plorentz's Full Review: Home Before Dark [Digipak] by Neil Diamond
Among the winners of American Idol Season 7, there weren’t just the two Davids and the rest of the bunch of young and as-yet-undiscovered hopefuls who competed for the votes of the nation’s 12-year-old girls. There was also an industry veteran, whose first charted songwriting credits date back to the early 60s, who has charted more than 50 hit singles in his 40 year recording career, who has recorded upwards of 30 studio albums, and who has been one of the leading concert draws in the world since long before David Cook (or Ryan Seacrest) was born. I’m referring, of course, to Neil Diamond, whose appearance on the show (with his Mom cheering him on in the audience… how Idol is that?) last May is almost certainly responsible for giving young Neil his first ever Number One on Billboard’s album chart.
And it couldn’t have happened to a better record: Home Before Dark, his second collaboration with producer Rick Rubin following the 2006 album 12 Songs picks up where that collection left off – spare acoustic arrangements which showcase Diamond’s weathered voice, his often unabashedly corny lyrics and his happening-in-Vegas, rhinestone cowboy phrasing (even at 67, he’s never lost touch with his inner American Idol) in a setting that feels as warm and intimate and cloistered as a firelit den on the most frigid night of the year. But where Diamond’s 12 Songs were generally compact little three-or-so-minute ditties, on Home Before Dark, Diamond and Rubin allow the songs a little more time to amble and linger – several of this album’s dozen (the deluxe edition adds Diamond’s covers of Nilsson’s “Without You” and Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love”, both of which would have fit in nicely on the album proper) approach or even surpass the seven-minute mark – which makes both the individual songs and the album itself seem sort of endless – endless, that is, not in the "watching the clock to see if it’s time for me to shut my computer down" way, but endless in the "we just made sweet sweet love and neither of us need to be anywhere anytime soon so let’s just lay here forever" sort of way.
Simply put, it’s a make-out album. From a guy who not only knows that a big, juicy metaphor for romance – “One More Bite of the Apple” (the most “happening-in-Vegas” song of the bunch), for instance – delivered with well-earned bravado is far more sensual and naughty-but-nice-sounding than anything Lil’ Wayne’s got on offer; but also a guy, who at 67, has really never been sexier. An informal survey of friends, co-workers, and family conducted by myself the morning after the Neil performed an epic, mariachi-enhanced version of the album’s lead single “Pretty Amazing Grace” on American Idol revealed a near-unanimous, collective swoon (even from lesbians!) for the man.
On a show best known for 90-second slice-and-dice karaoke performances, credit the producers for giving this guy (who hasn’t had a top 40 hit since the Reagan Administration) and this song a full, uninterrupted five minutes of prime time - these people really do know a star when they see one. And what a five minutes it was, starting off acoustically, but building slowly in both drama and atmosphere, slowly revealing a teasing Latin rhythm as if it were undressing, the horn players swaying silently in the shadows like a delicious promise. And just when the full band kicked in, and just when we thought the song was going to end, he kicked it up yet another notch with another chorus, and suddenly I understood the ecstasy that would come over teenage girls at the sight of the Beatles in 1963. Only the source of that sensation had long since qualified for an AARP membership.
Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, there are no mariachi horns to be found on the recorded version of “Pretty Amazing Grace”, but then, in the hands of such a consummate professional, it loses none of its drama, and may even gain some tension from it acoustic setting, and the way Diamond allows his performance space to build. Even better, though, is the album’s seven-minute opener “If I Don’t See You Again”, which marries one of Diamond’s grandest, most fatalistic melodies to one hell of a long good-bye. The song’s sense of romantic desolation, its sheer emotional scale, and, frankly, its effortlessly rugged manliness collectively evoke something like a shadowy loner silhouetted against a fiery sunset over the Painted Desert. But it’s far more moving than any spaghetti western cliché, approaching something like a country-and-western mini-opera. A duet with Dixie Chick Natalie Maines called “Another Day (That Time Forgot)” achieves a similar sense of the monumental and infinite and ruggedly romantic.
No question, at more than an hour long, Home Before Dark sprawls, but its (in-the-)moody vastness is generally more awe-inspiring than tedious, with songs like all of the mentioned above, along with the bristling “Don’t Go There”, “The Power of Two”, and the title track’s lush nocturne – all among the best songs Diamond has ever written - adding up to what may in fact be the greatest, and most important full-length album of Diamond’s career. That said, this is an album that takes it time, and it requires ours. This is not a record to rush, and it’s not something to listen to when you’re in a hurry or looking for immediate gratification. But if you’re in the mood for something to savor, and you’ve got all afternoon (and a spooning partner), there are few recent albums out there to offer much better company than this.
- - - - - BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
“Home Before Dark” by Neil Diamond Columbia Records Released 5/6/2008
Produced by Rick Rubin 72 min.
SONGS: If I Don’t See You Again – Pretty Amazing Grace – Don’t Go There – Another Day (That Time Forgot) – One More Bite of the Apple – Forgotten – Act Like a Man – Whose Hands Are These – No Words – The Power of Two – Slow It Down – Home Before Dark /BONUS: Without You – To Make You Feel My Love
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