I hadn't listened to any of the new "car" songs from the tour before
yesterday when "Fork In The Road" appeared on ny.com. I listened and
was underwhelmed, but hey, it's just one song, and it sounds like only
part of the song as well.

So last night, I decided to throw on the NYC2 show to hear the rest of
the new songs, and well, I had to turn it off. Light A Candle was
forgettable, Cough Up The Bucks was bad, and I got halfway through
Fuel Line before I realized that my jaw was agape from the shock.

I don't think that words can really adequately describe my opinion of
these songs. I'd like to think that this is how fans must have felt
when they first heard Trans or Everybody's Rockin', but as strange as
those two albums were, there was something new and radical in the
music. There was a twist, a gimmick, an experiment that didn't quite
work.

This new stuff is simply the most tired music I've ever heard from
Neil. I hope it's just half-baked and needs to be reworked in the
studio, or something, but I'm afraid that there's not enough substance
to make the songs be anything short of below average at best.

I've been a fan for 20 years. I've bought every new Neil album
immediately after release for 15 years. Even when I was listening to
new albums that I knew were well below Neil's peak performances of the
past, I could still find merit in them. Even Are You Passionate,
which I rank as Neil's worst solo release, had sparks of brilliance
amid the shlocky sentimentality of lyrics set to a musical genre that
was poorly suited to Neil's musical skills. These songs are right in
Neil's comfort zone musically, but there's nothing to them. The
lyrics are pedestrian, and the music I'd call pedestrian too, except I
just used that metaphor, so I'll say that it's more like "wheelchair
bound".


Please tell me that the other songs are better than these.


I'm really worried. Not that Neil will produce a substandard album
that will get poor reviews. Neil's a big boy, he can take some bad
press, and he probably doesn't care one way or the other about what
people think of his music. I'm worried that Neil has a good amount of
attention focussed on him right now. He's just come off over a year
of touring, and he's had very good press for his last 2 NYAPS
releases, which has placed focus on his impending Archives release.

Whether Neil releases these new songs right before or right after the
Archives, I think it will negatively impact future Archives releases,
which, much more than new releases, is the focus of my Neil obsession
at the moment (perhaps now you understand why). If the Archives comes
out first, it will only bring more attention to Neil, not all positive
as many will criticize the Archives for what it is and is not. If he
were to follow up with an album of stinkers as a soundtrack to a
self-directed film about his current vanity project, the LincVolt, it
will reinforce the stereotype of Neil as a self-involved artist
indifferent to anyone's musical tastes but his own. Even worse would
be if he bumped the Archives so that he could release a new album of
stinkers. An album this bad could permanently delay the Archives
(since we can figure Reprise isn't terribly anxious to try to sell a
$400 box set of mostly previously released tracks).

So I hope Neil does the right thing with this new music. Only he
knows what that is, but this time I don't think I'll be able to defend
it if it becomes the center of his musical world in the coming months.

--PunkDavid (I swear, I'll try to listen to the other songs tonight)