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Neil Young / Official Release Series Vol 4

4CD or 4LP box set

By Paul Sinclair

Comments

57

Next month, Neil Young will release Volume 4 of his occasional ‘Official Release Series’ box sets. The ORS series sees original albums remastered and reissued and this forthcoming box contains discs 13, 14, 20 & 21.

Those discs equate to the following albums from the 1980s: Hawks & Doves (1980), Re•ac•tor (1981), and This Note’s for You (1988), and the Eldorado EP (1989). The three albums are very different and fairly well known, although the Eldorado EP was only issued in Japan & Australia and sees Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas) and features two tracks – ‘Cocaine Eyes’ and ‘Heavy Love’ – unavailable on any other album.

This box set is available as a 4LP vinyl set or as a 4CD package. SDE is expecting the latter to match the card wallet/vinyl replica packaging used for boxes two and three (and used for a limited edition version of volume one).

Official Release Series Vol 4 (Discs 13, 14, 20 & 21) will be released on 29 April 2022. We are making these boxes available to order via the SDE shop. Use this link or the buttons below, to pre-order. If you’re in the EU then be aware that be aware that that goods may be subject to import VAT when they arrive from the UK.

Tracklisting

Official Release Series Vol 4 Neil Young /

    • LP 1 / CD 1: Hawks & Doves
      1. Little Wing
      2. The Old Homestead
      3. Lost in Space
      4. Captain Kennedy
      5. Stayin’ Power
      6. Coastline
      7. Union Man
      8. Comin’ Apart at Every Nail
      9. Hawks & Doves
    • LP 2 / CD 2: Re•ac•tor
      1. Opera Star
      2. Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze
      3. T-Bone
      4. Get Back on It
      5. Southern Pacific
      6. Motor City
      7. Rapid Transit
      8. Shots
    • LP 3 / CD 3: This Note’s For You
      1. Ten Men Workin’
      2. This Note’s for You
      3. Coupe de Ville
      4. Life In The City
      5. Twilight
      6. Married Man
      7. Sunny Inside
      8. Can’t Believe Your Lyin’
      9. Hey Hey
      10. One Thing
    • LP 4 / CD 4: Eldorado
      1. Cocaine Eyes
      2. Don’t Cry
      3. Heavy Love
      4. On Broadway
      5. Eldorado

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57 Comments

57 thoughts on “Neil Young / Official Release Series Vol 4”

  1. Typical Neil Young that in this ORS box set, the CDs are noticeably both smaller, and slimmer compared to the previous ORS boxes, but also, for a set that catalogues all Neil’s albums chronologically, and states 13, 14, 20 & 21 on the front, the spine of all 4 CDs shows ORS21. Not much care taken there. I am guessing they knew about it as all the CDs were in the box spine first, rather than spine showing (as would be normal)

  2. Now, moving onto ORS Volume #5, this could be one monster box.

    Freedom, Ragged Glory, Weld & Arc, is what he previously said was planned for this ORS box.

    Ragged Glory, ran over 60 minutes on original vinyl, so assume it will be a double vinyl.
    Weld ran at about 120 minutes on double vinyl originally, so assume it will be a triple vinyl.

    He also said he is separately releasing an extended Ragged Glory(smell the horse), with i think 4 extra tracks.

    And some more official bootlegs to come + Archives Volume 3, it continues to be an amazing time to be a Neil Young fan.

    1. Thanks, just ordered it on .fr, great price. Was looking at .de last night, and it was not bad at 110 Euro, but this is way better

  4. I’m one of the few people on the planet who really loves Neil’s latter-day output. In my opinion a letter home, Americana, return to Greendale and Barn are all wonderful albums and are of the same quality as harvest.

  5. i am sure glad that i have not a collector neil. i do find him some what overated but his inconsistently in releasing some times sub par material (paul maccartney come to mind) i see his fan base some times quite upset. is he aware of this ?

    1. Overrated Neil young are you kidding??
      2 great albums,the rest are shite!; Even George Harrison thought so,look up the ubtube video where he’s secretly recorded talking to Bob geldof!!

