SEVENTIES rock legend Neil Diamond has climbed back to the top of the music charts—56 years after his No. 1 hit ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’—proving that timeless music never goes out of style.
The legendary singer-songwriter is back on the Billboard 200 chart, with his album All-Time Greatest Hits re-entering at No. 171, marking another milestone for one of pop music’s most enduring musicians.
Diamond’s compilation album originally peaked at No. 15 and has now spent 56 weeks on the chart across its run.
The renewed chart success puts the spotlight back on ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’, the opening track on the collection and the song that became Neil Diamond’s first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1970.
Though our personal favorite is ‘Sweet Caroline’, the classic single ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ helped establish Diamond as one of the defining hitmakers of his era and remains one of his signature recordings.
Released on July 8, 2014, All-Time Greatest Hits is a 23-track compilation spanning the rock star’s most successful recordings from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
The album opens with ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ and also features fan favorites including (our fave) ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Song Sung Blue’, ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’, ‘America’, ‘Hello Again’, ‘Love on the Rocks’, ‘Red Red Wine’ and ‘I Am . . . I Said’.
Astonishingly, upon the album’s original release, the compilation hit No. 15 on the Billboard 200 and also charted internationally, including in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands.
All-Time Greatest Hits received positive reviews and accolades when it debuted. As a matter of fact, American online music database AllMusic described the album as a generous collection of Diamond’s biggest hits across multiple record labels, while international cultural critic PopMatters called it “the most concise and satisfying summation of Neil Diamond’s career.”
However, ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ remains the singer-songwriter’s career-defining hit, as the album’s lead track carries particular significance in Diamond’s 56-year-long career.
His No. 1 hit-maker was released in 1970 on the album Tap Root Manuscript and immediately reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was also his third single to sell one million copies in the United States.
‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ also enjoyed international success, reaching No. 3 in the UK and No. 1 in Canada, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa, while also performing strongly across Australia and Europe. Billboard ranked the song as the No. 17 song of 1970, further cementing its place among the year’s biggest hits.
Focusing on Diamond in the meantime, he has compiled an extraordinary career that includes 10 No. 1 singles across the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, along with 38 Top 10 Adult Contemporary hits.
Aside from the best-known songs we have mentioned, Diamond’s other hits include ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’ and ‘Heartlight’.
Beyond commercial success, Diamond has earned some of music’s highest honors. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
He also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Now at 85, Diamond continues to stay creatively active. In May 2026, he released Wild at Heart, his first album of original material in more than a decade.
Although he retired from full-scale touring in 2018 following his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, Diamond has continued writing, recording and making occasional public appearances.
