Hawks Doves

Following the triumph of Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks & Doves benefited from the enormous critical goodwill Neil Young had amassed, though fans and critics nevertheless were baffled by its set of obscure acoustic and country-tinged songs.

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…

This box set continues the chronological re-releasing of Neil Young’s Official Releases, remastered where analog tapes exist. Volume 4, released as a 4 LP box and 4 CD box. The ORS Vol 4 collects an eclectic set of decade-spanning sounds. Hawks & Doves (1980) revisits his folk roots and explores some of his most country-leaning offerings; the blistering Re•ac•tor (1981) showcases a stomping set of heavy, overdriven rock with Crazy Horse; and This Note’s for You (1988) casts Young as a big band leader, belting out intricately arranged blues. The Eldorado EP (1989), a 5 track mini-album, previously only released on CD in Australia and Japan, is full of feral distortion and earthy crunch featuring Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas). It includes two thundering tracks — “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love”— not available on any other album, along with different versions of 3 tracks that appeared on Freedom later the same year.

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…

In 1977, Neil Young was stockpiling enough amazing songs to last for decades to come. Multiple albums' worth of material put to tape but never officially released around that time have gradually surfaced over the years, and Oceanside Countryside is another strong chapter in Young’s ongoing crawl through the vaults. Divided into two distinct halves, the first five songs here (the “Oceanside”) are Neil solo, playing most of the instruments and backing himself up on overdubbed vocal harmonies. More produced, re-recorded, or slightly altered versions of most of these tunes made it to official records sooner or later, making Oceanside Countryside feel less like a wholly lost album and more like a demo recording.