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Ben Harper - Diamonds on the Inside Audio CD

A fair review of the Ben Harper "Diamonds on the Inside" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Ben Harper reviews here, or go back to the Ben Harper tabs.

Ben Harper Band: Ben Harper
Title: Diamonds on the Inside
Rating:
Release Date: 2003-03-31
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: With My Own Two Hands 2: When It's Good 3: Diamonds on the Inside 4: Touch From Your Lust 5: When She Believes 6: Brown Eyed Blues 7: Bring the Funk 8: Everything 9: Amen Omen 10: Temporary Remedy 11: So High So Low 12: Blessed to Be a Witness 13: Picture of Jesus 14: She's Only Happy in the Sun

Would Have Purchased...
I wonder how many sales they lost. . Like me, by putting that copy protect crap on the cd?
Pretty stupid considering (We,the people who are trying to do things "The right way") have to jump through hoops to get/play their music legally, while the others don't worry about it at all.
The Music is good. . . Would have been 4 stars for the content. . . .
But when it contains "booby traps". . . They can keep it.

.


By Far His Best Ever!
People just don't enjoy it because they're probably just the original fans of his early more simple music. Don't listen to the negative reviews of this cd it is one of the best and liveliest albums i've ever heard save for one or two songs. The quality of Diamonds sounds like a pop album and it's great. The album just Hits its so diverse and has everything from Reggae to Jam Rock to Funk,Heavy Blues, an Italian love song with an accordion, to Spiritual songs inspired by World Music. I love all his stuff especially his newest cd Lifeline but this is one of my favorites.


a perfect album
This album was my intoduction to Ben Harper. if you enjoy high quality music, Diamonds is a great place to start, period.


Legend Incarnate?
I saw him live and on the Henry Rollins show both this year and and picked-up his new double album and am now scampering to get ALL his material and soak it up. Ben Harper was only a name to me as he is to most people until faily recently. Bottom Line: Ben is out of era. . . in the Motown years he would have had a home but today no one (including his label) really knows how to market him. He is far too mature musically for the modern day R&B radio and out of the mold for alternative music so he fits into that void that many have had GREAT success in such as Jack Johnson, Tracy Chapman and others but he is his own (as are the aforementioned). He is old school R&B and his openess to experiementation and variation not too mention his talent and sound sometimes make me think he is the incarnate of the late, great Marvin Gaye, funny since I do not believe in reincarnation.
I can ealisy reccommend ANYTHING by Ben if you love Marvin and Motown. He also has hints of Marleyesque struggle in his musical lyrics as well as a heavy gospel influence at times. What an amazing talent! This album is one of his best overall and a good showcase of his music. A good place to start but you can't go wrong with anything he has done.

*side note regarding review below that is overall positive (not trying to dis the reviewer, but if you want to play critic get it right). IN the second paragraph this person claims that in "Picture of Jesus" Ben rips-offs Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Sole of her Shoes" (Graceland is a favorite of mine by the way) so I had to take a listen myself to see if there is any truth to this. The only reason I address this is b/c he or she accusses Ben of being 'classless' for not giving Paul credit! While the review was pretty good compared to most this was one of the funniest things I have ever read from a layman's review. . . first of all the only similarity between the two songs is that they both use a South African (Soweto) group to harmonize in the song, that is it! Ben's melody and musical song structure is completely different and rather Paul had any influence on Ben is highly questionable (and even if he/she is right does it matter, music is all about influence). Soweto has been around forever, long before the great Paul Simon brought it into the mainstream not to mention Grammy fame. . . so to say that it is classless to not thank Paul Simon (a WHITE amerikan songwriter) for Ben's (a Black amerikan) use of Soweto harmony in one of his songs is both hilarious and completely irrelevant.


All good
Ben Harper is always good. This is great album, I like how pretty much every song is different, and not just songwise, but it spans many different genres. There's a lot of good reviews for this album, so I won't go much further than that.

Two quick points:

1) I had no trouble playing the music on my computer and converting it into MP3 form. Don't know if it's just some CDs that have the protection or what.

2) Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been around forever and have sounded the same before and after Paul Simon's Graceland album. I don't think it's fair to say that Ben Harper copied anything. They're a beautiful sounding group and they always have that sound. I'm sure everyone remembers the Lifesavers commercials.


You can see a complete list of all Ben Harper discography, or go back to the Ben Harper tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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