Oh, for the love of God:
Young insists that his "Archives" project, delayed more than a half-dozen times, will be released this year on Blu-ray Disc and DVD (but not CD) "now that technology has caught up to how we want to present it."
From Reuters. I don't even know what to say about this anymore.
Update: Neil talks to Billboard:
"I know it's in technical production now, but it's only coming out on Blu-ray and DVD," he said during an interview at the Sundance Film Festival, where he and his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmates unveiled their "Deja Vu" documentary. "There won't be CDs. Technology has caught up to what the concept was in the first place [and] how we're able to actually present it. But there's no doubt it will come out this year."
Uh huh. No doubt.
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I am rounding up a GLONO posse. We're going to storm Neil's ranch and seize all archival material. It's a matter of the National Trust and Neil can no longer be trusted as guardian of such important material.
Saddle up, who's with me!?
I'm not really interested in this archive material, but just on principle alone, I'm joining your posse.
Seriously, though, you're right: he can't be entrusted with the material's guardianship. He's gone cuckoo...
I don't know if I wanna join this posse; part of me just wants to see the shit released. If the actual songs are coming out, and if he is choosing to release it on Blu-Ray and DVD for the HIGHER resolution sound those formats can offer (as opposed to the caca we know as mp3 and aac), then I'm okay with that. I can make my own damn CDs if that's the case. Neil has always been persnickety, harping about his belief about the shortcomings of CD sound quality. DVD-Audio offered a higher potential sound quality, before that format died. Maybe the implementation of his archive project on Blu-Ray and DVD will be the next logical extension of that higher resolution sound. If so, Neil's entitled to be persnickety, and if we get the music in SOME viable audio format, who the fuck cares if it isn't CD?
I care because this is not only a pain in the ass from a consumer standpoint--I have to buy it on blu-ray/DVD audio and then transfer that to another digital format if I want to listen anywhere else than my living room--as well as Neil's constantly shifting goalposts for fidelity. I mean, c'mon. Think of the original circumstances surrounding the recording of this material.
I say put everything out on 76rpm bakelite records and 75mm film. This is nuts.
It's just a delay tactic. Guess what, Neil: next week there's going to be a new technology that's even better than Blu-ray. Better push it back again!
Plus, now I have to go out and buy a Blu-ray disc player? F that.
Neil is insane and has proven that he's no longer competent to make decisions in regards to his archival material. He needs to pass it over to Joel Bernstein and recuse himself from the project entirely.
Whenever this gets delayed I always think back to an Eddie Vedder interview I saw as a kid. About the time Vs. came out he was gushing about going through the archives with Neil looking for material for the soon to be released box set. As long as this is still in the production phase a part of me will always be 17.
Fucking hell!
Neil needs to get some therapy to help him through the existential crisis that is preventing him from releasing the Archives.
RTMFA!
To DJMurph's comment that he could make CD's from the BluRay/DVD's. I think the issue is that if the format is BluRay, the content will likely be copy-protected while not impossible to get the songs from will not be easy. Also, consider that the Archives will be a bunch of material to have to rip.
Mike
I love and respect Neil -- his last tour was wonderful! But he can be a jerk sometimes, especially when it comes to the Archives, which he's been c-teasing fans with for some 20 years now. No doubt it'll be out this year, eh, Neil? We've heard THAT before!
Until I walk into the music store and see Neil's face in a big cardboard cutout, with a huge box set staring at me, thats when I'll believe it...until then he can drop any hints he wants, I won't believe it until i see it!
Which will come out first:
1) Neil's Archives
2) Chinese Democracy
3) Quasar Wut-Wut's "The General"
Place your bets, winner get's a fruit pie.