The deal would raise cash for Sesac, a privately-held Nashville company that owns the exclusive rights to the public broadcast or performance of music by Mr. Dylan, Neil Diamond and Rush, among others. According to reports earlier this month, the company was working with Goldman on a $300 million offering backed by the royalties it receives from its rights to the music of those artists.

Goldman had originally intended to sell the bond in a single tranche, according to the FT, meaning bond-buyers would have identical returns on their investment in the offering. The offering would have carried a rating of BBB- from Standard & Poor's, one level above junk; as a so-called 144A private placement, The Wall Street Journal reported, the offering was only available to qualified institutional investors—those with more than $100 million to invest.

According to the FT, initial interest in the offering was tepid, and the investment bank is restructuring the deal to create a senior tranche, which pays a lower return and offers greater protection from potential losses, and a junior tranche, which provides higher returns with greater risk.

The securitization of rock and roll royalties is not a new phenomenon—back in 1997, David Bowie sold $55 million in bonds backed by royalties to Prudential Insurance. It is, on the other hand, a fine opportunity for punning.

From the FT:

"Investors have thought twice and decided it’s not alright to take up an unusual bond offering backed by royalties from songs penned by Bob Dylan and other musicians."

"If it falls apart entirely and bankers are denied the hunks of plastic they use to celebrate deals, they may suffer from the Tombstone Blues.”

And from The Guardian:

"Bankers may blame it on a Simple Twist of Fate but market participants suggest the delay demonstrates the continuing difficulty in selling such esoteric products, even in the current climate."

"The bankers may now be singing Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance, as they market the deal for the second time."

To which we'd add a couple feeble efforts of our own:

Goldman's Dylan offering is Tangled Up in BBB- Blue.

Fate of Dylan bond deal Blowin' in the Wind.

Surely you can do better ...

The induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was set to begin, and the honorees were taking turns in the press room. Nobody seemed to be enjoying themselves very much.
Leon Russell stood on a platform with collaborator Elton John. “Tonight is the culmination of an effort on my behalf to get this man recognized for his achievements,” Mr. John said, unsmiling. He lay a hand on Mr. Russell’s knee as the bearded pianist sat gnomic and unfazed behind black sunglasses.

“Why do you feel he’s been forgotten?” a journalist asked.

“I was afraid of the press,” Mr. Russell said.  “I was never as good at publicity as Elton. He’s the master of publicity.”

Not on this occasion. As the pair left the stage, the mood in the room was glum. “That looked like the American Gothic painting,” said one photographer.

Doors drummer John Densmore, a presenter, hit the stage holding a bottle of water. But upon realizing it wasn’t suitable to include in photos, he threw it at a publicist, who let it wing by her. He wasn’t much friendlier to the photographers. He pantomimed snapping off a few shots, then made a cross with his fingers. “What does that mean?” he asked, rhetorically. “It means stop.”

After letting slip that he was working on “one of those self-centered rock memoirs,” which would “put the rock scene on trial,” Mr. Densmore turned around, showing off the angel wings bedazzled on the back of his jacket.

“It is a cool jacket,” the beleaguered publicist muttered. ”I will give you that.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

I tried so hard to like Rolling Stone editor David Wild’s He Is … I Say that at first I pretended to not see sentences like “See, I’m a Believer that Neil Diamond didn’t just go on American Idol this year—he is an American idol, year after year” or “Forty years later, ‘Brooklyn Roads’ remains a song that I’ve seen reduce grown men to tears, including a few times when I was looking in the mirror.”

Mr. Wild’s new book on Neil Diamond is so shmaltzy—and not the irresistible shmaltz of Diamond hits like “Sweet Caroline” or “I’m a Believer”—that it takes tolerance to make it through to page 203. The difference between sweet-tooth pop songs and gooey writing about sweet-tooth pop (his “I’m a Believer” pun is repeated, honestly, 37 times) is that one compels you to sing along to the radio and the other compels you to put a book down.

The wink-wink, nudge-nudge tackiness (“For my gelt, nobody rocks ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ like Neil”) wouldn’t be so brutal if it were served up with an analysis of Mr. Diamond’s life and lifework. Who could blame a writer for hamming it up a little while analyzing a singer who’s sold 125 million gloriously corny records?

