Neil Diamond - Beautiful Noise

Like any kid growing up in the '70s you'd have had to be living under a rock to not be inundated with Neil Diamond songs. The cover for Hot August Nights was the epitome of what a rock star was supposed to look like. Although I never heard the album in it's entirety until fairly recently. I was dragged to the theatre by my parents to watch Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Despite his many ear worms, I never had any Neil Diamond records growing up. He was too safe and well, kind of boring.

A little while back I was watching The Last Waltz, and amidst a who's who of rock royalty, up steps Mr. Diamond to sing "Dry Your Eyes" and I thought it was okay, but he was pretty commanding from the stage. He may have known he was the odd duck there, but he didn't seem to give a shit. I didn't realize that the song he played came from an album produced by Robbie Robertson, and that Garth Hudson was featured on keyboard on the track.  Man I love the internet, there's just so much trivia and unsubstantiated nonsense to consume.

As fate would have it I'm flipping through the dollar bin, and there it is. Beautiful Noise, and there on the front cover in Roger Dean styled script is Robbie Robertson's name listed as producer. So I brought it home and gave it a good cleaning. Everything was in great shape (there are a couple of pops and clicks, but it's what it is) including the liner notes. All in all a great score.

The thing about listening to this fresh is that I have no real point of reference. I've read this was considered a comeback album, but I didn't know he'd gone away. I don't really remember what year I heard songs on the radio, but from what I've read the album before this one went platinum, and this one went went platinum. Seems pretty consistent. I guess the comeback was suppose to be radio hits, and if that's the case I didn't really know any of these songs.

However, there's a lot of fun to be had reading the credits, and it's fun to see names that I'd come to recognize, and some I've recently discovered. David Paich on keyboards, Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon on drums (Jim Gordon is more infamous for his troubled life than his drumming sadly), and James Newton Howard. I was also intrigued to see Bob James name as well for his string arrangements as I recently found a Bob James album, One, that predates his involvement here, and it's in the queue.

The album is very enjoyable, if somewhat forgettable at least on the first pass. The absence of any real standout tracks is a bit of mixed blessing. I was listening to for something to standout, but I was also struck by how consistently good the songs were. This is an album that was intended to be heard as a piece of music with a story to tell. To that end the orchestrations and arrangements were all intended to enhance the emotional attachment to the music. Oddly, it is the closing track, "Dry Your Eyes" that brought everything to a crescendo, and I have to say this was due in no small measure to Bob Findley's bugle and flugel horn. I don't think I've been caught in the feels with a horn arrangement since the trumpet solo on "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel.

I'm on my second pass, and as I expected this is starting to peel back a little more. This is classic Neil, with his distinctive voice, the songs with their lush arrangements pop. While I suspect this will not get a lot of play, it was a fun find. Neil Diamond was still pushing himself, and wasn't just sitting on his laurels. With Beautiful Noise he was still hungry and still had something to say. Robbie Robertson did a masterful job and it's strange that he didn't do more production work.