Listening to Neil Diamond's Unreleased New Album Home Before Dark...w. Rick Rubin!?!
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Artist:
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Album:Best Years Of Our Lives
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Track:Best Years Of Our Lives
This past sunday, I climbed the stairs next to a rare book shop and entered a quaint wood-paneled listening den in Santa Monica, nestled in a chair next to the music producer icon, Rick Rubin, (founder of DefJam Records, one of Forbes 100 most influential ppl in the world; and current co-head of Columbia Records; see picture below), along with 10 other diligent reporters (Rollingstone, LA Weekly, Flaunt Magazine, etc..), to listen to Neil Diamond's thus far unreleased album HOME BEFORE DARK (to be released May 6th).
{Rick Rubin}
Neil was not in attendance but he left us a hand-out in type-writer print with some words of the experience recording this album. On a typewritter, he had written: "Shouldn't I, at this stage in my life, have mastered my craft?...In truth, I'm as hungry as I ever was: the 'emptiness deep inside' me aches even more...The fourteen months spent furiously writing and then recording this album included some of the highest points in my life so far and some of the lowest, too."
In tandem, the album is raw and sentimental, which could be due to the fact that, according to Rubin, many of the tracks were recorded in just 3 live takes. If the album was a book- it would have fragile, yellow-hued corners as though it had been exposed to the weather of the world for a while. In the album, Diamond sticks to what he knows best- acoustic, folk-rock, love ballads and long lyrical soliloquies spanning up to eight minutes that show his age as well as endurance. It is apparent he has been digging deep down into his psyche- lamenting about life, love and dying- so the honorable rivulets of age are palpable in this album. There's weight in his strumming- while manifold trails of life and experience weave throughout lyrics.
The first track played "If I Don't See You Again" was a long foray into love addiction- about not being about to quit or leave or move on in his distinctive crackling voice. The next track, "Pretty Amazing Grace" had Producer Rubin nodding and swaying as he listened to Neil croon about the loss of hope and faith. Next, "Don't Go There" had psychedelic tones with an onslaught of instrumentals (Trumpet? Horn? is that a sitar I heard? Indeed).
But the most striking song was the delicate, lofty, folk-styled duet with the country chanteuse Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, called "Another Day." Since it is interspersed between heavy acoustic songs, it immediately yet gracefully catches ones attention. In the song, Maines flattened her country tones and instead emerged as a type of folk maven, whose voice would have blended right in on the stages at the Newport Folk Festival. When the duo harmonized about 'Another day that time forgot' while buttressed by a simplistic beautiful piano accompaniment, goosebumps rose on my skin.
Truth be told, majority of the songs on "Home Before Dark" were long winded and heavily-loaded. Diamond frequently used clichéd imagery, for instance of biting apples, freeing birds from cages, and watching curtains descend. At times, I felt like I had heard this before. But with Neil Diamond, such deja vu can be accepted as heirlooms or souvenirs of an icon. Not matter how distracting or lose the metaphors appear to be, his overall message was clear and distinct. As Neil wrote, "The genius of an album becomes a collection of little 'births' and 'deaths'; I live and die with each song. The deaths often arise from my own diffidence, ideas that don't gel, chords that jar, melodies that stray. The births are the magic, the impetus that releases the song from me and brings the ideas to life. I am addicted to them." If
ps FYI Rick Rubin was delightful. He was enthusiastic to talk and reminisce about the album (as well as others before it like 12 songs)...He's also a big fan of Mog, so he said. So kudos to that!
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