Melody Road
We could question the gods' decision to make only one Neil Diamond, but maybe one of him is all this planet can handle. At 73, the man still touches insane amounts of warm. There are no duds on his first all-new album since 2008 – just 12 stripped down soft-rock tracks, not too heavy on the strings, hitting consistently hard whether Diamond plays the winsome crooner ("Something Blue") or the bummed-out belter ("Alone at the Ball"). "Seongah and Jimmy" is a tale of a Long Island boy and a Korean immigrant living in Greenpoint. ("Love happens! In Brooklyn!") And "The Art of Love"is a tutorial from the master. Spoiler: "The art of love is who you share it with."