The problem is that there’s no analysis. The book is a smoothie of things Mr. Diamond has said in liner notes (like “I’ve always been moved by gospel music”) and on television: Mr. Wild produced Mr. Diamond’s Behind the Music episode for VH1, referred to on more than 20 pages. Then there are chart positions for Mr. Diamond’s hits (“The single rose to #6 on pop, #3 on adult contemporary. As Neil rightly said, ‘When you’re hot, you’re hot’”), plus tidbits from Mr. Wild’s face-to-face encounters with his idol.

And there is no real biography. Wouldn’t it be great to learn all about Mr. Diamond’s jaw-dropping, record-setting $150 million divorce settlement? What about his mid-’70s therapy? The yogi he saw every day for six weeks? The six months he packed a .38? The mid-’80s slump that was so bad that Columbia Records rejected two of his albums? All this is mentioned only in passing.

There’s also no real music criticism. Mr. Wild is totally uninterested in analyzing Mr. Diamond’s most addictive music, his mushiest, or the glob in between. “Sweet Caroline” is just “a song that struck”; his 1991 album, Lovescape, is a “beautiful and lushly romantic effort”; a rarity called “The Long Way Home” is a “catchy midtempo pop rock winner.”

He takes three pages to describe learning to drive in L.A., but one paragraph on watching a Diamond tribute band while sitting with the real deal himself. Here’s Mr. Wild: “Neil leaned over to let me know that in a matter of mere minutes he would actually be taking the stage to sing with his own tribute act. Tragically, my otherwise goodhearted wife insisted that we had to leave the show before that since we had promised our babysitter we would be home by 11:00 p.m.” Think about what a writer like Nick Tosches could have done with a Neil/fake-Neil scene! It boggles the mind.

REVIEWING NEIL DIAMOND'S 1972 live album, Robert Christgau wrote, “It’s obvious that the man is some sort of genius rock entertainer, but for the most part the great entertainer is striving for bad art and not even achieving it.” Is that fair? “That was me trying to be Neil Sedaka on the ‘A’ side,” Diamond says in this book about an early song (actually, he said it in liner notes and it’s repeated in the book). “And not even coming close.”

Considering that Mr. Diamond is a man who aped Neil Sedaka in his youth and told concert audiences in his adulthood, “My name is Neil. I weep. I cry. I care,” it’s massively odd that Mr. Wild isn’t questioning or cynical about his subject’s extreme tackiness. The book’s subtitle, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond,” is hilariously misleading: A latency period in the author’s lifelong Diamond adoration is mentioned on page 147, and resolved two pages later.

Nowadays, David Wild tells us, he puts on Diamond music in the background when he and his father-in-law, Art, get together to talk about life. Is he kidding? Is Neil Diamond? I’m a believer that it’s no joke.

Max Abelson is a reporter at The Observer. He can be reached at mabelson@observer.com.

It seems like bands with animal names are all the rage these days. The canadian indie pop quartet Wolf Parade (not to be confused with the equally hyped Detroit noise outfit Wolf Eyes) is no exception. They play Terminal 5 on July 31. [On Sale: Friday, May 2 at noon]

Speaking of hype, Bloc Party is playing Webster Hall August 6 and 7. [On Sale: Friday, May 2 at noon

But best of all ...

You've seen his records in the dollar bin. You've settled on "Sweet Caroline" when looking for something bearable to listen to on your car radio. That's Neil Diamond for you! He's playing MSG on Aug. 15. [On Sale: Friday, May 2 at 10 a.m.]

There’s something comforting about the predictability of House (Fox, 9 p.m.), which returns tonight. Sometimes it’s nice to have a show where you can set your watch by its familiar plot points, like the show’s every climax where Dr. House has reluctantly ordered some incredibly invasive procedure to cure a patient, only to have it interrupted at the last moment by a new symptom or a phrase that triggers one of Dr. House’s Eureka moments. But, finally, there’s a twist! It’s now on Mondays. (You probably saw that one coming, too.)

