The Neil Diamond Collection

Neil Diamond是美国60－80年代最为成功的流行歌手和创作人之一，在Billboard历史上，他的成绩仅次于Elton John和Barbra Streisand。截至2005年，他的专辑在全世界范围内已经售出了1亿2千万张，这简直是个天文数字。他在1984年入选歌曲创作名人堂。然而，尽管在商业上非常成功，由于他的整体风格属于典型的流行＋软摇滚，在专业的乐评领域他并没有得到很高的评价。我个人认为这张精选并不是他最好最全的精选集，他有许多脍炙人口的歌曲并未收进这张专辑，但专辑中的歌曲风格比较多样，大约比较受乐评人的认可，这也是他唯一一张入选滚石500强的专辑。 这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第222位。 Although not as comprehensive an anthology of Neil Diamond's eight-album, four-year affiliation with MCA as 1992's 38-track double Glory Road, The Neil Diamond Collection is a definitive single-disc recap of one of his extensive career's most influential periods. It's a beautifully remastered, non-chronologically arranged 67 minutes of studio highlights from Diamond's most ambitious, if not his most commercially successful years. Only his version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," the disc's lone cover, is a questionable choice, but since it charted at number 20 in 1970, its inclusion is justified. Otherwise, this non-stop, hit-filled collection shifts from one radio standard to another, easily replacing the existing and rather anemic 12 Greatest Hits with its sound quality, depth and breadth. Dramatic, classic mini pop-operas like "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show," "Cracklin' Rosie," and "Holly Holy" are as much a part of the late-'60s singer/songwriter rubric as work from the era's more feted artists. The thoughtfully compiled 16-page booklet includes detailed track documentation, an extensive essay, and some rare pictures of the young artist, making this the essential single-disc representation of Neil Diamond's short, yet significant, MCA tenure.