Neil Young: "I'm Working on Multiple Albums, I left a big mess behind."

By VMZ Staff on January 4, 2026

Neil Young is cleaning up a “big mess” of unfinished albums. “I’ve got  a lot of stuff to clean up, I’ve created a lot of unfinished records"


Couple of years ago Young dropped his 42nd album World Record less than a year after releasing Barn – both with his band Crazy Horse. In a new interview, Young revealed that he has a collection of incomplete works that still need to be released.

“I got a lot of stuff to clean up,” Young told Uncut Magazine. “I’ve got a big mess that I left behind. I’ve created a lot of unfinished records, unfinished this and that. I now have the time to deal with it, focus on it.

“But at the same time, anything new takes precedent—always,” he continued. “Once I start thinking about something new, I drop the old stuff right away and do the new thing.”

In June, Young released his lost album Toast, which he originally recorded in 2000 and 2001 before shelving it for more than 20 years. Elaborating more on the album, Young said that it wasn’t an “important” record to release at the time when it was recorded. Instead, Young released Are You Passionate? as his 24th album in 2002.

"I knew Toast was great,” shared Young. “I knew it would come out someday. I mean, we finished it. We cared enough about it to finish it, so that says something right there. But it just didn’t seem important for it to come out at that time, or it would have.”

 

(Source NYA)

Harvest: 50th Anniversary Box Bonus Tracks
Neil Young: BBC In Concert
(unreleased live concert)
"Out on the Weekend"
"

Young’s intuition about timing has always been a core part of his mystique. Whether he holds projects back for creative reasons, he clearly makes no concessions to what the market demands. Releasing Toast after 20 years of shelf life is a case in point. Its commercial reach was minimal and must have missed Spotify completely while Young was boycotting the streaming service. Thankfully, he’s backtracked on that one, and his music is now available to stream. Phew—my bank account was taking a bit of a beating, keeping up with all the vinyl reissues.

In this way, Toast becomes more than just a delayed release; it is a reflection of a specific moment Young wasn’t ready to share until 20 years had passed. This process is pretty unique to him and is what makes his archival releases so effective, rather than feeling outdated or stale. There are so many artists from his era whose music today feels so tired and worn out, but Neil Young’s catalogue hasn’t aged at all in comparison. Long may he randomly dig up old recordings and continue to put them out in such a haphazard way!

 

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