Poor Chuck Bass, framed for the devilish scheme concocted by—spoiler alert, I guess—Georgina, Serena’s long-lost friend played by Michelle Trachtenberg on Gossip Girl (CW, 8 p.m.). As if Blair and Jenny’s feuding weren’t enough, it appears the show has a lot more cat-fighting in store. Luckily, the producers thought better of casting Mischa Barton in the role of Georgina. One just gets the sense that she would have been devoured by the better actress, Blake Lively, and the fighting would not have been that good. What fun would that have been?

TUESDAY

It’s a very hairy Tuesday! As in body hair, of course.

The night kicks off with the remaining six American Idol (Fox, 8 p.m.) contestants singing their favorite hits from the catalogue of the furry-chested Neil Diamond. Last week, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber … and they wonder why their ratings are slumping? Apparently, their core audience is dying off!

At 8:30 p.m., NBC kicks it up a notch with a rerun of the best of Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live. “Schweaty balls,” indeed …

And finally, Sasquatch incarnate, Robin Williams makes a guest appearance on Law & Order: S.V.U. (NBC, 10 p.m.). But the character he plays is anything but cuddly—he poses as a police officer on the phone and tricks people into committing criminal acts, like saying they liked Patch Adams.

WEDNESDAY

CBS goes after NBC’s Deal or No Deal (8 p.m.) with an installment of its Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (8 p.m.). To compete with the comedic dynamos of Howie Mandel and Drew Carey, ABC is developing a props-based “This Is Your Life” hosted by Carrot Top. OK, that’s not true, but it can’t be far off, right?

Farmer Wants a Wife (CW, 9 p.m.) is a new reality series in which ten city women compete to marry a rural bachelor. It’s like Sex and the City meets City Slickers! The first episode features a chicken-catching contest a la Rocky. What good wife can’t catch a chicken?

THURSDAY

In anticipation of Scrubs’ final episode on the network, NBC is moving it to the less desirable timeslot of 8:30 p.m. 30 Rock will take its place at 9:30 p.m., where it will benefit from The Office’s (9 p.m.) strong lead-in. Considering how bad Scrubs has been lately, its end couldn’t come quick enough. It’s as if the network is purposefully airing terrible episodes in order to ruin whatever chance the show has of getting picked up elsewhere. Just marry off J.D. and Elliot and let’s be done with it.

Step It Up and Dance (Bravo, 10 p.m.) and presumably host Elizabeth Berkley visit with Jason Alexander and the choreographer of Broadway show Damn Yankees. Alexander will serve as a guest judge—as if the show wasn’t already struggling for credibility.

FRIDAY

It’s the second-season debut of Man v. Wild (Discovery, 9 p.m.)—and on the perfect night. Lonely ladies are still cooling off from last year’s episode in which host Bear Grylls did push-ups in the nude to demonstrate how to warm up after falling into an ice-covered river. TGIF!

SUNDAY

The full Fox cartoon line-up is back. The Simpsons (8 p.m.), King of the Hill (8:30 p.m.), Family Guy (9 p.m.), and American Dad (9 p.m.) are all new just in time to offer small solace to those in full John Adams withdrawal.

Just as The Blues Brothers revived original soul artists, hopefully O Brother will lead some ears to Gillian Welch, the previously obscure neo-traditionalist singer-songwriter who both helped produce the disc and shared lead vocals (with Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris) on two of its most stirring tracks, "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" and "I'll Fly Away."

Ms. Welch, 33, and her modestly unbilled collaborator of 10 years, David Rawlings, recently played Town Hall after having primed a Gotham fan base with two brief, memorable performances: a raw, electric version of "Idiot Wind" at The New Yorker 's Bob Dylan birthday bash and, at the O Brother concert at Carnegie Hall, a haunting acoustic pseudo-oldie, "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll." The latter is a highlight from their third, beautifully harmonious effort, Time (The Revelator) , on Ms. Welch's new private label, Acony (which, following the corporate consolidation of her former label, Almo, is also rereleasing her two previous efforts, both produced by T-Bone Burnett, who discovered the musicians). Time was recorded in Elvis Presley's original RCA studio in Nashville, their adopted home base. The studio imparts a full-bodied acoustic shimmer to the duo that is positively haunting. Even the album's photo of Ms. Welch and Mr. Rawlings looks vintage.

