http://www.nme.com/news/neil-young/42095



Neil Young readies new album for release

Jan 15, 2009

Neil Young as set to release a new album called 'Fork In The Road' in the spring.

The star, who is currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand, has uploaded the title track on his website, http://www.neilyoung.com.

The news of the album's imminent release means that the long-awaited 'Archives Vol 1' project, which was reportedly due for release in February, now appears to have been put back indefinitely.

Young's label Warners have previously confirmed that the collection, which focuses on the first phase of the Canadian guitar legend's career, is complete and ready to go.

However it is now thought that Young will focus on his new material first, getting it out before his rumoured appearance at this summer's Glastonbury festival.

Young is widely thought to be headlining the Friday of the event on the Pyramid Stage (June 26), although this has yet to be officially confirmed by organisers.

Young previewed many of the songs tipped for inclusion on 'Fork In The Road' on his North American tour last winter, including 'Cough Up the Bucks', 'Fuel Line', 'Hit The Road' and 'Get Around'.

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[bigred]Standard Edition[/bigred]

Product Description
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young is stirring things up again. This time he is rolling on down the road not only with an auto-centric concept album but with his own electric ride. Fork In The Road, whose largely ecocar themed songs he debuted in concert during the past year, will get a promotional push from the 1959 Lincoln Continental Young has converted to hybrid technology and which he plans to drive to Washington, D.C. With Fork In The Road as current as today's headlines, the controversial and mad-as-hell Neil Young is still rockin' the free world and once more is taking the road less traveled.

01 When Worlds Collide
02 Fuel Line
03 Just Singing A Song
04 Johnny Magic
05 Cough Up The Bucks
06 Get Behind The Wheel
07 Off The Road
08 Hit The Road
09 Light A Candle
10 Fork In The Road

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001TEKHCC/?tag=imwan-20

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[bigred]Deluxe Edition[/bigred]

Product Description
The DVD in this CD+DVD package features the entire album in 24/96 audio, plus three live, never-before-seen concert videos, and videos for four songs on the album.

Bonus DVD:
1. Fork In The Road
2. Just Singing A Song
3. Light A Candle
4. A Day In The Life live concert video

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001TEKHC2/?tag=imwan-20

If we ever get around to doing a Friday List about cutlery...

This freakin stinks. There's absolutely no reason he can't release his new, no doubt crummy album AND release the Archives as well. One drives the other in any promotion he would decide to do. Instead, every single review out there will be wondering the same thing - "where are the frakin' Archives".
There's being an artist and being a jerk and in my book Neil is veering super close to jerk territory. And that new song STINKS.

Sorry guys. I don't mean to be so negative, but this one is really bugging me.

i won't be as acid-tongued as andy (above) but i will agree that this new song is quite wretched. like an outtake from "re-act-or" IMHO neil young's worst album.

by the way, has the february release date for "archives" been pushed back yet?

Not yet, but let's not be surprised if it is.

Ironic that the album is titled "Fork In The Road" as it keeps his fans further away from what was once a long-awaited "holy grail", but is now an old punch line.

Also ironic - a song titled "Cough Up The Bucks". Possible chorus:

"Cough up 15 bucks for my latest thoughts/
I'll get your 300 later for the put-off box"

This really makes me angry.

I won't say here what I think of Neil Young at this moment.

I refused to buy a ticket to his concerts here in Australia because of how he treats his fans.

Neil Young is a brilliant musician but as a business man he has no bloody idea how to keep his fans happy.

Let's Avoid Neil Young's Next Record
The old stuff enthralls, but the new stuff terrorizes at MSG
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-24/ ... xt-record/

By Rob Harvilla
Tuesday, December 23rd 2008

What I like to do sometimes is go to Neil Young shows and start betting pools on how long "Cortez the Killer" will last. As in, what could conceivably transpire while the song is still going—an episode of How I Met Your Mother? The Vivian Girls record? Your commute home? Join us now at Madison Square Garden, late Tuesday lurching defiantly into early Wednesday on the second of a righteous two-night back-to-back assault, two and a half hours per, and Neil is clearly feeling it, grimacing (more than usual) and slapping his head theatrically as he moans: "I still can't remember where/Or how I lost my way." We'd have settled comfortably in our seats by now if anyone had thought to sit down; "Cortez" tonight might end up lasting longer than some other rock stars' careers. But no, actually, in the end, it's a mere 10-minute affair, a prim haiku by Neil's standards, which bodes both good and ill. The former because, hey, now it's on to "Cinnamon Girl." Less agreeably, though, such brevity only leaves more time for one of his new songs—and his new songs, I regret to inform you, are absolutely terrible.

