Any honest musician will tell you there are few things more difficult than writing a perfect little pop song. Neil Diamond has written more than a couple — as well as fare that can be both meatier and more syrupy, with all the unapologetic bombast and perhaps less intentional kitsch of the sequined outfits he sported while performing during his ’70s and ’80s heyday. 

The range of this musical palette, and the sequins, are on full display in “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.” So are the platitudes that invariably fuel those behind-the-music outings that tell us the stories of artists’ lives. In this case, that means following a humble, lonely boy from Brooklyn’s Flatbush who never envisioned being a star — or so he tells us, repeatedly — but somehow wound up “bigger than Elvis,” as one character hyperbolically puts it.