The annals of contemporary music are rife with legendary unreleased albums: the Beach Boys’ “Smile,” The Who’s “Rock Is Dead,” Marvin Gaye’s “Love Man,” David Bowie’s soundtrack for “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” several from Prince, Bruce Springsteen and perhaps most of all,.
“I apologize. This album ‘Homegrown’ should have been there for you a couple of years after ‘Harvest,’” he wrote on hisannouncing the album’s release. “It’s the sad side of a love affair. The damage done. The heartache. I just couldn’t listen to it. I wanted to move on. So I kept it to myself, hidden away in the vault, on the shelf, in the back of my mind….but I should have shared it. It’s actually beautiful. That’s why I made it in the first place. Sometimes life hurts. You know what I mean.
It’s a fully realized, well-sequenced album too — not a collection of outtakes — and while several of the 12 songs have been released over the years , there’s little question that they make much more sense here.
In case it wasn’t already obvious, “Homegrown” is an essential addition to the Young catalog and the best of his many archival releases since the equally essential “Live at the Fillmore East” .
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