(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover)
Tue 27 January 2026 20:31, UK
It’s hard to really define the kind of draw that Paul Simon has every time he makes a new record.
Whereas most artists would be focused on hopping on trends or trying to have the best musicians on every one of their records, Simon was a songwriter first, and he knew that no album was completed until there were no duds across the entire record. But even with that kind of track record, Simon knew that the hits spoke for themselves every time he came across one of his contemporaries.
Because even though Simon has had countless tunes that would be considered perfect, it’s not going to matter unless you have countless people singing along with you. He may have disliked John Lennon’s more political songs with a passion, but the reason why ‘Power to the People’ holds up over time has a lot more to do with the way that it has impacted everyone. A good melody might be half the battle, but if any singer makes it to an arena, it’s because they made songs that sound good in arenas.
That said, it’s not like Simon was making some avant-garde jazz every single time he performed. He did appreciate having true professionals on every one of his records, but even when making Graceland, it was about interacting with those South African musicians rather than trying to make an auditory masterpiece. When playing live, you pick up little pieces that the studio can’t capture, and that comes from everyone in the audience reacting to everything as well.
But for all of the great tunes that Simon has made over the years, he knew that Neil Diamond truly belonged in a different class of songwriter. He wasn’t a shouter like Little Richard nor did he have that distinct vibrato like Elvis Presley, but when listening to everything from ‘Cherry Cherry’ to ‘Sweet Caroline’ to ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore’, Diamond has made the kind of tunes that have made millions of people want to sing along for years.
Sure, some of that is down to the never-ending amount of Red Sox games that play ‘Sweet Caroline’, but even outside of baseball, Simon thought no one else in pop has been more revered by the masses, saying, “[He is] one of the most beloved and successful singer-songwriters of the last 40 years. Neil is a big big star and you can see why they’re hits. ‘Solitary Man’, ‘I Am…I Said’, ‘Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon’, and the songs that he wrote that other artists covered.”
While his work might not have been on the same level as Bob Dylan or anything, Diamond seemed to crack the code on what made everyone want to sing whenever his tunes came on. He had the dramatic heft in his voice to deliver a song like ‘I Am…I Said’, but even if his songs didn’t have the same stratospheric range as most showstopping voices, there wasn’t a single person that isn’t going ‘BAH BAH BAH’ whenever the chorus of ‘Sweet Caroline’ comes on.
And that magic wasn’t lost on Simon, either. While Simon chose the path of being the kind of artist who switches things up on every record, he could see Diamond going down a similar road in his later years. Working with Rick Rubin may have been a strange choice, but after the bearded guru came off of producing Johnny Cash, everyone got to appreciate the songwriter behind all of those hits when listening to 12 Songs.
Because of all the window dressing that people put on rock and roll nowadays, both Simon and Diamond understood that the power of a great hook outshone pretty much anything. It’s one thing to make trendy music to keep up with the times, but having tunes that have real stories, real players, and real singers behind them is never going to go out of style, no matter what new technology comes along.
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