Though Ms. Welch grew up in L.A. (her parents scored The Carol Burnett Sho w), she sounds sprung from an Appalachian creek, with a wise, soulful voice and a Dylanesque ability to vacillate between direct and allusive lyricism. The pining, spine-tingling lullaby "Dear Someone" and the gospelish, pearly-gates-invoking "Red Clay Halo" are so perfectly pitched, they sound like they date back to the Bristol Sessions. But "My First Lover" rocks out with a stomping banjo riff and a steamy, raw honesty: "He was always talking, trying to bring me down / But I was not waiting for a white wedding gown / From my first lover." And the title track, about reparations of the heart and mind–and probably the first bluegrass song to contain the line "Going back to Cali"–ends with an acoustic guitar jam worthy of Led Zep Unplugged. More ambitious efforts–like the bisected pairing "April the 14th, Part I" and "Ruination Day, Part II," which link historical and personal tragedies (Lincoln's assassination, the sinking of the Titanic and an aspiring band with an ill-fated gig)–aren't as instantly accessible, but have a deeper payoff. The 15-minute finale, "I Dream a Highway," draws the listener into a meditative stream of yearning and heartache one might have thought impossible in the era of Frappuccinos and instant messaging. O sister, thou hast arrived.

–David Handelman

Sam Phillips: Fan -f*#!ing-tastic

Life is usually best explained in retrospect. Distance aids perspective and cools the distorting heat of the moment.

So God bless Sam Phillips for making a beautiful little album that's very much in the present. Fan Dance (Nonesuch) is short–barely over 30 minutes–and spare, but every word and note work at evoking the weird combination of dread and possibility that life holds right now.

Ms. Phillips has been quoted as saying that she spent the years leading up to Fan Dance thinking about failure, especially that of her 1996 album, Omnipop (It's Only a Flesh Wound Lambchop!) , which was supposed to build on the success of her excellent 1994 album, Martinis & Bikinis . The fruit of her meditation comes just as we are putting the failure of the Clinton years behind us. We were supposed to enter the 21st century richer and happier, a more fulfilled people, but the only thing that arrived as promised was the future, and we have no choice but to deal with it. Life may be longer thanks to science, but it means living in a world that's already recycled the last 50 years of popular culture.

When Ms. Phillips sings, "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be / I can only picture the disappearing world when you touch me" on "Taking Pictures," she could very well be singing about our first year under George W. Bush. Fan Dance seems to be about finding the strength to push on into the future, even if the progress is incremental. "I don't mind if I am getting nowhere / Circling the seed of light / I've been greedy for some destination / I can't get to where are you?" she sings on "Five Colors," one of the album's most beautiful songs. Ms. Phillips began her career as a Christian singer, but here she's preaching a secular faith. At the end of the verse, she declares: "I tried but can't find refuge in the angle / I'll walk the mystery of the curve."

All but one of the musicians on Fan Dance have worked with Ms. Phillips before, as has the producer, husband T-Bone Burnett. They serve her well, especially Jersey-boy guitarist Marc Ribot. Lyrics as strong as Ms. Phillips' deserve to be heard, as does her distinctive voice (think latter-day Marianne Faithful, with only trace levels of nicotine-stained Weltschmerz ), and Mr. Burnett sees to that. The music is austere and slightly off-kilter, in the vein of Waits and Weill. It often seems to waft around her voice like a specter, as Mr. Ribot's guitar and Van Dyke Parks' harpsichord do on "Taking Pictures." On "Five Colors," a ghostly synth line slowly rises to join Ms. Phillips, along with Carla Azar on traps and Gillian Welch on bass and vocals.

Ms. Phillips makes a couple of references to "a new world." On "Love Is Everywhere I Go," she channels her hero, John Lennon, and offers herself up as hope for the rest of us, singing that she's found a place where "There is no end to the good." The title track evokes the mystery and menace of China–a country that has certainly been on our radar since W. took office–with hand drums and banjo while Ms. Phillips sings: "I'll be in your dark streets / To keep the lantern burning / Until your new world begins."

