Earlier this week:
Kelsey: What are we listening to?
Sunny: Neil Diamond's Christmas album.
K: [laughter] Is this Joe K***'s thing? Well not Joe K***'s but you know.
S: Yeah, it's Record Club this week.
K: [As "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" is playing] It's like he's taking all the old Christmas songs and just adding his own little bits.
S: That's Diamondization baby!
As a younger man, I would get Diamond and Young confused. I didn't know many Neils. Now I mostly know the former as the Sweet Caroline-r basically, having lived in Boston for even one Red Sox win. I find this funny considering he is an alleged king of adult contempo, yet that's the only song I know. But of course he has a '90s Xmas album.
It isn't my favorite RC Xmas album, but it gets the job done. Perplexing mostly is the track selection, the key factor for any Xmas album. Diamondification is great sometimes ("Santa Claus Is Coming to Town") and less great other times ("Drummer Boy"). I get the impression Neil doesn't want to be thought of just as a "Jingle Bell Rock"-er, but he might be.
P.S. holy cats, in trying to google the tracklist to this album, I've discovered Diamond has a 2022 Ultra Xmas compilation available in a limited-edition gold opaque 180-gram vinyl double album set, including many songs from this very record. Now that's Diamondorphosis for you!
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