Same here. I've written to them more times than I can remember. They keep saying - "we're working on it". For months, man, months!
Now I’m being blocked from playing the Archive files supposedly available for subscribers to stream. Ridiculous.
I'm listening on my laptop. It lets me log in to my subscription without a problem. But my phone? No.
Man, talk about getting to use whatever platform you wish, but not getting all the options desired. “Quality whether you want it or not” as long as we get to decide how you get it.
Someone posted a link earlier for a customer login -- I have not tried that yet. Keep trying, don't let it bring you down!
But this has been Neil's (or maybe David Brigg's) way of operating for most of his career. 'When you make rock n roll, the more you think the more you stink'
Not entirely true - there's a difference between over-thinking and getting very deeply into the music, developing it into something special. (I say this as a fan of Colorado).
Sort of, and archives shows this. For every "Cortez" (Neil wrote this, the band was playing around on the beach, called everyone in and they tracked it) there is a powderfinger (written partially as early as 1968, touched on a bit over the years and finally finished in a final performance capture in 1978). I kind of think Neil has taken the wrong lesson from Briggs in some ways. The material Briggs was receiving was more finished in the first place! These weren't first draft on the back of the napkin songs - the art of songwriting was more practiced. Then with these solid SONGS, a raw band was presented and jammed on them. Also, many records were made with multiple takes of a tune, just not in the same day, week, month, studio, album production, or decade in some cases! They would play the song once or twice and move on, maybe not picking it up again for years. The new way of "Writing each song in the morning, recording it by lunch", repeat for 10 days and you have an album, is different than how the classic records were cut. It is absolutely true, and I've seen it in my own music. If you give someone notes ahead of time, they'll learn the tune, then get a cool idea, and another, and remember a lick they learned - pretty soon the drummer has worked out some complicated paradiddle exercise into a tom fill and your bass player is tapping, and the guitarist has figured out how to drop in a lick from a hendrix outtake. If you say "hey guys, let's do this song I just wrote!" you get a tasteful backbeat locked into a grooving bassline and tasty chords because no one wants to screw up the take!
So, sat down to my laptop and I’m all good. But I use it like, maybe an hour a day. So yeah that sucks hopefully this gets ironed out soon.
The difference is Neil's involvement is shallower; he isn't internalizing these songs. The band plays off Neil's inspiration and he's not writing inspirational, memorable material. It SOUNDS like it almost is, but isn't. The guitars sound great, they sing well but the songs are after-thoughts.
Well, this was definitely worth $20. In fact, this may be the leading all time best $20 usage ever. Trying to think about that one. I got a 1961 Ludwig drum kit for $35, that is definitely best $35, but I am pretty sure this is best $20.
So Neil screws up the release of ARCHIVES II just so subscription payers will have the best day of their NYA experience. He's made NYA more meaningful. He's a genius.
I need to revisit it. For me, it's joined the rank of a small number of NY albums I have no real desire to put on. But after my recent miraculous conversion to Greendale I'm not writing anything off. I'm about to dive into Archives II - amazingly I have a six day quarantine period in a hotel in Mexico before going to work at sea which couldn't have worked out better
Because I have to wait to hear ARCHIVES II I've been spending the day listening to Neil I'm not overly familiar with (on Spotify ). I like ARC! Unplugged is a special record. Nicolette and Astrid singing, Nils, Ben, Spooner and Tim in the band, wow. I'm a 1990s Neil kid and this record made Neil fans out of many from my generation.
Some seriously good stuff on this. Thank you Neil. I love One More Sign. A beautiful song. Also the Stills/Young version of Separate Ways is killer.
Headed straight for “Dume” playing through my Panasonic CD player on Bluetooth from my iPhone. Sounds mighty fine. Been a tough week personally. This is great.