      1. Uh, perhaps one should keep one’s comments to oneself? I’m going out on a limb here, but Paul S must think that Neil deserves more respect than you give him since Paul regularly posts about Neil’s music. 2 great albums? Oh, there are so many more…

      2. Two great albums ? You have the right to express an opinion, but come on… He’s one of the best songwriters of all times. Everything he released between the first Buffalo Springfield album and Rust never sleeps is exceptional, surpassed only by Bob Dylan, and maybe Leonard Cohen. And you can easily find, here and there, some latter-day masterpieces like Ragged Glory, Broken Arrow, etc. He has released a lot of albums, some of them are not very good, others are very mediocre, that’s true. But that’s the price to pay when you have such a long career.

        1. Most of the recent albums have at least a couple of pretty good songs on them.
          Neil has always been inconsistent in his choice of material. I put it down to him insisting on complete control. So no one can tell hi to rewrite a song better. Everyone else with a very long career has released piles of indifferent material as well.

  6. I know the whole concept of SDE is to celebrate physical releases, and I totally get it. I still cling to them a lot of the time, too. But I thought I would share my experience anyway. About a year ago, I decided to box up all my Neil discs (I had pretty much everything) during a move to a house with less storage space – with the discs to be sold later. I then subscribed to the Neil Young Archives, which includes everything he has ever done, in superb quality and correct chronology. As new material is released or found, he adds it. The annual fee is less than I was paying for new Neil releases every year, so I doubt I will ever look back. Now, when he makes an oddball release decision, instead of groaning, I can just find it in the archives and immediately enjoy it. I really wish more artists with huge catalogues would adopt a similar model.

    1. I had exactly the same issue with downsizing last year, I sold almost all my Neil Young collection after loading the CDs into my Brennan & Mac, the tapes went for crazy money ( well about a tenner each lol ), my bruv subscribes to NY Archives, it’s excellent, I think a well curated streaming service will be the way forward, especially with an artist like NY who can be expensive to collect.

  8. I still keep holding out that we might see a Japanese mini LP CD set of Neils albums, he’s one of the few “big” artists to never have their catalog released like that, the only others I can think of are R.E.M. and Joy Division/New Order, oh and Tim Buckley.

  9. Technically, if Long May You Run was 8.5, American Stars ‘n Bars should have been 9.5 – and so on – Live Rust being 12.5.
    So this should be 13.5-14.5 + 20.5-21.5 (or 21, if you treat Eldorado as half an album).
    Just saying.

    The whole attempt of the NYA at organising things rationally is anything but rational

    1. To my mind, if you are not both frustrated and irritated in equal measure by when and how he releases music you are not a real fan…I was excited when I saw the announcement and when I read what was in it, and the price, I thought why take up pressing plant space on this, not get the next bootleg series or ragged glory extended out, or alchemy live….so much but this!! But here we are I just hope archives 3 will really come out in the summer…

  10. Strange selection. Eldorado belongs in a super deluxe box set with Freedom – which is vastly superior to any of these other records. Moreover, there are multiple soundboards available (there was an official VHS release) of the solo Freedom tour – a full 1989 concert plus Freedom plus Eldorado would be a wonderful box set. The Freedom-Ragged Flory-Harvest Mion-Unplugged era was Youngs best album series since the 70s and was never replicated.

    1. I totally agree. I already own Eldorado CD but it’s completely separate from this era in my mind. I’d add Weld to your sequence above; brilliant album too.

  11. Context: A mint 1st pressing Eldorado vinyl available via Discogs at £350. 2021 reissue unavailable on Discogs but likely to set you back £50. Beware counterfeit versions.

  12. Completely round the bend.
    Now he’s airbrushing the Geffen years, with this most awkward of box sets, as if those years never existed.
    Just like, for years, he refused to reissue On The Beach.
    I have the feeling Neil is losing the plot but nobody in his camp dares tap him on the shoulder and question what he’s doing

    1. No.
      Until recently Neil did not have the rights to rerelease any of the Geffen albums.It has only been in the last few years he has negotiated agreement to use tracks from those 5 albums on the Archives Volume 3 box which is coming out later this year.
      Around 5 months ago he has posted that he has regained at least some rights to these albums.Not sure if that means being able to have them all available to stream on his web site or whether there will be some sort of physical rerelease.
      He has certainly not airbrushed these from his history -he put out the Lucky 13 compilation from the Geffen years back in 1993-but the fairly bitter break up with the label has not made access to that material easy for him.

