Credit: Far Out / Original Promo / Tidal
Sat 12 September 2026 13:50, UK
Everyone, at some point, has accidentally accrued multiple copies of the same album, whether this is due to personal negligence or losing them among the collection. That being said, nobody else owns 20,000 copies of one specific LP…apart from Neil Young, that is.
Even the most clumsy and forgetful person in the world hasn’t accidentally misplaced 19,999 copies of an album, requiring them to travel for hours to track down the last copy remaining in a record store in the wilderness. Instead, it was one of his own albums that Young acquired 20,000 copies of, and not because it was a disaster that didn’t sell.
While his brand of music doesn’t scream that Young is a perfectionist who wants everything to be fine-tuned with a million overdubs, if something isn’t done on his terms, he wants no part of the entire operation. It’s a mindset that has controlled everything he’s ever done, even if his decisions make little sense to anybody else.
The album in question is 1978’s Comes A Time, his ninth solo studio record. Although it’s not as revered as his body of works like Harvest or After The Gold Rush, it’s a strong collection of folk-tinged tracks, which is rightly revered nonetheless.
By this stage of his career, Young was also keenly involved in the production process, and every facet of the album was required to go through him. Even back then, Young was an obsessive regarding sound quality, which would later see him remove his music from streaming services in 2015.
However, making the call to remove his songs from a streaming service is much more straightforward than purchasing 20,000 copies of an album, which would take a large warehouse to hold. Nevertheless, for the sake of sound quality, that was a price that Young was willing to pay for Comes A Time.
In his mind, he couldn’t, with a good conscience, allow the first pressings to be consumed by the public, so he took them off the market. There was an issue with the master version of the album, which was damaged during transportation and ultimately left Comes A Time sounding inferior.
Further reading: From The Vault
Admittedly, the story of him owning 20,000 copies of Comes A Time sounded like flight of fancy stuff. It existed in the urban legend category, and fans allowed themselves to believe it, while in the back of their minds, they accepted that it was either an outright lie or wildly embellished.
Then, in 2014, decades after the story first emerged and whispers spread, Young was finally asked directly about the subject. Lo and behold, it turned out to be true, with Young not even disputing the 20,000 figure when it was mentioned to him.
He explained to Rolling Stone in 2014, “Oh, that was because it was a mastering error. The tape got damaged when it went through the airport or something. I had to go back and use a copy of the master — it was a copy, but it had better-sounding playback than the other one.
He even found a shrewd use for all 20,000 albums, too, ensuring they didn’t go to waste, explaining, “I made a barn roof out of them. I used them as shingles.”
Back in 1978, the average album retailed for just over $7 in the United States, which equates to $1,464,000 for 20,000 copies. However, as much as money has never been a primary concern for Young, he surely cut himself a hard bargain on that deal.
Nevertheless, even with a sizeable discount, he still likely put himself out of pocket to ensure his art was heard exactly how he envisioned it while creating it in the studio. Since the 1960s, everything else is merely secondary to him.
Still, it’s likely the most expensive barn roof assembled in Colorado.
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