Neil Young Archives Volume II: 1972–1976 is a 10-CD box set from American-Canadian folk rock musician Neil Young that was initially released in a limited deluxe box set (and streaming on the Neil Young Archives site) on November 20, 2020. The release is the second box set in his Neil Young Archives series, following 2009's The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972, and covers a three-and-a-half-year period from 1972–1976. The track list was officially announced on the Neil Young Archives site on September 20, 2020, with the first single, "Come Along and Say You Will", being posted to the site as the Song of the Day on October 14. The set then went up for pre-order on October 16, 2020, as an exclusive release to his online store, with only 3,000 copies being initially made available worldwide. After selling out the following day, Young announced several weeks later that a general retail version, as well as a second pressing of the deluxe box set, is expected to be released to market on March 5, 2021. This was followed by the release of a second single, "Homefires", on October 21, and a third, an alternate version of "Powderfinger", on November 3.
Of the 131 tracks on the track listing, 63 are previously unreleased. These include live and alternate versions of previously released songs. Twelve of the songs on this set have never been released in any form.
Background
Young's manager Elliot Roberts originally said in 2009 that Volume II would span the period of 1972 through 1982, and would be released "two or three years" after Volume I. In October 2009, Young told Guitar World that a disc called Time Fades Away II would be included in the second volume, noting: "It's interesting because [Time Fades Away II] has a different drummer than what was on that album. Kenny Buttrey was in there for the first half, and Johnny Barbata came in for the second. It's a completely different thing, with completely different songs" (Time Fades Away II would eventually evolve into the Performance Series release Tuscaloosa). Young had also said that "four unreleased albums from this period are being rebuilt ... Chrome Dreams, Homegrown and Oceanside-Countryside are the three unreleased studio albums. Also from this period is the unreleased Odeon Budokan live recording produced by David Briggs and Tim Mulligan".
In May 2014, Young stated that Volume II would be finished by the summer, and that the remaining volumes would be issued relatively quickly following the second. In July 2016, Rolling Stone and the Thrasher's Wheat website reported that Young intended to focus on completing Archives Volume II after his tour with Promise of the Real concluded that October. Although a physical release was still planned, it would also involve a "high-resolution website" and would also include unreleased works entitled Dume and Hitchhiker (Hitchhiker was later released as a standalone album on September 8, 2017, with Dume later confirmed to be a disc on Volume II). In August 2018, in response to an enquiring fan in the Letters to the Editor section of the NYA Times-Contrarian area of his website, Young had the following to say: "May 2019 the NYA V2 CDs and a separate book by Toshi Onuki will be available. Blu Ray is no longer viable for economic reasons. NYA can give you what the blu ray had though, including Hi Res audio. Thanks NY."
In September 2018, March and April 2019, in response to other fans enquiring on its release in the Letters to the Editor section of the NYA, Neil Young stated: "We are currently reviewing all of the unreleased albums from the Volume II period, which is the seventies. Songs for Judy was one of those. Oceanside Countryside is another. We are reviewing the others." ; "NYA vol 2 late this year/before Christmas. Odeon Budokon is on volume 2 as an album." ; "Volume two has so much content that we have made it into two sets. The first is about ten discs and will include Odeon Budokan. The set covers about 4 or 5 years of intense recording and creativity."