Neil Young’s entire catalogue set for online archive

Neil Young
Neil Young (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Neil Young has announced plans to open an online archive featuring every piece of material he’s ever recorded.

In April, Young said he was preparing a new high-definition streaming service called Xstream Music – now he’s revealed details on his digital archive in a note pinned to the official site.

Young says: “The NYA timeline shows you when and how the music was made. Every single, recorded track or album I have produced is represented. It is always current. You can browse through the music I made between today and 1963, when I made my first recording in Canada and it was released as a 45 RPM single.

“You can zoom in to the timeline and see a particular period in detail and pull back to view the surrounding years. View all albums currently released and see albums still unreleased and in production just by using the controls to zoom through the years.”

Young has also given further details on Xstream Music and reveals: “Bandwidth changes constantly due to location and the number of people using the bandwidth available at that location. Xstream Music adapts seamlessly, using all the available data, always delivering the best audio quality possible directly from the original high resolution masters.

He adds: “Most streaming services today have two or three tiers of quality. Xstream Music has 15,000 tiers and changes to adapt to your current bandwidth. Because of that, your music is always the best it can be.”

Last week, Young announced that he would release his lost acoustic album Hitchhiker on September 8. The 10 tracks were recorded at Indigo Studios, Malibu, in 1976.

Songs featured include Human Highway, Powderfinger and Captain Kennedy, along with previously unreleased Hawaii and Give Me Strength.

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Scott Munro
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Scott has spent 35 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott keeps Louder’s buyer’s guides up to date, writes about the best deals for music fans, keeps on top of the latest tech releases and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more. Over the last 10 years, Scott has written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He's previously written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald newspapers, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.