Shine on, you hip new Diamond
April 29, 2008
JOEL RUBINOFF
RECORD STAFF
When I was growing up in the '70s, there were two Neils vying for position on the pop charts -- and which one you liked best said a lot about your values, integrity and the way you viewed the world.
The first was Neil Young, the epitome of folkie cool, his long scraggly hair and acoustic guitar rustic signs of authenticity as he wistfully crooned, "Old man, look at my life . . . I'm a lot like you were.''
The other was Neil Diamond, a bouffant-haired baby Elvis with lambchop sideburns, spectacled jumpsuits and a veneer of Teflon shmooze, and anybody who admitted to liking him was immediately regarded as a tasteless dabbler with an ear for schlock.
"Honey's sweet," crooned this second Neil on his '79 hit Forever In Blue Jeans, thrusting his pelvis as housewives fainted and the other Neil scowled from the sidelines. "But it ain't nothin' next to baby's treat.''
It wasn't that he had no talent. In the '60s, Diamond -- tonight's mentor on American Idol (8 p.m. on Fox, CTV) -- was a songwriting maverick, churning out bright, melodic hits for The Monkees (I'm A Believer) and a raft of edgy folk-pop singles (Solitary Man, Kentucky Woman) that presented him as a more rollicking Johnny Rivers, a souped-up Gordon Lightfoot.
But while the first Neil stubbornly stuck to his muse, charting his own course to superstardom, the second -- like the egregious Rod Stewart -- discovered a quicker route to success, unleashing a jarring exhibitionist streak that negated his true talents as he racked up schmoozy hits and twitched his butt to superstardom.
Longfellow Serenade, You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Love on the Rocks -- these songs, the embodiment of '70s schmaltz, were the biggest of his career, but true fans knew they couldn't hold a candle to the brooding intensity of I Am . . . I Said and the gospel-inflected fervour of Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show.
By the time the '80s rolled around, the second Neil's biggest fans were dental receptionists and high school lunch ladies who swooned at the thought of "The Jewish Elvis" bustin' a move onstage, sweat pouring off his brow, in his silver-studded blue denim jumpsuit.
But Diamond, deep down, had to have known he'd sold himself out, that the fragile spark within him had been distorted beyond recognition.
Which may explain why, 40 years after his first hit, his artistic crisis suddenly resolved itself when -- older, wiser and, get this, cool -- he found the inspiration to ditch the Vegas trappings and return to his roots.
How was this possible? How could a man dismissed as a furry-chested punchline restore his tarnished image after so many years in the musical wilderness?
Credit Rick Rubin, the same visionary producer who resurrected faded country star Johnny Cash in his twilight years and turned him into a cross between Jesus and the Grim Reaper -- by urging Cash to lend his gravelly vocals to, among other things, a haunting version of a Neil Diamond song (Solitary Man).
Rubin apparently sensed something equally worthy in Diamond himself -- a reflective intensity, perhaps? A wryly observant sense of mortality? -- and on 2005's stripped down 12 Songs and the upcoming Home Before Dark, presents not the cartoon cutout we've been mocking for decades but a wisened troubadour who knows a few things about life and can still craft a mean pop hook.
In a fitting dose of irony, it's this back-to-basics Neil who has somehow landed on American Idol, the biggest cheese factory since K-Tel, to coach a bunch of neophytes who, I'm guessing, wouldn't know Neil Diamond from Lou Diamond Phillips.
There's no telling which Neil will show up, of course -- the paunchy schlockmeister or the tough-minded folk-pop poet. Cherry Cherry or Desiree? The truth is, it doesn't much matter.
At 67, Diamond knows who he is, what he's capable of, and his hipster quotient is so ineffable, so timelessly transcendent, it can easily withstand a prime-time lapse into maudlin sentiment and, even, it is hoped, tepid tributes from the same carnage-crazed Idol hopefuls who decimated the Beatles songbook a few weeks ago.
Let it rip, I say. Neil Diamond is the coolest and always will be. You read it here first.
jrubinoff@therecord.com
Neil Diamond - upcoming album
- Borderstone
