Harry Rapheal
Neil Diamond is opening the vault. The 85-year-old singer-songwriter is releasing Wild at Heart, a new album built entirely from previously unheard recordings made during his acclaimed mid-2000s partnership with super-producer Rick Rubin. Billed as his 35th studio album, the record arrived on May 8, 2026, and closes out a trilogy that began nearly two decades ago.
The final chapter of the Rubin trilogy
Wild at Heart is not a fresh recording so much as a long-buried one. Its ten songs were cut back in 2007, during the sessions that produced Diamond’s 2008 album Home Before Dark, and have sat unreleased ever since. Together with 12 Songs (2005) and Home Before Dark (2008), the new set completes a three-album arc of Diamond–Rubin collaborations — the material that reframed how a generation of listeners heard one of pop’s most bankable hitmakers.
The tracklist runs: “Wild At Heart,” “You Can’t Have It All,” “Talking It To Death,” “Shine On,” “The Secret You,” “You Never Know,” “You’re Getting To Me,” “You Still Look Good To Me,” “You’re My Favorite Song” and “Forgotten.” In keeping with the two albums that preceded it, the production is stripped down, foregrounding Diamond’s voice and guitar over the lush orchestration of his earlier hits.
How the partnership reinvented Diamond
The Diamond–Rubin story is one of pop’s more unlikely late-career reinventions. Rubin — the producer who had already revived Johnny Cash and worked across rock and hip-hop — took Diamond into the studio for 2005’s 12 Songs, coaxing him to pick up an acoustic guitar and return to the intimate, confessional songwriting of his early years. Critics embraced the reset, though the album’s momentum was blunted by the notorious Sony “rootkit” copy-protection scandal, which forced some copies off shelves.
The pair regrouped for Home Before Dark in 2008, a stripped-back sequel that surrounded Diamond with a crack studio band — including Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell — and largely dispensed with drums. That record gave Diamond the first No. 1 album of his long career on the Billboard 200, a milestone that arrived decades after his run of signature hits. Wild at Heart draws from the same well of sessions, offering what amounts to a coda to that creative peak.
A release shaped by Diamond’s retirement
The timing gives the album added weight. Diamond stepped away from touring in 2018 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and he has largely retreated from public performance since. With new recordings unlikely, archival releases like Wild at Heart have become the primary way fresh Diamond music reaches the world — making these decades-old tapes feel less like outtakes and more like a final statement from the Rubin era.
The album lands during an unusually busy stretch for the Diamond catalog. His biographical jukebox musical A Beautiful Noise, which folds his Parkinson’s diagnosis into its story, continued touring through 2026, while his All-Time Greatest Hits collection notched a fresh chart milestone in the United Kingdom. For longtime fans, Wild at Heart adds one more chapter — and, in all likelihood, the last — to a partnership that gave Diamond a remarkable second act.
Editor’s note: This article was compiled from public reporting by American Songwriter, Consequence, Noise11, mxdwn Music, Rock Cellar Magazine, uDiscover Music, and public record sources including Wikipedia and AllMusic. It is an original summary and does not reproduce the text of any single source or any song lyrics.
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