Look, you don't need me to gas on about the restorative, stupendously surly power of "Hey Hey, My My" or "Cowgirl in the Sand," grouchy and brutal under the expert care of Neil and his pummeling electric band, his wife Pegi's cooing backing vocals the only point of warming light. His own guitar solos are luridly violent affairs—he staggers crazily about like an enraged fisherman who doesn't realize he's hooked the seat of his own pants, his spastic jerks and lurches somehow not corresponding to any sound anyone is making, including him. The effect is profoundly ugly and equally mesmerizing, and initially, it enthralls even when the set list turns away from The Beloved Neil Young Canon: "Spirit Road," off last year's Chrome Dreams II, indulges in bald-tires open-road cliché ("There's a long highway in your mind"), but plays up the horror rather than the romance: The way an endless, inviting horizon dwarfs and overwhelms all who gaze upon it can make you feel like "A speck of dust in a giant world," as he snarls tonight. Somehow it's a fitting ode to the impending death of the American auto industry. But, ah, Neil's made this connection, too, and tonight, amid luscious dips into The Beloved Neil Young Canon, we are also graced/terrorized with multiple cuts from what would seem to be an impending concept album about eco-friendly cars.

We're not dealing with a guy who bothers much with metaphor here. He gets pissed at George W. Bush, so he writes a song called "Let's Impeach the President." Nonetheless, these new tunes are disturbingly beef-witted: Endless exhortations to "Fill 'er up!"; mindless refrains of "Cough up the bucks!" (which I misheard the first 200 or so times as "Cough up the bugs," which fits the imagery better, actually); starry-eyed tributes to "the awesome power of electricity"; lots of driver's-ed-instruction-as-societal-imperative ("I turn my signal on and look both ways"). The closest thing to a clever line is "She looks so beautiful with her top down," which, well . . . The music, too, chugs mindlessly along, the awkward sloganeering weighing down the boilerplate top-down rock 'n' roll highway bravado with 10 pounds of syllables in a five-pound bag. The crowd's restlessness is painfully evident, particularly in the case of two stupendously drunk older ladies in my row who start booing loudly and shouting, "You suck!" into the bug-/buck-coughing din.

I am struggling to think of anyone who could possibly give less of a fuck about what you think of his/her new album than Neil Young does. But each song tonight creates an unpleasant binary effect: Love it if we immediately recognize it; barely tolerate it if we don't. Neil briefly switches to lovely, funereal organ for "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)," a nearly 20-year-old song that nonetheless feels of a piece with his new stuff in terms of both sentiment and ham-fisted application of sentiment: "Oh, Mother Earth, with your fields of green/How long can you give and not receive?" From there, he leaps immediately back to acoustic guitar for the far more familiar, and far more elegant, "The Needle and the Damage Done," and we are hilariously relieved to be rescued by this brutal lament: The line, "Every junkie's like a setting sun," triggers a huge burst of applause.

So the new tonight only makes us better appreciate the old, and the 60-percent-of-the-original-capacity crowd still toughing it out well after midnight is eventually rewarded with "Rockin' in the Free World," then penalized during the encore with another new one ("You gotta get behind the wheel/In the morning and drive"), then befuddled by a sloppy, dissonant take on "A Day in the Life," which sounds like they tore down Shea Stadium with the Beatles still playing inside it, that dreamy ah-ah-ah-ah melody now buried in grit and grime and gleeful discord. We love Neil Young because he does whatever the hell he wants, even if half the time we'd rather not sit around and watch him do it. There is only so much entertainment you can derive from watching a genius lose his way.

Neil Young fans upset that he is releasing a new album
Old Shakey's musical commentary on the financial crisis is apparently so bad his most devoted fans are rooting for the record company not to release it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/ja ... n-the-road

Sean Michaels
guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 January 2009

Neil Young has announced the release of a new album, and no one could be more distressed than his fans.

For months now, Young obsessives have been awaiting the release of Archives Volume 1 – a vast library of early recordings, in the form of 10 Blu-ray discs. This week, however, reports have emerged that an album of new Neil Young material – called Fork In the Road – will pre-empt Archives, pushing its February release back into spring.

Often, this would call for celebration. Who needs old material when you are being offered shiny, new songs by a music legend? Alas, that's not what Neil Young's fans seem to be thinking. They have heard these new songs – on Young's recent tour, or in a new viral video – and let's just say they don't like them very much.

