As we enter the waning weeks of 2005, it's worth reflecting upon what a strange year it has been. A monstrous storm from mother nature turned into a political storm for a president; George Bush somehow became an albatross for the Republican party; The White Sox somehow managed to win their first World Series since 1917; the mother of a slain U.S. soldier was smeared as a radical, unpatriotic lefty. They were all unlikely scenarios in their way. But perhaps the most unlikely scenario of the year is the re-emergence of Neil Diamond as a hip, elder statesman of song.
Diamond has never exactly been hip, and it’s startling to think of a 64 year old man as suddenly acquiring the label without any irony. For all his early success in the 60s as a Brill Building songwriter, Diamond has been something of a running joke on the pop culture radar for years (witness the Will Farrell skit on SNL a few years back), grunting and straining his way with sequined jumpsuits and overwrought power ballads, becoming the darling of the Mah Jong crowd. All very Vegas, all very glitzy, all very meaningless. But in the past couple of years, Diamond has hooked up with uber-producer Rick Rubin, who has a knack for reminding artists long past their glory days just where their true strengths lay. He helped Johnny Cash find his way back to making meaningful records at the end of his career, and it looks like Rubin has similarly helped focus Diamond on songwriting and singing with conviction. Replacing the glamour and schmlatz, the 12 songs on the appropriately named “12 Songs” are stripped down performances with vintage Diamond lyrics, sparse instrumentation, and the first credible Neil Diamond performances since the early 70s.
One instant classic is "What's It Gonna Be," a haunting little dirge featuring acoustic guitar, stark piano chords, and Diamond's plaintive voice singing lines like "I may not be a hero, but I'm the man you need/ One way or another, you need a new direction, maybe need connection, now what's it gonna be?" Another standout is the delicate "Save Me A Saturday Night," a slow lullaby based on a simple ascending and descending guitar figure, accentuated with what sounds like triangle chimes. The melody has echoes of the Rolling Stones' "Get Off My Cloud," although in a much less ferocious manner, and would as easily fit on the radio playlists of 1962 as it would in 2005.
Diamond even offers up his vintage word-twisting, singing "Neither one of us stopping to figure out/ What the roll and the rocking was all about" on the rollicking "Delirious Love." As unlikely as it may have seemed, Neil Diamond is offering something fresh and fun at the age of 64, after decades of schlock. Just one more twist in an already strange year, but certainly one of the more welcome ones….
On the web: www.neildiamond.com
