Neil Young Launching Online Music Archives Next Month, Will Initially Be Free

Neil Young is releasing a new album and an entire high-quality digital catalog on the same day.

The Visitor, featuring the single “Already Great,” will be available Dec. 1. Meanwhile, the Neil Young Archives will open — and, at least upon launch, the comprehensive collection will be free.

“December 1st will be a big day for me,” Young wrote on Facebook. “The Visitor will be coming to your town. I will be going to my town. You will be able to hear me and see me. My archive will open on that same day, a place you can visit and experience every song I have ever released in the highest quality your machine will allow. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the beginning, everything is free.”

Young built the NYA website “for myself as much as for everyone else,” according to a welcome note. The website will use Xstream Music high resolution streaming by OraStream to offer uncompressed master recordings.

A timeline on the archives will outline “when and how the music was made” throughout Young’s career. “Every single, recorded track or album I have produced is represented,” he says. Info cards with album contents, art and credits will be available, as well as a filing cabinet to present all of Young’s songs chronologically, with their corresponding media, memorabilia, press clips and more.