2012: Word on the street was that Toast, the unreleased Neil Young album that has been for years the subject of Smile-like levels of conjecture among Neil diehards, was finally being released. Neil had done his part in stoking the fires of his lunatic fringe, claiming in a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone that Toast had “everything that the best Crazy Horse albums ever had.” Imagine the groans when Americana, an album of public domain songs rendered in the Crazy Horse style, was released instead. While it’s difficult to imagine that anyone was dying to hear Crazy Horse tackle cornball classics like “Oh Susannah,” “Jesus’ Chariot (She’ll be Comin’ Round The Mountain),” and “Clementine,” the decision to release this inconsequential collection of singalongs in lieu of Toast seems especially malicious. It doesn’t help that the songs plod along interminably, offering little in the way of nuance; even the usually frothing Crazy Horse is toothless here, as if they’re straining to read the chord changes from a dry erase board across the room. Still, the album is not a total wash: many of the seldom-heard additional verses of these perennial favorites are featured here, and if you only know these tunes by the sanitized versions you sang in kindergarten, expect some surprises. Also surprising is the unexpected cover of British national anthem “God Save The Queen,” which cleverly caps the album with a nod to our English forebears. Still, whether viewed as a dilatory cockblock or as another forgettable Neil Young album, Americana remains, at best, a trifle; at worst, a screaming bore.