In which Neil Young has seemingly discovered a time machine, gone back into the past, recorded an album, come back to the future and released it.
A few people have been keen to point out the irony, nee spasticity of releasing this album at the same time as launching your all guns blazing marketing push for an unfriendly Toblerone shaped uberMP3 or digital media player. A few people are right. It is as ridiculous as Chumbawamba recording a rousing version of Skrewdriver's 'White Rider'. But whatever, just because he is Canadian doesn't mean Neil Young has to be dull and predictable.
Rather than going into a studio or even recording with a stereo microphone our Neil has hooked himself up to one of those old fairground 'Record a record' thingamajigs. The gimmicky instant recording studios that apparently used to be part of the American fun-time landscape. Think Coney Island in black and white, before the war.
'A Letter Home' is an okay album, a perfectly listenable (if not intentionally lo-fi) collection of very obvious cover versions. Completely unessential, but when you have a devoted fan base the size of Neil Young's you are going to clear ten thousand in fan club completist sales alone.
I can't really rate it because I think it's too silly.
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