That dog-gone crazy horse has only gone and made a concept album. “What’s so bad about that?” I hear you say. After all, some of the finest musical outputs of our times have spawned from concept albums; The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, The Dark Side of the Moon, Quadrophenia, Arthur… the list goes on. The problem with Fork in the Road is not that it is a concept album, it’s the concept itself: electric cars. Seriously.
The rockstar/activist’s ‘LincVolt’ eco-car project provides the basis for the album’s theme and one wonders if this would really fly if it weren’t released by the mighty Neil Young. Would it really sell if it weren’t for his army of blindly adoring fans? Maybe, but only if the quality tallied with the passion in the message. Unfortunately, this album is all about the message. Of the album’s ten tracks, about seven are clunking rock numbers with lyrics such as “You gotta get behind the wheel / If you wanna learn to drive.” It doesn’t get much deeper than that. Or here’s another: “She looks so beautiful, with her top down”, in reference to his beloved Lincoln. The remainder of the album busies itself with America’s broken economy. Cough Up the Bucks contains a bizarre one-line rap which repeats its title followed by Neil beseeching “Where did all the money go? / Where did all the cash flow?”
Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, even Bono for all his insufferability, have all used their talents endeavouring to make the world a better place. Where Fork in the Road falls short, is that it’s like a sort of anti-vanity project. Neil clearly cares for his cause but it seems to have escaped him that his fans have a deep love of his music and this album doesn’t do much to foster that love.
