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‘Archives Vol. III’ Will Make You Reconsider Neil Young’s Eighties

'Archives Vol. III' will make you reconsider Neil Young's wild, confounding Eighties period.

This 11-year period featured some triumphs (think the gorgeous Comes a Time, the primal, badass Rust Never Sleeps) and some puzzling genre-based releases that baffled fans and enraged his label, particularly 1983’s rockabilly foray Everybody’s Rockin’ and the famously bizarre, vocoder-heavy Trans he described as “robots trying to teach a baby to communicate in a hospital.” You know, normal Eighties stuff. One minute you’re in Linda Ronstadt’s Malibu home hearing her crack up at that beloved Beach Boys line in “Long May You Run,” and then suddenly you’re sitting through three consecutive outtakes from that time Young put on a pink suit and started playing Fifties rockabilly. The late Nicolette Larson, who sang on Comes a Time and made a hit out of Young’s “Lotta Love,” is featured on the seventh disc, Union Hall, an intimate Nashville rehearsal with the Give to the Wind orchestra.

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