Neil Young’s Official Release Series Volume 5: A Transcendent Evolution of Sound and Creativity Unveiling New Horizons in Music
Current trends or conventions? Neil Young doesn’t really care about either. Ever since he released his first solo album in 1968, only one thing matters to him: what takes me forward musically? So it’s not surprising that all his previous releases and current reissues are a journey of discovery where the boundaries between the past, present, and future sometimes blur. This music is timeless in the best possible sense.
On July 14th, Neil Young’s OFFICIAL RELEASE SERIES enters its fifth edition – and it’s a very special one, starting with Young’s exciting renaissance that began with the release of FREEDOM in 1989, followed by the unparalleled sonic explorations of RAGGED GLORY (1990), WELD (1991), and ARC (also 1991). These albums are, in many ways, a musical travelogue of how Young saw the future, opening up previously unknown creative worlds in terms of sound and originality.
The OFFICIAL RELEASE SERIES VOLUME 5 is available as a vinyl box set, featuring the four original albums on 9 vinyl LPs, while the 4 CD releases are now spread across 6 CDs. Like all reissues in this series, the albums have been remastered from the best available source, with “Ragged Glory” being remastered from the analog original tapes. The four albums have been newly remastered specifically for vinyl in this series. The CD version of “Ragged Glory” has also been remastered. You can pre-order the collection HERE, and you’ll receive an immediate download of the track “Don’t Spook The Horse”.
The vinyl and CD box sets are numbered, and the LPs are pressed on 180-gram vinyl. The vinyl box for the four albums comes in a telescopic box, while the CDs are housed in a slipcase.
In Neil Young’s eventful career, the early 1990s hold a special significance. With the new decade came a clear turning point in his music. Young had recently returned to his longtime label home, Reprise Records, and it seemed to be a joyful, almost blissful moment for the man who had just celebrated the 21st anniversary of his solo career. By American standards, it was now “legal age” – and yet it had never ceased to evolve. The first album of VOLUME 5 aptly titled FREEDOM features the iconic song “Rockin’ in the Free World”.
RAGGED GLORY (1990), recorded at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch in Northern California, was meant to be one big celebration of the music that Neil Young & Crazy Horse had been creating with full force up until that point. The original track listing for this reissue has been expanded with 4 rare tracks: “Interstate” and “Don’t Spook The Horse” were B-sides of singles, while “Box Car” and the 12-minute “Born To Run” are previously unreleased versions. These 4 additional songs are the reason why the album has been expanded to 3 LPs or 2 CDs.
The live album WELD (1991) is one of the most groundbreaking albums in Neil Young’s history. Recorded with Crazy Horse after the release of RAGGED GLORY, it comes from an extremely creative phase in the band’s history. If there was ever any doubt that Neil Young was an endless source of inspiration for rock & roll, this album erased it.
ARC (1991) is the live companion collection to WELD and, upon its release in 1991, once again made a big splash, as was often the case with Young’s work. ARC is a 35-minute burst of creativity, filled with feedback, improvisation, guitar solos, and fragments of vocals. It is now available on vinyl for the first time.
NEIL YOUNG “OFFICIAL RELEASE SERIES VOL. 5” LABEL: REPRISE RECORDS DISTRIBUTION: WARNER MUSIC RELEASE DATE: 14.07.2023
Tracklistings:
FREEDOM
“Rockin’ In The Free World” (Live Acoustic)
“Crime In The City (Sixty to Zero Part 1)”
“Don’t Cry”
“Hangin’ On A Limb”
“Eldorado”
“The Ways of Love”
“Someday”
“On Broadway”
“Wrecking Ball”
“No More”
“Too Far Gone”
“Rockin’ In The Free World” (Electric)
RAGGED GLORY – Smell The Horse
“Country Home”
“White Line”
“Fuckin’ Up”
“Over and Over”
“Love to Burn”
“Farmer John”
“Mansion on the Hill”
“Days That Used To Be”
“Love and Only Love”
“Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)”
“Interstate”
“Don’t Spook The Horse”
“Box Car”
“Born To Run”
WELD
“Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)”
“Crime in the City”
“Blowin’ in the Wind”
“Welfare Mothers”
“Love to Burn”
“Cinnamon Girl”
“Mansion on the Hill”
“Fuckin’ Up”
“Cortez the Killer”
“Powderfinger”
“Love and Only Love”
“Rockin’ in the Free World”
“Like A Hurricane”
“Farmer John”
“Tonight’s the Night”
“Roll Another Number (For The Road)”
ARC
“Arc (A Compilation Composition)”
