Neil Young’s Time Fades Away Reissued

But not exactly the way you expected, or the way Neil planned...

By Blurt Staff

The knock on the door was from the mysterious midnight courier who delivers his illicit parcels under cloak of darkness. "Pssst," he hissed. "Here's the fifth of the Missing Six, or the first of the Doom Trilogy, take your pick..."

Sure enough: Time Fades Away, the legendary 1973 live album that Neil Young notoriously disavows, calling it his worst record ever. Never officially issued on CD per Young's wishes, it's long been the object of almost fetishistic scrutiny among Young fans, and for long-suffering collectors it eventually had to go the way of the bootleggers in order for it to enter the digital era.

It's now made its second or third appearance on an underground label, and it arrives on the heels of an unusually busy year for Young, release-wise - among them, his Archives box, a box collecting his first four, classic, solo albums, and the Dreamin' Man Live '92 album (the latter reviewed here).

Will this new iteration of Time Fades Away finally prod Young into returning to the drawing board and remastering it officially for CD? Only Young knows for sure, but meanwhile, we have the story of the creation of TFA and its tangled trajectory over the years. Go here to read the story and the review of the bootleg.