You're strange, but don't change: Neil Young in Brooklyn

by Brett Essler

If there is a professional ranking system for Neil Young fandom, I’d place myself just above amateur. I like the Neil records everybody agrees on, but have found things to love on some of the more divisive ones^[1]. My interest in his new music since his early-to-mid-’90s run with Crazy Horse has waxed and waned depending on my internal nostalgia index and the relative cringe factor of his musical whims^[2]. Despite this merely passing interest in Neilcana, I will often, in the depths of insomnia, lurk on message boards where Neilophiles bemoan a world in which Homegrown remains unissued while Fork in the Road is readily available^[3]. Perhaps I like the train wreck more than the music.