Forever Neil Diamond (CD Compilation)
Sound: B Music:
B-
Neil Diamond is a divisive singer/songwriter. Some see him as a sappy, melodramatic
variant of Bob Dylan, while others think he is a genius. One fact that is inarguable is that he is a
name to be reckoned with, a survivor and has had a career that most could only
dream of. As a matter of fact, it is 40
years since his first Top Forty and Top Ten hit Cherry, Cherry and Rhino
has decided to mark it with a compilation of 13 cover hits of his works by
other artists dubbed Forever Neil Diamond.
The songs are:
- The Monkees
- "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You”
- Bobby
Womack - "Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good)"
- The Box
Tops - "Ain't No Way"
- Urge
Overkill - "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon"
- Deep Purple
- "Kentucky Woman"
- Elvis
Presley - "And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind"
- Crooked
Fingers - "Solitary Man"
- Shane
McGowan & The Popes - "Cracklin' Rosie"
- UB40 -
"Red Red Wine"
- Arthur Alexander - "Glory Road"
- Four Tops - "I'm A Believer"
- Lulu - "The Boat That I Row"
- Jr. Walker & The All-Stars - "Holly
Holy"
- The Band with Neil Diamond - "Dry
Your Eyes"
Of course, The Monkees are the early beneficiary of al the
Brill Building writers and I’m A Believer was a huge hit. Track #1 was the follow-up single, which
worked well enough for them, if a bit dippy.
Womack is an underrated talent and his cover in Track #2 is interesting
in that it is different without him sellout out his style. On the other hand, the artists for tracks 5,
8, 11 and even 13 are unusually subdued to do the songs, letting the song’s
dictate their performance instead of the other way around.
As noted in a recent UB40 review, Red
Red Wine is a horrible, horrible hit song and we
cannot even blame Diamond for this torture-test of a performance. That leaves the Urge Overkill track
immortalized by Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Elvis scoring one of
the best performances here with Track #6, Tracks #7 & #8 being two of the
most interesting entries and Lulu doing a decent job typical of what she could
do when she applied herself.
The result is more historical than anything else, which
also applies to the sound quality, which varies. The PCM 2.0 16bit/44.1kHz Stereo is about as could be expected
for the varying age of the tracks, but Shout! Factory is building their
reputation on the best sound for CD the way Rhino did and this is as good as it
will get in this format. Overall, this
CD is for fans and the curious only.
- Nicholas Sheffo
