Beautiful Noise - NEIL DIAMOND***

Beautiful Noise/Stargazer/Lady-Oh/Don't Think Feel/Surviving The Life/If You Know What I Mean/Street Life/ Home Is A Wounded Heart/Jungletime/Signs/Dry Your Eyes

Beautiful Noise from singer songwriter Neil Diamond was the last album in which he appeared to fully engage his creative talents. If You Know What I Mean and the title track were both top twenty hits. (US:4 UK:10)

“Beautiful Noise is one of Diamond's best albums; the songwriting, arrangements and his vocal power are at a peak here. His music that time was called urban rock and that label pretty much describes it.”

“A varied album and not bad by any means, however it does hop around with some classic pop songs, reggae, ballads and soft pop. Beautiful Noise, is probably his strongest song to open an album with. Great tune, beat, mood and lyrics. Stargazer is another powerful song.”

“For most of the time, producer Robbie Robertson prevents him from lapsing into his usual overwrought style and this album benefits from a couple of fine songs in If You Know What I Mean and Dry Your Eyes, although some of the rest falls well short of this standard.”

“Vocally, Diamond has never sounded better than this. Beautiful Noise and If You Know What I Mean are both very uplifting in their own way. Only a New Yorker could do a tribute album about their city and make it sound so appealing.”

“Beautiful Noise is about the sounds and music Neil heard while growing up in Brooklyn. It is about first loves, but mostly the noises Neil heard drifting out of the many small juke joints and music stores and even coming from homes. The whole album is a concept and Diamond and Robertson hit a home run.”

“Diamond was never an album artist, and Beautiful Noise, with its unnecessarily broad mix of hard rock, easy listening, ragtime jazz, reggae and power balladry, won't prove any doubters wrong.”

“Neil's last concept album features musical arrangements that range from quasi hard-rock, to power ballads, to popish New Orleans jazz and more. That's too much for one album, yet I enjoy most of it and appreciate his last gasp at doing something truly artistic. Sadly, everything that came after has been soulless dreck.”