Neil Diamond Albums (35)
'A Cherry Cherry Christmas'
Release Date 10/13/2009
Tracks 14
Label Sony
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Neil Diamond's first two holiday albums were plainly titled The Christmas Album and The Christmas Album, Vol. 2, which gave a pretty good indication of the by-the-book music they contained, just like how the very name of 2009's A Cherry Cherry Christmas is a tip-off that this collection is a decidedly less serious affair, even if it recycles a good chunk of the same recordings that comprised those earlier albums. A Cherry Cherry Christmas keeps a barbershop quartet arrangement of "Deck the Halls," a doo wop "White Christmas," and a swinging "Jingle Bell Rock," but what's notable are the additions: a version of "Cherry Cherry Christmas" that's trumped only by a goofy cover of Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Home Before Dark is Neil Diamond's second collaboration with producer Rick Rubin. It follows the fine but ill-fated 12 Songs, which was sabotaged by Sony's "Rootkit" program scandal: a nefarious bit of "copy protection" software that invaded the operating system of PCs and wreaked havoc. 12 Songs had to be recalled from store shelves just as Diamond received better reviews than he had in a decade. Sony reissued it in 2007, but the damage was done. Diamond, disappointed but undaunted, sought out Rubin. Rubin enlisted Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench and lead guitarist Mike Campbell, studio guitarist/bassist Smokey Hormel, and former Chavez guitar slinger Matt Sweeney. There are no drums. David Campbell did some skeletal string arrangements, but that's it. In addition, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks duets on the track "Another Day (That Time Forgot)." Home Before Dark is a more exposed Diamond than listeners have ever heard. He's out there, bashing on his guitar and singing from a position of extreme vulnerability; he's on a wire without a net. His musicians understand what is so dynamically and poetically evident in the songs, and use painterly care in adorning them. Diamond is not a young man anymore and, thankfully, he doesn't write like one -- though he sounds lean and hungry for something just out of reach. "Forgotten" has a rock & roll progression worthy of his Bang singles. Its lyric reflects the travails of a protagonist whose heart bears hurt without the grace and wisdom that age is supposed to bring. The grain in his voice is fierce; it quavers just a bit in the refrain, and Sweeney's electric guitar nails it to the wall. It follows "One More Bite of the Apple," another rollicking rocker, but this one is about reuniting with his true beloved -- songwriting itself. Home Before Dark contains some beautiful love songs, too. "If I Don't See You Again," the album's opener, reflects the bittersweet aftertaste of lost love. It's classic Diamond. His character converses with a reflection, a ghost. The gorgeously crafted instrumental bridge and the sense of loneliness in the protagonist's voice combine seamlessly. The album's first single is "Pretty Amazing Grace." Diamond sings a prayer of gratitude for rescue and restoration, whether to Divine Providence, his lover, or both; we don't know. His infectious, haunting melody is jarring, played in minor chords by fingerpicked steel-string guitars and anchored by a standup bass. Tench's piano adds tension just before the refrain where the guitars get punchy flamenco-style and break it wide open. Strings decorate the backdrop, as the lyric juxtaposes the present against the past, not as contrast but as progression. The duet with Maines, "Another Day (That Time Forgot)," has shadowy traces of the gentle but brooding intensity of the intro to "Holly Holy" in the chord progression. It's a joint confession between lovers who are lost to one another; the tragedy is they have no idea how they grew apart. Tench's piano improv fills the space between verses; he underscores the melancholy gorgeously. "The Power of Two," with multi-tracked, entwining acoustic guitar lines by Campbell, is an artful framework for one of Diamond's protagonists to realize that he finally has the ability and courage to embrace another fully, and to allow himself to become a part of love instead of remaining apart from it. Home Before Dark is a less "civilized" album than anything Diamond's done before. It is a stark and moving portrait of what an accepted artist found when he reached all the way down to face his fear, doubt, and knowledge, and brought the discovery into his work. Diamond proves not only that can he still write great songs, but also that he can deliver them with toughness and grit as an expression of real beauty. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Calling 12 Songs Neil Diamond's best album in three decades may be a little misleading: truth be told, it doesn't have much competition in his discography. While Diamond never stopped making albums, he did seem progressively less interested in recording sometime after the Robbie Robertson-produced 1976 album Beautiful Noise. Following that weird, ambitious album, he pursued a slicker, streamlined course and started writing less original material. For a while, this paid off great commercial dividends, culminating in his 1980 remake of the Al Jolson film The Jazz Singer, but after 1982's Heartlight he slowly drifted off the pop charts. Over the next two decades, he toured regularly, turning out a new album every three or four years, and their patchwork nature of a few covers and a few originals suggested that Diamond wasn't as engaged in either the writing or recording process as he was at the peak of his career. With 2001's Three Chord Opera he delivered his first album of all-original material since Beautiful Noise, which was also his first non-concept album since 1991's