Comment of the Moment: Outtakes on Neil Young Archives

"The Loner" Outtake
"Tuscaloosa" Album | NYA  (Click photo to enlarge) 

In yesterday's Neil Young news, we attempted to summarize the latest flood of updates on outtakes, LincVolt Series, bootlegs, a major Amazon Deal announcement, plus new page sections coming to NYA Times-Contrarian.

One of the most significant new features since launching NYA, is the addition of  outtakes to some albums like "Harvest" and "Tuscaloosa".  The outtake song "The Loner" from "Tuscaloosa" album on NYA is particularly striking with Jack Nitzsche banging away on the piano backed by a driving Stray Gators backbeat with Ben Keith on slide guitar.  

With the ever expanding and mind bending Neil Young Archives, comes the Comment of the Moment on the posting Neil Young Archives Updates: Outtakes, LincVolt Series, Bootlegs, Amazon Deal, New Pages + More from Lone Red Rider:

@Thrasher. Thanks for this post. Indeed, I see the outtakes as a major development.

One of the biggest surprises and disappointments of NYA for me since it started was the fact that it was just an online repository of released music. And an incomplete repository at that. Sure, there is all of the epherma, videos etc, but that portion was so slow to grow. And then NYA's focus shifted to the Hearse which was interesting, but not what I was wanting either. All of that rotating content, should have found a permanent and on-demand home in the archives proper to be enjoyed, library style as opposed to served up broadcast TV style. What I was hoping for was that NYA would have unreleased music: music not available any other way. Those choice cuts, like the hidden treasures on the NYA BD disks that you couldn't get any other way.

It turns out that NYA was simply unprepared in their licensing and contractual deals to work in this manner when it opened. Since late 2017, NYA had promised so many things that they ended up not being able to deliver upon. From the "massive drop of unreleased tracks" prior to Songs for Judy, to the promised outtakes for Tuscaloosa. Well, 2020 was the year the contract was updated which will now allow Neil to release everything. So they are no longer contract limited. 

Just limited by their own whims and resources.

Adding the unreleased music gives NYA the value it should have had from the start, in my mind. Sure, HRA [High Res Audio] streaming is great. But it's not the motivator for me. Now, I can relive the excitement of those monthly BD-LIve drops in the form of this new Outtakes mechanic on NYA.

It's a little odd that when a song becomes tagged as an outtake which might have been available on a disk, for example Wonderin from Topanga3, it then loses the link forward to that album on it's info card. A small price to pay for Neil to make the point that it was an outtake. In Letters To The Editor, Neil describes in some length what is an out take and what isn't. But there are always tradeoffs to be made in an artsy representation of an archive. 

Don't even get me started on the album organization on the timeline......

And then there is the PPV "Big TV" and the the new levels of membership upcoming. Both of those would be worth discussion on their own. Neil seems to think that these features will come out this fall. PPV is a bit annoying. We are already paying, right? But I get it. We are paying for the music. 

The whole point of NYA was to show that HRA streaming could be done on the cheap. Point taken. But what I loved about the first BD set was being able to view all of the videos as reference materials. I think that is essential to the archives. If one of the tiers allows me unlimited access to all of the video content at any time without having to flash my credit card again, I just might go there.

Speculation:

NYA_UNLIMITED: Today's membership.
NYA_ULTRA_UNLIMITED:: Adds the PPV feature. (I made that up. It would be strange to have to pay for the rights to pay more!)
NYA_ULTRA_SECRET_UNLIMITED_PATRON: Jut get everything on demand and your name on the website.

 

 "Tuscaloosa" Album Outtakes | NYA 

Thanks so much LRR! Great points in your comments and much appreciated wheat.

We are curious as to your thoughts on the major Amazon Deal announcement on September 3. As we noted at the time of the impending news,  this appeared to be a somewhat typical Neil move, to totally diss on Big Tech's Google & FaceBook and then turnaround and throw all in with the behemoth monstrosity of Amazon corporation.

Big Tech is Big Tech. If Neil is doing a deal with AMZ to keep NYA going, that's a really tough compromise to swallow.  Risk the "family jewels" (high resolution song files) in order to save NYA? But maybe these new contractual label agreements that you cite in your comment above put all of this in a new light?

Your speculations on future membership options is intriguing to say the least.  For us -- as has always been the case from Day#1 as concert going Neil fan is fair access to awesome seats. And after that, the wonderful concert live streams.  The "Fireside Sessions" were unbelievably superlative in their timing, song selections and intimate delivery.  Moments to be cherished for sure as the love of Neil & Daryl shines through so brightly and brilliantly like the sun, moon and stars combined into some new alchemy supernova of energy and light. 

"After The Goldrush"
("when the sun burst through the sky") 

Neil Young's Fireside Sessions #4 | NYA

 

While any terms are far from clear, Neil should do everything possible to maintain total control on all NYA assets. Any deal w/ AMZ will ultimately result in AMZ gobbling up and corporatizing the site.

As noted. the ever expanding NYA continues to blow minds.  As we highlighted what Neil wrote on T-C, "We know NYA is just a niche and the complete audience is not even aware of us as of yet."

So true.

More on the posting Neil Young Archives Updates: Outtakes, LincVolt Series, Bootlegs, Amazon Deal, New Pages + More.

As they say: "Don't Be Denied"!,  and thus is proof that -- indeed -- we aren't. 

blessed  

truly

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