I hear he likes his steaks well-done. 
How triumphantly he sings. . .“They’re coming to America”
Or
“Turn on your heartlight
In the middle of a young boy’s dream.”
“I am, I said”
If they made a movie like “Spinal Tap” for pop singers, it WOULD be “The Jazz Singer” and lyrics like he writes would straight up be the songs. He writes such crappy lyrics and delivers them so earnestly with the open shirts and the jewelry. . .it really looks like a great big joke. It’s really hilarious.
That said, I do find he songs catchy, fun to sing along with, and I like his voice, and that’s the real measure of a pop star. But, the guy’s a total tool. A ham. That can’t be denied.
I can’t believe it took more than 20 posts before someone mentioned his clothes.
For me, that’s his greatest sin.
It’s the cheesy clothes, people!
He used “brang” in a song, first of all.
And!
He wrote a song about ETthat wasn’t even in the movie!
You don’t get much more wrong than that.
My sister was teasing her 14 year old one day. He and his father had plans to go see the great Neil Young in concert. So she said, “Drew, Daddy made a bad mistake! He still doesn’t know how it happened, but he accidentally got tickets to see Neil Diamond instead of Neil Young. But it won’t be so bad, really! Grammy and Papa love him, how bad could it be?”
Grammy and Papa indeed.
Doesn’t this happen with most popular songsters from older generations? For instance, I recently read a review that bashed Huey Lewis badly. Well, I enjoyed a lot of his music too. I guess it just happens.
My friend worked at the Albany Pepsi Arena for 11 years and met him several times. She says he was outright rude to his employees, and to the Arena staff, and an obnoxious bastard who thought the world revolved around him.
She’s met a lot. Billy Joel, for example, is a fun kind guy whom she caught riding the Cushmans up and down the halls. She even yelled at him, thinking it was one of her guards, but he just laughed the incident off.
I think all of you Neil Diamond apologists are forgetting a little something called “the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”
That was a sin for which there can be no absolution.
The voice. Definitely the voice. I really don’t mind most of his songs, as long as somebody else is singing them. But my God. I would rather spend a year in a prison cell with Charles Manson than listen to Neil Diamond sing anything.
FWIW, I don’t mind Barry Manilow in the least. But don’t get me started on Aaron Neville. (shudder)
I hear he likes his cocoaaaaa buuuuutter!
Really, he seems more sophisticated than that.
I like him. His lyrics are generally jibberish, just try reading the words to Cracklin’ Rosie. But he’s a competent songwriter and has what I always thought was a nice voice. So he’s neither Dylan nor Jagger nor Pavarotti. He doesn’t need to be. I can’t see being a big fan but neither can I see being a big anti-fan.
I prefer to hear the people who wrote the song do the singing. I much prefer for example “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by the Band as opposed to the sterility that Joan Baez brought to it. Or anything by Dylan vs. other people doing Dylan. So it is with Neil Diamond.
(bolding mine)
Even The Byrds doing “Mr. Tambourine Man?” Or Hendrix doing “All Along The Watchtower?”
Or Manfred Mann’s cover of “Quinn The Eskimo.”
Um, isn’t the definitive version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” by a certain other artist, hmmmmmmm? A certain artist also known for “acting”???
Alright! Alright! I mean Shatner!
I bought all of Neil’s singles (up to a certain point) over the years, because I collect the Hot 100, and I’m a bit of a completist. I only really liked his music up to Longfellow Serenade or Desiree, whichever came last. After that, meh. Although I am not a Neil Diamond fantic, I did just get a CD of his greatest hits, to replace the records with pristine recordings. I like “Sweet Caroline” and “Cherry Cherry” and “Solitary Man” and all of those AM hits. Of course, the lyrics to “I Am I Said” are stupid, it’s not so bad as a melody and arrangement.
I just wanted to mention that last night, we watched the DVD episode of SCTV Network 90 where Andrea Martin as Barbra Streisand appeared with Joe Flaherty as Slim Whitman, to sing this song on Lee Iacocca’s Rock Concert. It was great!
I was born in 1971 and remember listening to Neil Diamond on the radio. I liked a few of his songs even then. Still, he was one of the first artists I can think of who really made me aware of his visual pretention, the whole open shirt I’m-a-sex-symbol thing. (The other group which was all about the presentation was the Osmond family, but I was never ever wild about them.)
Other artists of the time (Kenny Rogers) that I liked were much less… showy, I guess, more about the tunes than about the presentation.
I could listen to Neil Diamond’s music, mostly, as long as I didn’t have to be reminded of that 70s lounge singer look.
His voice? Naw, that’s not it. If I marked down Neil Diamond for wheezing into the microphone I’d have to throw out Jim Morrison and the Doors, who made it work for their music too.
He seems to be one of those performers who is a charismatic void gives the impression of being very narcisistic (sp?)
There are Vegasy singers who avoid this pitfall by having a sense of humour like Elton John and Tom Jones.
Shatner acts??
I’m in my mid-20s, so I remember Neil Diamond because my mother and grandmother would crank his tunes up (“Sweet Caroline”, “Love on the Rocks”, etc.) while we were all hanging out and havin’ a good time. So Neil rolls into town a couple of years ago, and I say to my hubby, “Well, that might be fun” – all the while thinking of good times with my mom and Nan.
That concert was all about weirdness and lack-luster. The “Coming to America” intro was sad and his voice was weak. I kept thinking, “Shouldn’t people be cheering louder? It’s Neil Diamond.” Though, there were quite a few scantily clad ladies in the front row having various fits and seizures all over the edge of the stage. Neil ended up kissing one of them.
And in the row in front of us, a very large man and his very large date, for nearly the entire length of the concert, participated in open groping. I don’t think there exists a more flagrant and noticeable groping technique than the one we witnessed. It was an up-and-over to the boobies method, where an up-and-under approach might have been better.
In sum, what is wrong with Neil Diamond is that he apparently inspires such obvious open groping that a 65 year-old man sitting next to us had to repeatedly jab my husband in ribs and give us the “whoop-dee-do” sign with one finger while motioning to the couple below.
That is what is wrong with Neil Diamond. I’m scarred for life.