"Would a record company actually listen to this garbage and then agree to release it?" asked one fan at the popular Thrasher's Wheat site. "At some point, they're going to have to take a stand – right? I'm actually rooting for the record company here."

With Fork In the Road, Young seems to be exploring three things – dirty blues, direct lyrics, and his LincVolt electric car project. That all sounds well and good until you hear the opening lyrics of the title track.

"Got a pot belly," Young sings, "It's not too big / Gets in my way / When I'm driving my rig."

The video – clearly a webcam recording of Old Shakey chomping on an apple, mouthing along, cotton buds in his ears – doesn't inspire much confidence. A few minutes in, he sings about blogging. Later in the video he plays air guitar as a flat-screen TV seems to be repossessed. Commentary on the financial crisis? Maybe. Revelatory rock music? Says a fan of his for the past 20 years: "This new stuff is simply the most tired music I've ever heard from Neil."

Neil Young's spokesperson confirmed to Rolling Stone that the "timeliness of the subject matter" on Fork In the Road meant that it would be released soon, probably postponing Archives and the highly anticipated lost album Toast. "It seems logical," the spokesperson said, "but that hasn't been confirmed yet."

Do you think Neil reads this stuff or even cares?

Would sure be nice if he did.

Posted this in the archives forum as well. Hope that's ok. Seems relevant to both. As I said in there, what a jerk.

Young box set pushed back again

By Nick Patch, THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO - The wait continues for Neil Young fans.

Young's oft-delayed "The Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972" box set has been pushed back again until later this year with no firm date for its release, according to a representative from Warner Music Canada.

The collection, originally scheduled for release last fall, is expected to include unreleased studio and live recordings, fresh film footage, photos, personal letters and a 150-page book.

Some reports have indicated that the set will use the Blu-Ray format, but the Warner rep said details have not been finalized.

In the meantime, Young's new disc, "Fork in the Road," is scheduled for release March 31, with the title track already available for download on his website.

Early press about the record, however, has not been positive.


In a review of a Madison Square Garden performance by Young last month, the Village Voice called his new material "absolutely terrible."

The songs, which writer Rob Harvilla said seemed culled from a concept album about eco-friendly cars, were "disturbingly beef-witted" and the crowd reaction was emphatic: Harvilla reported that only 60 per cent of the original audience remained by the end of the show.

Young's interest in eco-friendly cars is well-established.

Last year, the legendary Canadian rocker teamed up with mechanic Johnathan Goodwin, in the hopes of converting Young's 1959 Lincoln Continental to operate on an electric battery.

Young is nominated for a Grammy Award for best solo rock vocal performance for his song "No Hidden Path," off last year's "Chrome Dreams II." The awards will be handed out Feb. 8 in Los Angeles.

Bump: the [lilred]Fork In The Road[/lilred] album has been pushed back to April 7th, and will be coming out in both a standard (CD only) and a deluxe (CD/DVD) edition. I've added the cover image and pre-order links to the first post. The title track is already available as a digital single:



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QP40V8/?tag=imwan-20

sadly, i will buy this the first day, play it once, bitch about how bad it is, burn a song or two on a compilation CD, and put it on the shelf until i burn another comp CD and only use one song.

as so it has gone with the last couple of forgettable neil young albums.

Yep.

Here's the promo video:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... D=50295490

I've just ordered the deluxe album and I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I do like the song Fork in the Road. I tend to have a higher tolerance for Neil's variances than most (although I've never been crazy about his "Life" album).

Whenever I hear the phrase "Fork in the road," I think of this man:

To me this is the big difference between Dylan and Neil................Dylan tours constantly and releases albums with new material once in a blue moon.................like when he's got a bunch of great songs. Neil, on the other hand, throws shit against the wall and likes to see what sticks and releases it as a "new album". I'm sure that everyone is EXCITED at the prospect of a new Dylan album, unlike Neil whom they've begging not to release his new one. Follow Dylan's example, like the absolutely GREAT "Bootleg Series", put the damned "Archives" out. M.

I remember reading an interview with Young way back 30 years ago where he said he wrote and recorded every day. He had literally hundreds of songs in his vaults that he would probably never put on an album. (One detail I recall is that he liked to write songs using the titles of other songs; he had a new song called "Born to Run" in there somewhere.) I remember thinking, "Boy, he should release all that stuff!" Now it seems like he's doing just that, writing and recording and releasing as fast as he can, and I'm thinking, "He really ought to go back to cherry picking the best stuff."

Has anyone heard this yet? What do you think? I have to decide whether to buy it before the Sunday flyer sales end.