– Frank DiGiacomo

Neil Diamond: The Spaz Singer

Is Neil Diamond simply too cruddy to revive? Three Chord Opera (Columbia), his first pop album in 10 years, is so utterly lacking in groove, thought, taste and originality that it makes you wonder what Behind the Music has wrought.

The last decade in our comeback culture has seen a growing appreciation of the craftsmen (and -women) who kept Tin Pan Alley alive on AM radio through the 60's and 70's–if only for a night at "The Loser's Lounge." When no less trivial a songster than Mama Cass retainee Margo Guryan has her work reissued and celebrated as the flower of a studio system as fertile (and crass) as Hollywood's 30 years before, it's clear that the 60-year-old Mr. Diamond is next in line for beatification. The fans have already started crawling out of their closets.

They may not want to crawl too far. I defy even the members of tribute band Super Diamond to keep from blushing when their idol growls, "We're gonna drive to the edge of the night" over a secondhand Beck beat in "Baby Let's Drive" (this from a man who told The Times , "The generation of today does not consider me a part of the kitsch genre") . The song is so derivative, so beyond the so-bad-it's-good limit, cringing is too mild a response. And even if the fake gospel of "Leave a Little Room for God" recalls the frisson -inducing excess of Mr. Diamond's 1969 "Brother Love's TravelingSalvation Show," it's sobering to think that a middle-aged man looked deep within in order to come up with: "As you're goin' through the day / Leave a little room for God / You know he won't get in your way."

Until now, Mr. Diamond has been known for his gift for writing verses as catchy as the choruses they introduce ("Cracklin' Rosie," "Forever in Blue Jeans," "Cherry, Cherry"), as well as the breezy spirit of his lyrics and his sexy Brooklyn baritone. But only the voice remains the same. His flashes of brilliance–the touching-me-touching-you business, the peppy swell of the anthems, the cloying pathos of the ballads–will survive, but Three Chord Opera makes it clear that they'll have to do it despite him.

– Lorin Stein

Thalia Zedek: Love Stinks

On first listen, Been Here and Gone (Matador), the new solo album by former Come frontwoman Thalia Zedek, is hard to take. On second and third listen, too. Her voice can be gruff, and the music tends to be lavishly dirgelike on the face of it–not what you would call uplifting. But if you give it time, Been Here and Gone will get its claws in you. It's a beautiful album, dark and big-hearted, honest and strangely delicate, like a stiletto.

The road Ms. Zedek took to get to this point has been hard, but worth it–at least for us. It's jarring to think that she's been at it for the last 20 years, if only because the early 80's don't seem so long ago. After fronting Live Skull, one of the also-rans of the Lower East Side noise-rock scene, she moved to Boston and formed Come with guitarist Chris Brokaw. Come blew the doors off most of its peers and earned a rep for its blistering live shows. Ms. Zedek's voice put the "gutter" in "guttural," while Mr. Brokaw's six strings drew blood. But that was the early 90's, when American alt-rock was in full flower. Come soldiered on, only to officially disband earlier this year. No bang, no whimper.

With Been Here and Gone , Ms. Zedek has channeled her ferocity into something more affecting and graceful. The album starts off grim but ends up as one of the most starkly romantic recordings since Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours . Ms. Zedek works through the whole Love + Sex = Pain equation and comes out on the other side, exuding a sense of redemption. Maturity has its perks.

Redemption is nice and all, but the kick here is hearing her kiss off a host of somebodies in the most baroque ways possible. Strings help, as do great piano-playing and supple drumming, but it's Mr. Brokaw's electric- and slide-guitar work that illuminates songs like "Desanctified (Full Circle)" and "Temporary Guest" the most, helping Ms. Zedek aim her gorgeous, mournful voice at the ghosts in her recent past. It can get a little sad, especially on the three cover tunes: Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love," Luiz Bonfá's "Manha de Carnaval" and Gary Gogel's "1926." But if it weren't sad, it wouldn't be true. And Been Here and Gone is true to the end.

– Jay Stowe