      1. Whatever…
        So he doesn’t have the rights – he could organise his releases differently, or just wait until he has the rights, it’s not like we haven’t waited, literally, Decades, for his Archive projects.

        But you just don’t release a 3.5 record box with a five album gap between them.
        This is bonkers.
        Of course he can do it, and obviously he’s just done it, and he most certainly is going to do it again and again.
        Neil does as he pleases, regardless if it’s total nonsense.

  13. It really annoys me that he didn’t include “Freedom” in the box, as
    a) all the Reprise ’80s stuff would be in one box;
    b) “Eldorado” is more or less a companion piece to “Freedom;”
    c) after the previous boxes having 4 or 5 albums, this one only has 3 albums and an EP.

    I look forward to 15-19 if it ever happens. Last month, he posted that he restored “Trans” to its original mix, which I don’t believe has been on CD before.

  14. Hi fellow Rusties,
    Apparently news on Archive Vol 3 is coming in summer.
    Where is Ragged Glory 2 news?
    I’m in for this on both vinyl and cd
    T Bone is awesome, especially live as is Surfer Joe…..
    However I’ll be preordering from Badlands in Cheltenham
    Sorry slightly cheaper on the vinyl edition and no postal charges in U.K.

    Will make up for the IQ Disk Union promo box import duties that ai am expecting.
    Don’t spook the horse.
    Carl

    1. Ragged Glory 2 is somewhere in the queue.Everything is at the mercy of the vinyl logjam.
      By the way don’t get too excited about Ragged Glory 2.All it contains is the original album plus 4 extra tracks that total about 25 minutes.
      The 4 extra tracks will be in Archives Volume 4 anyway.
      It is no deep dive into the making of the album or the tour that followed it.

  15. Eldorado is excellant. I purchased it on LP the day Neil Young was playing in Auckland,NZ. Straight after purchasing it I went to a restaurant with my then girlfriend. Guess who sat down at the table next to ours 5 minutes later?? You guessed right! The man himself signed the front cover “Thanks Neil 89”. I still have it. A version came out later in Japan on cd which I have.Not sure if you can still get it.

  16. Doh! I literally *just* bought all of the three full albums last week!
    Talk about poor timing on my part.
    However, given the price being asked for this set, the more-than-acceptable sound quality of my CDs, and the ….. somewhat variable quality of the music itself, I think I did okay. I mean, I’m glad to have even Neil’s lamest albums, but I’m not so excited by these albums in the first place to pay that much money for them without some serious bonus content.

  17. Can anyone remember if the albums on vol.3 (Discs 8.5 -12) were ever released individually on CD? Been hoping to replace my old “Rust Never Sleeps” and “Live Rust” jewel case CDs.
    btw. Just looked at my vol.2 box and noticed that the text says “Original Release Series” while other copies, and the rest of the series, are “Official Release Series”. 
    This series does seem to be a bit of a mess.

    1. They never were. I’ve never owned CD copies of the discs in these boxes because I’ve been holding out, seemingly in vain, for them being issued individually. At this stage I’d probably be happy to go for reissued box sets.

    2. Boxes two (5-8) and three (8.5-12) are Original on cd, and Official on vinyl.
      Young made a point of managing his own legacy himself, and the result is possibly the messiest discography ever.
      Talk about allowing the artist complete control on his work…

    3. Most definitely not. My copy of “Live Rust” from vol. 3 has a glitch. Been looking to replace it over the years, but no luck so far.

  19. Hard pass on this. The ‘Hawks and Doves’ and ‘Reactor’ HDCDs sound just fine, but I don’t really listen to them. (Could “T-Bone” be the most stupid song ever?) ‘TNFY’ is so-so, but ‘Eldorado’ should get a separate release. Also, I’d be really interested in upgrades of the Geffen years as a separate box. A bizarre, schizophrenic period for Neil and his music. Hope he can get the rights to those masters at some point so the holes in his release series can be filled in. ‘Trans’ and ‘Everybody’s Rocking’ desperately need remastering.

    1. “Bizarre, schizophrenic” describes Young’s life and career thus far! Few of his archive releases have been pressed in decent quantities to allow everyone who wants copies to find them, and his veering between high-spec Blu-Ray audio, rough audio recorded in Jack White’s Portaloo, HDCD, DVD-A, vinyl and all points in between is frustrating to say the least.

