Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Different Shades of Dark, 15 May 2008
As I review this I note that Neil Diamond has just entered the Billboard 100 at number 1 for the first time in his career. This is an amazing turnaround for such an established artist. Not that many years ago he was perceived as someone who was decidedly showbiz and the purveyor of cheesy overblown extravaganza.
For true fans this was something that hurt, although there was certainly more than a grain of truth in the assessment. It has been said many times in previous reviews, a lot of them mine, that he peaked in the mid 70s, by which time he had written and recorded a catalogue of classic material.
Where did that man go? Well it seems that he simply took the easy option of treating his craft as something that could be turned on every now and then and ignore the critics...........and fans, as long as he still sold out every time he toured.
Why has he returned? Quite simply Rick Rubin! If it had been Diamond who had been chasing Rubin you might have thought that suddenly he had woken up and decided to redress the balance of credibility that had eroded the last 30 years of his career. But no.........it was Rubin who hounded Diamond.......thank goodness.
Diamond was like a man who had been in a deluded bubble for too long until Rubin stuck a pin in the inflated ego that "yes men" had helped to build up. Fortunately this bubble didn't just burst, it burst with such a bang it shook the very foundations of Diamond's comfort zone and woke him up to the reason why so many loyal fans kept sticking with him, even though the quality was dropping. Inside, everyone hoped or dreamt that one day he would produce the kind of material that could happily stand alongside his earlier classics..........you know what they are.
12 Songs made him work harder than he had done in a long time on writing quality songs that would bring him praise around the world for what he had originated and not regurgitated. Why? Because Rick Rubin had a first class reputation within the industry and wasn't going to put out anything that would embarrass him. Suddenly Diamond wasn't looking at pleasing the bosses in the music industry who promote and distribute CDs, now he had to satisfy Rubin and from that moment he started to write music that meant something to him. Just like when he had to crack the market in the early 60s, he had to have something that other people didn't............talent! He always had it, but he had to rediscover it.
The good news is that having found it again on 12 Songs, he has nurtured it even more on this album.
Musically it is far more melodic and interesting than his previous one. It is dark and self searching, but you get the feeling that everyone is far more comfortable this time around.
Personal favourites after a few listens are:
If I don't see you again...........a classic in the making that will be around for a long time
Pretty Amazing Grace.............melodic and a welcome change in mood
Don't go there............opens a little like Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" and morphs into a latter day Leonard Cohen, complete with Cohen signature female backing singers. Dark and humorous, a terrific track.
Forgotten...............great bluesy acoustic guitar accompaniment with a lovely organ sound in the background
Whose hands are these................good track with nice changes
No Words.......................First rate
It's a very good album and one that will inevitably get better after more listens. Like the last album, it is not easy listening first time around. But like all quality albums they grow and stay with you.
I hope that he records again with Rubin but doesn't try to do a third stark album again. I think in the hands of Rubin there is room for lighter material to creep in every now and again. A mix between this and Serenade and Moods would be terrific.
As for the DVD, I liked it. I think that he can forget about covering Paul Simon material in future, The Boxer was not a good cover. However I enjoyed watching him and the musicians playing their understated stuff in the studio.
Of the bonus tracks, Without Her and Make you feel my love are OK, but not show stopping. Lulu did a better version of the first and Bryan Ferry nailed the other one on his recent Dylanesque CD.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ANOTHER AMAZING DIAMOND ALBUM, 22 May 2008
EVERY SONG ON THIS ALBUM IS A REAL GEM. THIS ALBUM HAS BEEN WELL WORTH WAITING FOR. NEIL DIAMOND IS A CLASSIC SONGWRITER/SINGER AND SHOWS ONCE AGAIN HOW BRILLIANT THIS MAN STILL IS. THE BEST SONG ON THE ALBUM IS "AMAZING GRACE" AND NEIL SINGS IT WITH SUCH HEART. CANNT WAIT TILL HE RELEASES ANOTHER ALBUM!!!!!!
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Career Revival: Part Two, 12 May 2008
The recent fashion for easy listening seemed to stop at the water's edge when it came to Neil Diamond. The loyal fanbase that had followed him since The Jazz Singer (back in the 1980s) barely increased in the intervening years, and even the appearance of "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" in Pulp Fiction did little to restore his credibility with a younger audience. Few, then, could have foreseen the good critical notices that attended 2005's Rick Rubin produced comeback album, Twelve Songs. Home Before Dark is the second volume of Diamond's Indian Summer.
If you've forgotten why people disliked Diamond in the first place, begin with his essay in the booklet, which is full of the pomposity and self-congratulation that epitomised his stage presence. If, however, you've forgotten why people liked Diamond, playing this disc should quickly remind you. Pared back (in Rubin's trademark production style) Diamond's skills as a singer-songwriter are no longer concealed behind a choir of backing singers and a sequined jumpsuit. Like Twelve Songs, this album harks back to the glories of the past - even individual runs of chords have their precedent in older songs - but in the context of a relaxed acoustic environment these tricks work afresh.
Sceptics may not be entirely won over. The slow-burn vibrato of Diamond's voice (trembling with barely suppressed passion) has always been a love-it-or-loathe-it thing, and the lyrics of some of these songs could have benefitted from rethinking. (Try on "Song writing / It's just a little bit frightening / Like playing with lightning" for size.) The more brazen borrowings (such as "Forgotten", which has much of the flavour of Manfred Mann's "Pretty Flamingo") can grate. Equally, some of the defiant simplicity in the arrangements and melodies is self-defeating: raising the suspicion that far from being heartfelt this album is deeply and cynically contrived.
Nevertheless, although this album is far from perfect it remains a notable achievement. For an album of acoustic love songs Home Before Dark is surprisingly inventive, with melodic and harmonic tricks deployed with an easy familiarity that should have most younger songwriters gnashing their teeth with envy. Don't be surprised if - by the time you've heard these songs two or three times - you find yourself liking them quite a lot.
Moreover, this is a long album: in its deluxe version, you get over seventy minutes of music (or over an hour in the regular edition). The deluxe version also includes a DVD with performance videos of three of the songs plus a version of Paul Simon's "The Boxer" that they did very well to leave off the main album. It seems to me that the vocals are mixed into the rear speakers on the DVD, which struck me as odd, and as a bonus it's probably the sort of thing that you will leave in the CD case. By contrast, both the bonus tracks on the main disc are well worth having: a strong reading of Harry Nilsson's "Without Her" and a cover of Dylan's saccharine "Make You Feel My Love" which certainly bears comparison with that on Bryan Ferry's Dylanesque. Overall, this special edition is better than many others that I've encountered, and worth the higher price.
If you can face liking Neil Diamond, I'd definitely suggest giving this album a try. If the thought of liking his work makes you nervous, steer well clear, because you just might.
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