Neil Young

This whole mess all started in early 2008 when a journalist innocently asked Neil Young if music still had the power, assuming it once did, to influence world opinion. Young's negative response startled and angered many, yet he stood by this belief by penning one of his patented knee-jerk reaction numbers, "Just Singing A Song," included here. His subsequent focus on building his eco-friendly Cadillac has certainly taken those sentiments a step further. But since singing songs remains Young's bread and butter, what we have with Fork In The Road is a bunch of them based on nothing but his latest obsession. When Young debuted much of this material on his last North American tour, even those used to his mercurial spontaneity didn't have the patience to put up with such half-baked nonsense, and these studio versions are hardly an improvement. While Young does seem genuinely determined to make a profound statement, Fork In The Road mostly just sounds goofy after his last couple of ambitious concepts: Greendale and Living With War. The automobile has always played an intrinsic part in rock'n'roll but imagine if Chuck Berry came along today writing about his Prius and you'll get some idea of how ludicrous an idea Fork In The Road is. Just release Archives already and give us all a break, Neil.