Neil Diamond

Stav desky: NM
- jako nová, téměř nehraná

Stav obalu: EX+
- stopy běžného používání

Pozn.: znaménko + nebo - upřesňuje stav desky, obalu

OBAL PEKNY
DESKA VYBORNY STAV


A1   Sunday Sun  2:47
A2   A Modern Day Version Of Love  2:49
A3   Honey-Drippin Times  2:06
A4   The Pot Smoker's Song  4:00
A5   Brooklyn Roads  3:39
B1   Two-Bit Manchild  3:06
B2   Holiday Inn Blues  3:16
B3   Practically Newborn  3:31
B4   Knackelflerg  2:24
B5   Merry-Go-Round  3:14

Much credit for "The Pot Smoker's Song" must go to the kids of Phoenix House in New York City. Without the cooperation and frankness of these young ex-drug addicts who are still struggling to find their way back, this "song" never could have been done.


Diamond's most enjoyable and consistentally great album from the 60's.As others have said,Velvet Gloves and Spit has a late 60's New York city flavour to it.That is because this is the only album that Diamond wrote and recorded in New York as a "serious artist" experimenting and expressing personal issues.There is no country influences on these songs.And no big concepts.Instead Velvet Gloves and Spit is a collection of downbeat rock n roll,and simple pure pop joys.

Velvet Gloves and Spit opens with the rambling but great rocker "Two Bit Manchild" (obviously influenced by Diamond's divorce)."Modern Day Version of
Love" expresses the same sentiments,but in a beautiful guitar-ballad."Honey Drippin Times',"Holiday In Blues" and "Sunday Sun" invoke the simple joys of summers traveling or relaxing in the park."Brooklyn Roads" and "Shilo are now-classics about childhood.Then there is "Practically Newborn"-another rocker with a progressive sound most don't associate with Diamond.And I love "Merry-Go-Round"-a dark sing along  where Diamond asks questions about "the rich and the poor" and "the good and the bad" as horns come in on the searching chorus.

Then there  are the two "silly" songs-"Pot Smoker Song" and "Knackeflerg" .I think both are kind of enjoyable.Dumb lyrics but very humable melodies.
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A noticeable stylistic shift from the previous (and masterful) Just for You album, Velvet Gloves And Spit takes cautious steps outside of the urban aural environment of its predecessor into 'Countrypolitan'. This vibrant, new pop/country/soul style was already inhabited by songwriting and performing giants. Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete, John Hartford's Housing Project and Glen Campbell's By the Time I Get to Phoenix albums were all masterworks of the genre put out in the six months prior to Velvet Gloves' June '68 release date.
       Whereas Diamond's previous two L.P.'s placed the artist firmly against a slick and sharp, gleaming steel and concrete New York backdrop, Velvet Gloves suggests open, dustier vistas. The instrumental differences might be subliminal (the odd harmonica; more nylon (stringed) instead of bronze acoustic guitars; the lack of low, 'bubblegum' twangy electrics) but when placed in this warmer and wider stereo context, lends the performer an air of the 'travelling troubadour' so profitably prevalent at the time.
       Thankfully, he knew exactly where his journey had begun. The Brill-Building technician remained intact and all the songs here (with the one exception of the comically massive faux pas that is "The Pot Smoker's Song") display his concise, disciplined mastery to the full.
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Oh you wacky liberals, give it a rest, the "Pot Smoker's Song" is precisely what makes the Diamond awesome - the fact that he is hopelessly out-of-place in the hipster environments of the music industry. The track is amazing and (incidentally) trippier than most "hippie" tracks (by the likes of the Grateful Dead, for instance). You go ahead and "ride the pink horse down nightmare alley" if you must, but DO NOT mess with the Diamond! Beyond that, "Velvet Gloves" is another fine effort of early Diamond on-par with "Just For You".