5.06.2005
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
This is the best news I have heard in ages. According to
Rolling Stone Rick Rubin has taken on a make-over project for another American icon:
Rick Rubin is hoping to do for Neil Diamond what he did for Johnny Cash. The producer -- who revived the Man in Black's career in the Nineties with the Grammy-winning American Recordings series -- has revealed to Rolling Stone that he is producing Diamond's next album, the follow-up to 2001's Three Chord Opera.
"I've always been a fan. We got to meet and talk, and it just kind of happened," Rubin says of the project, which he hopes will be out by year's end. "We've done all the basic tracks, and we're gonna go from there."
The record will mark a slight change in direction for Diamond, moving away from his recent, lavishly arranged crooner material to his stripped-down singer-songwriter style of the late Sixties. "This is more of a songwriter's album than a singer's album," says Rubin.
Rubin hopes the record will underscore Diamond's reputation as one of pop's greatest songwriters: "He deserves it more than anyone."
I know this will destroy any semblance of hipster cool that I may have, but I fucking love Neil Diamond (we share a birthday, you know!). And considering what Rubin did for Johnny Cash, perhaps this new album will get Neil back to something more like "Shilo" than "September Morn."
annamaria at 4:40 PM
