I’ve been waiting for something like this.
Waiting is what you have to do these days if you’re looking for something to fire your interest. We’re such a long way from the time when music drove our culture, when events of historical significance could happen on any given day, and classic albums spilled from the creative well with astonishing regularity. Now, in the age of single track downloads and the wholesale adoption of portable mp3 players, the importance of the album format has been called into question and, on occasion, pronounced dead.
Not everyone is quite ready to buy into this idea, however, and the latest to throw his weight behind the preservation of the album format is Paul Simon. Historically, one of music’s heavy hitters, Paul Simon has been responsible for some of the greatest albums of the last several decades, including, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and ‘Graceland’. He’s delivered the occasional stinker as well like the ill-fated and costly, ‘Songs from The Capeman’, but generally, even when the audience is not paying attention, his music far exceeds the undernourished efforts of your average navel-gazing Indie artist. There was the sadly neglected ‘Hearts And Bones’ for example, and more recently, his 2006 album, ‘Surprise’. Made in collaboration with Brian Eno, ‘Surprise’ was criminally overlooked in Australia, where it barely cracked the top 100 before falling through the cracks. I still listen to that disc today and tip my hat to Paul for venturing such an artistic risk. The album brimmed with Eno’s famous atmospheric treatments and pushed Paul Simon’s music into neighbourhoods his traditional audience was too wimpy to hazard. They just wanted another ‘Graceland’. Too bad for them.
Paul Simon is never one to take the easy ride and stay in the middle of the road just to please his audience. Like Neil Young, he likes to get into the rough and push the artistic boundaries a little. If things should go horribly wrong, as they did in ’97 with his short-lived Broadway musical, ‘The Capeman’, he can always hook up with his old sparring partner, Art Garfunkel and go out on the road to recoup his finances.
Five years after the release of ‘Surprise’, Paul Simon is pondering the merits of the album as a legitimate art form and a generation of kids who no longer afford it the same level of importance. In this age of apps and single song downloads, Paul has not lost faith in what essentially remains his chief stock in trade. He believes the album concept can be successfully reintroduced to this new generation. That the making of albums remains a legitimate art form which should not be “discarded”.
He also believes his forthcoming, 12th studio album, ‘So Beautiful or So What’, is his best work in twenty years. (Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?) Of course, I can’t be nearly quite so enthusiastic until I get to hear it but from what I’ve sampled thus far, I can say, I’m certainly optimistic.
The first taste arrived late last year with the appropriately titled, “Getting Ready For Christmas Day”, featuring samples from a 1941 sermon by Christian preacher and sometime Gospel singer, the Rev. J.M. Gates. Next is a song called “The Afterlife”, which I warmed to the first time I heard it. There’s humour and pathos as the singer reflects on his recent “death” and his difficulty in coming to terms with the not so blessed, hereafter.
“After I died and the makeup had dried, I went back to my place.”
He’s not scared, however, just a little disoriented. No biggie.
“Still I thought it was odd there was no sign of god, just to usher me in.”
Before he discovers that the afterlife is, perhaps, a little overrated.
“Then a voice from above sugar-coated with love, said: ‘Let us begin’”
More to the point, the afterlife seems not all that different from the one he’s just left.
“You got to fill out a form first,
And then you wait in the line.”
You’ve got to give to Paul Simon he’s the thinking person’s Rock Star and has been since 1966. Too creatively muscular to be dismissed as a Folkie wimp, he stands quite comfortably among the likes of Bob Dylan and Randy Newman as one of songwriting’s master craftsmen.
‘So Beautiful or So What’ will land in mid-April. Meanwhile, the link below will give you an insight into Paul Simon’s thoughts on the challenges faced by the artist in the present day and how he still pushes the boundaries of his craft in the pursuit and creation of new sounds to confound and entertain his audience.
‘So Beautiful or So What’ – Album Preview
“Getting Ready For Christmas Day” – Paul Simon
“The Afterlife” – Paul Simon
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