      Still, I’ve got all the previous releases of the CDs in the latest set (took me an age to track down Eldoirado, then tripped over a copy at a CD fair) and, as there’re no bonus tracks, I’m out.

  20. I’m hoping Eldorado gets a separate release as it’s the only album I don’t have. I doubt it will get a cd release so I’m guessing I’ll have to shell out for vinyl. Any thoughts about a separate release?

  21. Trust Shakey to have his fans saying/thinking WTF!

    Hawks & Doves, Re*ac*tor and This Notes For You were all remastered and reissued individually on LP only 3-4 years ago and they sound great. I’ve had Eldorado bought on import on release and that sounds great. So I’m out.

  22. As usual with Neil the only thing consistent is the inconsistency

    So is this ‘Official Release Series’ or as on the only box I have so far ‘Original release Series’

    what happened to the discs between 15 to 19 ?

    The packaging jewel cases like 1 to 4 or Digi sleeves like 5 to 8 and 8.5 to 12 ?

    Seems like he has decided to airbrush out the Geffen years !

    This does not appeal to the OCD in me and I already have ‘Eldorado’ so i may have to skip this not because I don’t want to support the release but because it makes Zero sense

    1. Presumably 15-19 *is* the Geffen years (Trans, Everybody’s Rockin’, Old Ways, Landing On Water and Life) and will be released once Geffen gives Neil his songs back.

    2. The packaging jewel cases like 1 to 4 or Digi sleeves like 5 to 8 and 8.5 to 12 ?

      The initial Limited Edition box of 1-4 came in card sleeves (and were also gold CDs, for what that’s worth). Later versions switched to jewel cases. I don’t think the subsequent boxes ever switched to jewel cases.

  23. As someone who owns every Neil Young album and has been delighted with his archive releases, I have to say he is scraping the barrel with this one….I can only assume he is unable to reissue his Warners 80s albums ( 1982-87 ) due to copyright and has therefore opted to tack these albums together in an utterly pointless release. Awful….I’ll save my money for Archives Vol 3.

      1. The three albums are already available at 15 £ each, or less. They were remastered in 2018. Eldorado is very good, but 95 £ for an EP is too expensive for me! I own the 1989 copy on CD and that’s enough! I think I will wait for nos. 22, 23… :-)

    2. Not sure how the price is an issue here, if they were 4 individual releases they would probable be £25 ish each anyway (or more given NY usual pricing!).

      1. Agreed, its got a rushed sessions quality about it but I love ‘Southern Pacific’, ‘Shots’ and ‘Rapid Transit’ and even ‘T bone’ has a rambling improvised charm of its own.

        But then I really like ‘Landing On Water’…

        1. Agree. The songs on Landing On Water are good but it’s hard to get past the production which makes the whole album sound like a drum kit being kicked down the stairs.

  25. I’m not interested in this unless they reissue 5-8 and 8.5-12 on CD at a sensible price in line with 1-4, not £50+.

    The roll out of this series has been so unutterably stupid.

  26. A couple of questions.

    1) What has happened to 15-19? It seems a bit odd to release boxes and not to have them in proper order.
    I assume the missing albums are from when he was on a different label. Still if he can kiss and make up occasionally with David Crosby I’m sure he can play nice with Virgin.

    2) Is there any chance of box 2 being reissued. I was waiting for it to get cheaper – as box 1 did.
    I paid £20 for Box 1 on CD. Box 2 never went below about £40. And then went out of print. It is almost completely unobtainable at any price. I tried to buy the LPs from Amazon when they were cheap, but they cancelled my order.

      1. Its ONLY the 5 Geffen albums which are missing, licencing and permission issues.

        Its a little light this box, but i’l still get it as these are great sets, all done per originals, he should have put Freedom into it as well, as Ragged Glory will crown the next box anyway.

        I get why Neil is putting them out in wrong order, he wants to put these sets out while he is still around, and maintains control, and right now, he is not in a position to release them.

        I’d say we will get the 5 Geffen albums in a seperate box, at a later date.

      2. Thank you for the tip on this one! I’ve been searching for 5-8 for a long time and didn’t know Sunrise had it available. Ordered it based on your post and received it today. Cheers!

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