The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 846

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Number 846 - Neil Diamond

Number 846

Neil Diamond

"Solitary Man"

(1966)

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Genre:Singer Songwriter

Regarded as one of the most important artists of all time and i agree.

"From the 1960s to the 1980s, Diamond was one of the more successful pop music performers, scoring a a number of hits in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. As critic William Ruhlmann writes, "as of 2001, he claimed worldwide record sales of 115 million copies, and as of 2002 he was ranked third, behind only

Elton John and Barbra Streisand, on the list of the most successful adult contemporary artists in the history of the Billboard chart." As of May 2005 he has sold 120 million records worldwide (Source: NY Times), including 48 million records in U.S. "

About the song itself......

"Diamond was back in a recording studio, and on April 4, Bang released his label debut single, "Solitary Man," produced, as all his subsequent Bang discs would be, by Barry and Greenwich. "Solitary Man" gave him his first chart entry as a recording artist, peaking at number 55 on the Hot 100 in July. (In 1970, T.G. Sheppard revived it for a number 14 country hit. Among numerous other covers over the years, the song has been placed on chart albums by the Sidewinders, Chris Isaak, and Johnny Cash, appearing as the title song on Cash's 2000 release American III: Solitary Man.) "

For Johnny Cash see Number 624 & #705

For Elton John see Number 531

For Barbara Streisand see Number 836

For more Neil Diamond see Number 698 & #972

What does RS think of Mr Diamond?

Pop songwriter Neil Diamond, a veteran of the Brill Building song factory, became one of the best-selling MOR performers of the '70s. Singing his own melodramatic quasi-gospel songs in a portentous baritone, he has sold over 92 million records worldwide, amassing over 35 Top 40 singles and 18 platinum albums. He toured the U.S., Europe, and Australia in 1972 and placed two albums in the U.S. Top 5: Moods and the live Hot August Night (which also became Australia’s best-selling album at the time; 3 million sales in a country of 14 million people). He also played a 20-performance one-man show on Broadway in 1972. ~ [Source: Rolling Stone]

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (would you believe they snubbed Mr Diamond too?) and the Album ranked at Number (he's not our cup of tea)

This song has a crowbarred rating of 61.4 out of 108