Pick of the week: Neil Diamond

As stage names go Eice Charry and Noah Kaminsky don't exactly roll off the tongue. Last week, however, we learned that Neil Diamond had given considerable thought to both as alternatives to his birth name, which most people assumed was assumed to begin with.

But as Diamond has proven, it's best to take nothing for granted in pop. The facade of fame comes crumbling down only to be built back up and torn back down again at the merest hint of overexposure.

Diamond knows this better than most. After years in the pop wilderness - albeit after selling millions of records in the 1960s and 1970s - last month he simultaneously topped the album charts in both Britain and America with his new album Home Before Dark. Incredibly, it was his first number one album in America. Later this month he will play the Living Legends slot at Glastonbury (he is by far the best thing on this year's disappointing bill).

Now, in the middle of the biggest stadium tour of his career, all the talk is of a latter-day revival to match Elvis's 1968 comeback special. Suddenly, at 67, Diamond's star is shining brighter than ever before.

Critics have attributed his renaissance to Rick Rubin, the record producer who relaunched Johnny Cash in the twilight of his career with the American Recordings albums. Rubin pestered Diamond for months before the latter agreed to let him produce the critically acclaimed, 12 Songs, a gloriously dark and sombre album that was more in the style of Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon and Solitary Man, all brooding and mysterious, than Sweet Caroline or I'm a Believer.

But Diamond's livelier back catalogue - tracks such as Forever in Blue Jeans and Cracklin' Rosie - is due a reappraisal as much as the serious stuff that makes the rock historians' hearts beat faster. They are the songs likely to have housewives who have always had soft spot for the crooner throwing their underwear at Hampden Park.

A makeover to coincide with the release of Home Before Dark has paid dividends. Gone is the unruly parting and garish Vegas-era shirts. Diamond cuts a lone figure in a black jacket, hair closely cut to accentuate lean and chiselled facial features that most sexagenerians would swap 750m album sales for. He may be 67 but he still looks mighty good in blue jeans.