Diamonds on the Inside

Both Sides of the Gun Split onto two discs, these 18 songs could have fit on one. It's a testament to Harper's aesthetic sensibilities that it is so configured, thereby both avoiding the scourge of the overly long album and dividing the raw, pummeling rockers from the ballads. With his band, the Inno...	Lifeline Eight albums in just over a dozen years: validation that Ben Harper--mind or body--rarely rests, be it on the road with backing jam band the Innocent Criminals or buried in a studio, where the gifted singer-songwriter lays down his brand of peace-chanting, love-tilting music. Hi...	Burn to Shine Harper's soulful musical mix continues to defy genre categorization and his growth as an artist continues to amaze. Burn to Shine is his most ambitious work to date, tapping a multitude of styles and moods and revolving as usual around his incredibly expressive vocals and searing...	Fight for Your Mind Ben Harper Photos More from Ben Harper Diamonds on the Inside Both Sides of the Gun Welcome to the Cruel World Live From Mars The Will to Live Live at the Hollywood Bowl	Welcome to the Cruel World Ben Harper sounds good on paper. He's a 24-year-old Californian devoted to vintage acoustic guitars, original political songs and the unusual blend of calypso and Mississippi Delta blues--an inspired blend of David Lindley, Tracy Chapman, and Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, Harper's ex...
Live from Mars With a slate of more than 200 shows a year, Ben Harper has never been an album-tour-album-tour kind of artist; for him and his fans, the stage is the ultimate proving ground. So after four studio albums, Harper has finally released his first official live set, a 25-song double-di...	The Will to Live At 28 years intense, Harper released his third album, a mixture of R&B, deep blues, folk-rock, even topical singer-songwriter work (the deliberate, bluesy "Homeless Child"). Harper's voice and style marry the funk-blues of Taj Mahal and the eccentric, electric Dylan. Those weaned...	Sleep Through The Static Jack Johnson recorded his fourth album using nothing but solar power. This is somehow fitting for a singer-songwriter, surfer, and filmmaker who spends most of his days floating in the ocean under Hawaii's open skies. The forces of nature certainly seem to have found their way in...	There Will Be a Light Jam Nation hero Ben Harper tones down his lap-slide guitar flash in favor of the holy spirit for this blend of originals and gospel classics, his first full-length album with the historic singing group. They've worked together before, on the Blind Boys' excellent Higher Ground an...	In Between Dreams For a man who gets his biggest kicks surfing the waves and strumming his guitar on a lonely beach in native Hawaii, singer-songwriter Jack Johnson has carved out quite a remarkable career on the mainland. His 2003 album, On and On, debuted at No. 3 on The Billboard 200 and subseq...

By Far His Best Ever!
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. People just don't enjoy it because they're probably just the original fans of his early more simple music. 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
if you enjoy high quality music, Diamonds is a great place to start, period. This album was my intoduction to Ben Harper

Legend Incarnate?
Ben Harper was only a name to me as he is to most people until faily recently. 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. 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
This is great album, I like how pretty much every song is different, and not just songwise, but it spans many different genres. Ben Harper is always good. 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...

Blah!
Tried listening to this album, failed. Ben Harper apparently has an awful voice, and the song writing is difficult to listen to. The lyrics are so lame. So so lame. One star.