Neil Young - Homegrown (June 19, 2020, at long last)

I was just imagining if Neil tried to have it both ways back in '75, and put Homegrown out as the front half of a double w/Tonight's The Night as disc two. He probably had the clout to pull it off, and it vaguely makes sense as the most extreme of the big doubles of the era (Exile, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Physical Graffiti, Quadrophenia etc.).

Ultimately, going forward like that isn't Neil's thing, but it would have been an interesting timeline if he had.

ugh, that would have been kind of amazing

also, it would have been a highly RELATABLE double album. he's had so many concept-adjacent albums over the years, but homegrown+TTN makes 100x more sense than something like quadrophenia

yeah kind of funny that neil *didn't* put out a double album (aside from the triple Decade comp) any time in the 1970s ... he was one of the few major artists who really had the material for it!

right, and also i feel like he would have been a perfect fit for the kind of sprawling double-album that finds space for a few oddities/novelty tracks on it that are actually good, like a proto-pavement

nowadays his versions of those tracks (looking for a leader 2020) really are kind of bad (imo), but in prime ditch trilogy-era, they were all gold (imo)

You're not counting Journey Through the Past, I assume?

I feel like Tonight's the Night is its own universe and would not benefit by being part of a double album

Haha not counting journey through the past

the kind of sprawling double-album that finds space for a few oddities/novelty tracks on it that are actually good, like a proto-pavement

That's actually a pretty accurate description of Journey, which has ample sprawl and at least one great oddity ("Soldier"). It is, though, almost 100% previous-released songs, if not versions, including, maybe weirdest of all, "Let's Go Away for Awhile" from Pet Sounds--not a cover, the actual track.

The Wikipedia on this record talks about it being "rebuilt" for release, and a large number of other songs being recorded in the sessions. So is Homegrown 2020 the same mix and running order that would have been released in 1975, or is it a modern-day reappraisal?

Unless there's an acetate or tape copy in his archives, I think it's impossible to know. Since a few tracks were included on later releases, it's very possible whatever master tape that was assembled for Homegrown was dismantled and never put back together (and perhaps taken apart song by song). If that happened, he could've lost track of certain songs and maybe even remixed particular songs since there was no real reason to keep the old mixes to an album that wasn't going to be released imminently.

Although I get the feeling Neil keeps everything (especially the master tape of an unreleased album), and they could have rebuilt the record to match as closely as possible to the original master.

RARE DITCH PROJECT