlamps. Here’s the future, albeit the future of the past.
NYA thanks The Guardian.