Serenade

Performer: Neil Diamond
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Neil Diamond continued his long winning streak with this relaxed, palatable follow-up to 1973's JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL. SERENADE contains the sunny hit "Longfellow Serenade" as well as the equally charming, if less well-known "Rosemary's Wine," and typical grandiose orchestral ballads like "I've Been This Way Before" and "Yes I Will." There's also the fanciful "The Last Picasso" and the Caribbean-flavored "Reggae Strut," all adding up to a classic collection of flamboyant early-'70s pop. Neil Diamond's first regular album release for Columbia Records, following the success of the movie soundtrack Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Serenade is a slight effort characterized by Diamond's attempts to make pop sentiments seem more profound by grafting more auspicious art references onto them. But whether he's name-dropping Picasso or Longfellow, Diamond still has greeting card sentiments on his mind. Nevertheless, the catchiest of these autodidactic exercises, "Longfellow Serenade," which combines comments about "winged flight" with the exhortation, "Come on, baby, ride," was a Top Ten hit. ~ William Ruhlmann

With a career as a hitmaker stretching across the decades, Neil Diamond has purveyed catchy, three-chord pop/rock, progressive singer/songwriter material, middle-of-the-road balladry, and even traditional country. He started out as a Brill Building hitmaker; a songwriter for hire, he worked alongside the likes of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and penned hits for the Monkees and Jay & the Americans. His solo career took off in the mid 1960s and made him one of America's most successful recording artists and concert attractions for a long time to come. Even decades down the road, younger groups such as UB40 in the '80s, Urge Overkill in the '90s, and Smash Mouth in the 2000's were still scoring hits with Diamond's evergreen compositions.

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