Lovescape (he spent the interim cutting theme albums, such as a record devoted to Brill Building pop or a country-oriented collection). While it was uneven, it did suggest that Diamond was re-engaging with both writing and recording, and as he prepared material for a new record, he received word that producer Rick Rubin -- the man responsible for Johnny Cash's acclaimed '90s comeback, American Recordings -- was interested in working with him, and the two combined for the project that turned out to be 12 Songs. Rubin was the first producer to push Diamond since Robbie Robertson, but where Robertson indulged the singer/songwriter, Rubin drove Neil to strip his music down to his essence. As Diamond's candid liner notes reveal, Rubin wasn't a co-writer, he was a precise and exacting editor, encouraging Neil to rework songs, abandon some tunes, and to keep writing. The process worked, as Diamond wound up with a set of 12 songs (actually, 13 on the special edition that contains two bonus tracks, including an alternate version of "Delirious Love" featuring a delirious Brian Wilson contribution) that result in his most consistent set of songs ever. This is entirely Rubin's doing, since he's the first producer to exercise such tight control over one of Diamond's albums. Where Tom Catalano, the producer of Neil's '60s and early-'70s work, let Diamond indulge in flights of fancy and sheer weirdness, Rubin keeps him on a tight leash, only allowing a couple of light, cheerful songs into the finished product. Instead of encouraging Neil to write these rollicking, effortlessly hooky pop songs, Rubin brings the moody undercurrents of "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" and "Solitary Man" to the forefront, pushing Diamond toward somber, introspective territory that his music suggested but never truly explored in the past. To highlight this mood, Rubin keeps the arrangements spare, even skeletal, reminiscent of the monochromatic nature of his Cash collaborations. 12 Songs also shares with American Recordings a creeping sense of mortality, but where that sounded natural coming from Johnny Cash, it's slightly affected here, since even when Diamond attempts to reach inward it's offset by his natural inclination toward hamminess. And that flair for the theatrical almost begs out for arrangements that are a little bit more fleshed out than what's here -- not something as slickly cold as what he did in the late '70s, but something similar to the rich yet fruity orchestrations Catalano brought to Diamond's best songs. But if 12 Songs does occasionally come across as slightly affected in its intent and presentation, it also is inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time. Diamond's writing is not only more ambitious than it has been in years, but it's also more fully realized; the songs are tightly written, with the melodies bringing out the emotions in the lyrics. Similarly, Diamond also sounds engaged as a performer, singing with passion and unexpected understatement; it's his most controlled, varied vocal performance ever, and even if Rubin's production is a bit too stark, it does force listeners to concentrate on the songs, which makes this a better case for Diamond's talents as a songwriter than most of his other albums. And that's why 12 Songs is, in a way, even more welcome than American Recordings. Where Cash's comeback confirmed what everybody already knew about him, this presents a side of Neil Diamond that's never been heard on record and, in the process, it offers a new way of looking at the rest of his catalog -- which is a pretty remarkable achievement, but the best thing about 12 Songs is that it's simply one of the most entertaining, satisfying albums Diamond has ever released. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Columbia records billed Neil Diamond's Three Chord Opera as his first album of all-original material in 27 years (since 1974's Serenade), which was true, but deceptive. Diamond wrote most of his songs for most of his career, but often included cover songs on his albums. It would be more accurate to describe Three Chord Opera as Diamond's first straightforward album in a decade, since he followed 1991's Lovescape with a series of all-covers albums, hits compilations, Christmas albums, and live recordings; his last album containing mostly (co-written) originals was 1996's country-oriented Tennessee Moon. However you date Diamond's songwriting lay-off, though, the expectation is that the result will be a more personal statement than his recent albums, and it is, at least in part. Diamond begins with "I Haven't Played This Song in Years," a melancholy breakup song, and he returns to the theme of romantic loss on "Midnight Dream" and "A Mission of Love," while even the songs of apparently contented love ("I Believe in Happy Endings," "You Are the Best Part of Me," "My Special Someone") are dark around the edges. But Diamond is too conscious of pop conventions to devote a whole record to one mood, and, unable to break through a tendency toward cliché, he isn't really capable of writing a sustained self-examination anyway. So, he varies the tone with novelty songs like "At the Movies" and "Baby Let's Drive," and turns to unabashed sentiment on the lullaby "Elijah's Song" and the religious "Leave a Little Room for God." When Diamond joined with songwriting collaborators in the early '80s, his compositions became more homogenous, but less embarrassing, while his '90s work fostered the impression of him as a non-writing performer. Three Chord Opera is the old Neil Diamond, a wildly uneven writer with a certain ingratiating style. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'The Movie Album: As Time Goes By'
Release Date 10/27/1998
Tracks 20
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
