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Reprise is releasing CD remasters of his first four solo albums (Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest) on July 14, per MusicTap.

    

Cool. I hope they're not in cardboard sleeves with leaking glue!

This is going to be one EXPENSIVE summer! As i just bought the SHM Goldrush, I'll probably be in for Harvest & Everybody Knows.

It was my hope these re-issues will be full of Archive Out-takes and on DVD-A as well.

I'm hoping

That would be cool.

Aren't a couple of his albums still missing on CD?

And yet they're reissuing stuff that's available?

Somebody set me straight on this.

I think Neil isn't fond of the 2 missing cd's. Actually, they're amongst his better releases, especially Time Fades away.

Well, these are the four albums covered by the first volume of Archives... with any hope, Time Fades Away will be out whenever NYA2 gets here.

Another problem with TFA is that there is no "master tape" per se... the multitracks were mixed directly to disc.

This is excellent news. I mean, hating CDs is no excuse to not make your albums sound as good as possible on the medium.

Glue??? Is that what is all over my cd's from the new set? So far it doesn't impact the playing. He should re-think the packaging...

I just posted in the main thread that I just heard the 1st cd in the box & the sound quality appears to be superb. If these are similar, even the SHM of After The Goldrush I just bought may be going up on ebay.

While i don't own it, I have also heard the SHM of Harvest, which is quite bright. Hopefully they'll get these right.

These reissues will be greatly welcomed, regardless of what titles are missing on CD. The original CDs are ancient, and if you've heard the Archives set you'll know how much the sound will be improved on these reissues. And it's the first four albums. So hopefully that means they are going to knock this out chronologically, four discs at a time (perhaps skipping the later day reissues like On the Beach, Hawks & Doves, etc.). But that's just speculation on my part. And who knows at this point if these are straight reissues, or if there will be bonus content?

I am not familiar with SHM releases. Which albums. What is SHM?

A new Japan audiophile series. Search SHM on ICE/IMWAN or Google for more info.

I found the site. Albums are kind of spendy. Are they worth it?

Depends on the title. Of the ones I've heard Steely Dan Can't Buy A Thrill & Royal Scam are superb, Traffic Low Spark Is Very Very Good (different sounding then MFSL but just as good), Neil Young After The Gold Rush is better then the USA edition, a 3 Dog Night best of is a bit better then the US, CSNY Deja Vu sounds almost identical to the US remaster, SLIGHTLY better, Neil Young Harvest is horribly bright & compressed, but has more detail then the US edition. Hendrix's also seem to be SLIGHTLY better then the US, but still quite bright.

There's 2 different components:
1. The disc surface which is supposed to be a big upgrade
2. What master was used for each release. Based on what I've heard, some seem to have been remastered for the new releases while others weren't.

I picked up a grey area looking disc two-fer a while back that had Time Fades Away and Chrome Dreams.
Pretty decent sounding.

joebase

Tower Records shows a July 27 release date for these, and on the Rhino label. No track listings. And the list price is $31.34, with Tower discounting to $22.95. Could that mean they are double discs with extras from Archives Vol. 1?

They'd best be doubles at $31.34, or hopefully triples!

Neil Young: The artist you hate to love.........

It's ironic that Neil is so cutting edge on technology, yet the packaging for his box set sucks.
I guess glue on the cd's is good for the sound.

If i had bought the set, i would keep returning it until I got all discs with no glue & no scratches. MASSIVE defect returns is the ONLY way to get the point across to these greedy bastards.

And yes, when a 5 cent or less inner sleeve that's in COMMON use in Japan would have solved this, "greedy bastards" is the correct term.

100% agree Geff !!!!

The July 27th release date likely means the UK import versions, which won't contain additional tracks over the domestic pressings.

Amazon has the discs available for pre-order now (see first post), no tracklistings yet but the prices are surely too low for 2-CD sets ....