On Movie Album, Neil Diamond visits movie songs past ("As Time Goes By") and present ("My Heart Will Go On") with stops along the way for takes on almost anything you would anticipate an album and artist like this would cover ("Unchained Melody"? Here. "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"? Ditto. "Moon River"? Yep, it's here.) Assisted by conductor Elmer Bernstein and an 80-piece orchestra, Diamond takes a 20-song stroll down film memory lane on The Movie Album: As Time Goes By. ~ Michael Gallucci, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Neil Diamond mounted a major comeback with Tennessee Moon, his first collection of new material in nearly five years. Instead of capitalizing on the psuedo-hipster status he had acquired with the early '90s alternative rockers, particularly Urge Overkill, Diamond headed to Nashville to write and record Tennessee Moon. Appropriately, the album is rooted in contemporary country, spiked with hints of the pop craftsmanship that made him popular in the '60s. Not all of the songs were written by Diamond or his collaborators, which included Raul Malo of the Mavericks; the combination of originals and professionally-written made-to-order songs works well, leaving the overall quality of the material rather high. Tennessee Moon suffers from an overabundance of songs, as well as a slightly sterile production, but it remains one of Neil Diamond's most successful records of the '80s and '90s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Much like its predecessor Hot August Night 2, Live in America captures Neil Diamond at the height of his powers as a showman. By the time Live in America was recorded, it had been several years since he had a hit; in fact, the closest he had come to the top of the charts was when UB40 took a reggae remake of "Red Red Wine" to number one. That doesn't mean the album is a wash-out. Diamond hauls out his old hits -- including an approximation of UB40's interpretation of "Red Red Wine" -- and gives one hell of a show. It might not offer anything that the previous Hot August Nights did, but Live in America remains an entertaining listen. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'The Christmas Album, Vol. 2'
Release Date 1/1/1994
Tracks 15
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Neil Diamond's first Christmas album, released in 1992, was a million-seller, but even so, it seemed a little bit soon to be releasing another one only two years later. Not that it much matters which Christmas season you release a Christmas album in. Working again with producer Peter Asher, Diamond addressed 15 seasonal songs that hadn't made it onto the first album, sometimes coming up with unusual arrangements, such as a barbershop quartet version of a medley of "Deck The Halls" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and a reggae version of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" complete with exhortations to children everywhere. But, especially toward the end of the album, Diamond took a more traditional approach, singing some of the more religious Christmas songs with an orchestra and chorus. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Up on the Roof: Songs from the Brill Building'
Release Date 9/27/1993
Tracks 16
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
This is Diamond's equivalent of, say, one of Barbra Streisand's Broadway albums. Come to think of it, it's Broadway that Diamond is returning to as well; specifically, the corner of 49th Street, where he and many others turned out songs for music publishers. Some of these songs were written there; most were only in the spirit of that modern Tin Pan Alley. Handling the work of his then-rivals, such as "Spanish Harlem," "A Groovy Kind of Love," and "River Deep -- Mountain High," Diamond adopts his usual hammy style (he always sounds like he thinks he's a much better singer than he is). Peter Asher patented a neo-'60s production style in crafting oldies for Linda Ronstadt in the '70s, and he does the same thing here, which is only to say that the album is not as overproduced as some of Diamond's recent albums, not that Asher's versions are any competition to Phil Spector's originals. Actually, this record sounds exactly like you would expect it to: just call to mind a familiar song like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and imagine what it would sound like if Neil Diamond sang it. While this is clearly a holding action from the point of view of Diamond's recording career, fans can decide for themselves whether it's valid and, perhaps more problematic, necessary. You pays your money... ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
While Neil Diamond's The Christmas Album is designed almost exclusively for his adult contemporary constituency, the vocalist still manages to light up most of the obviousness of these standards with his trademark gritty soul and flair for inflection. Opening with the grandeur of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel/We Three Kings of Orient Are" and "Silent Night," the album is awash in rich reds and golds almost immediately. But Diamond has fun with "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," loosening up with a harmonica solo and a busy, up-tempo arrangement, and "Jingle Bell Rock" does just that with a 1950s doo wop vibe. These moves count as big risks on an album that otherwise tries on every possible Christmas album cliché: children's choirs and histrionic adult ones, crashing cymbals, and tasteful piano that's as warm as a fireplace in December. Thankfully, even when the choirs threaten to outdo him, Diamond keeps the focus on his famous singing voice. A stirring a capella version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is a good example of this, and one of The Christmas Album's standouts. ~ Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide
