Music Collection - S (Part 2 of 8)
Sigur Rós - () - This icelandic post-rock album is weird. I don’t have a good vocabulary for it, partly because the singing is in a made-up language, and partly because it’s so dissimilar to anything else I have. Throughout the album a short phrase that sounds like “You sa yo” is repeated, with a few other phrases thrown in. It’s ambient rock, and uses repetition of melody and building instrumentation to build tension and climax. But that’s it. It’s pretty and sometimes cathartic, but there are very few ideas on this album and they are trodden to death. I think the melodies aren’t quite up to carrying the space and import they are given. But it’s a unique album, and one I enjoy letting course through my brain as background music. 3.5 stars
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were my favorite artist of the late sixties, and Paul Simon is one of the greatest songwriters of the twentieth century. He has a gift for melody, arrangement, and deeply empathetic songwriting. For five albums of Simon’s baritone and Garfunkel’s High Tenor harmonizing over acoustic guitar, they were unstoppable. The Stones and Beatles may have had more hits, but they had the advantage of more albums and two or more songwriters each. John Fogarty also comes close in my mind, during his productive years with CCR, but Simon’s later career was much stronger and more prolific than Fogarty’s.
Simon & Garfunkel - Wednesday Morning, 3 AM - Their debut is most notable for the original version The Sound(s) of Silence, sans the overdubbed electric guitar that helped it become an all-time classic later on. It’s a stirring poem about our frustrating failure to communicate with one another. The remainder of the album is a mix of Simon’s originals and covers of other artists like Bob Dylan or public domain songs. Simon’s songs are better. Sparrow is a beautiful little fable and Bleecker Street introduces the duo’s trademark harmonies in arresting fashion. Simon sounds a bit haughty on a lot of the folk covers, and missing from much of this album is lyrical depth that would come so easily to him later. For historians, this album really completes the picture about how Paul Simon took himself less and less seriously as his career went along. 4 stars
Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence - Okay, so enough of other songwriters. Nestled here are Simon’s first three classics: The Sounds of Silence, Kathy’s Song, and I am a Rock. They typically scan as well as poetry as they do as songs. There are a few more introspective beauties here, like April Come She Will. Simon is still a one-trick pony at this point - he hasn’t quite figured out how to do more brash tunes, so Blessed and Somewhere They Can’t Find Me don’t completely work. But when he’s in his zone, there are none better. 4 stars
Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme - The degree to which Simon comes into his own here is startling. Not only is this a professional album of remarkable skill and achievement, but there are brilliant experimental moments as well, like the incomparable Scarborough Fair/Canticle, which is two songs being played at the same time, and 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night which is the most stirring newsreel I’ve ever heard, spoken over gentle arpeggiated piano. They’re locked into top form on Homeward Bound and the stunning, vulnerable For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her, and several others. Patterns is a fascinating tune that might be sung over a bonfire, and Cloudy is just breezy fun; these show Simon’s increasing range as a songwriter. Even the big dumb The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine is the best “brash” song they’ve performed to date. It’s a masterpiece from start to finish. 5 stars
Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends - Bookends is a much less serious album. That’s a nice relief in some ways, but it does make me miss the duo at its most poignant. Voices of Old People is hilarious, but it doesn’t replace PSR&T’s Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall. They achieve greatness twice here. First, America is a stirring travelogue that I once heard played over Independence Day fireworks in Pittsburgh - it gave me goosebumps. Then, Mrs. Robinson, from The Graduate, is a cultural landmark. We all remember that magic moment when the drums kick in and Simon asks “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” You may have heard the Bangles’ version of A Hazy Shade of Winter, and At the Zoo is romping good fun. By this point, the duo is effortlessly diverse, but I do feel the slight loss of sincerity. 4 stars
Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water - The gospel-tinged lead-off title track was a showcase for Art Garfunkel’s golden tenor, and was just a perfect combination of singer and song. It and The Sounds of Silence are duo’s the well-deserved two entries on the National Endowment For the Arts Top 365 songs of the 20th century. After such a towering achievement, track 2, El Condor Pasa (If I Could) is actually good enough to keep the momentum going. The Boxer is a character sketch which is perhaps the best example of Simon’s deep empathy for the everyman. But my favorite song here is the more obscure The Only Living Boy in New York which is, touchingly, is about how Paul missed Art when he was down filming a movie in Mexico. Cecilia was an tongue-in-cheek hit that foreshadowed where Simon would go with his solo career. The only misstep is the poor cover of Bye Bye Love, which reaffirms that Simon’s taste in others’ music wasn’t half as good as his taste in his own. 5 stars
Simon & Garfunkel - Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits - This album is fairly unnecessary, because it’s far better to just buy all their albums. It has most, but not all, of their classics, but not every great song they performed was a hit : Sparrow, Only Living Boy In New York, Patterns, Poem on the Underground Wall, At the Zoo, and The Dangling Conversation are just a few examples of songs I couldn’t live without that aren’t on their hits collection. That said, this collection is flawless and extremely tight. 5 stars
Next Up - S (Part 3 of 8) - Simon*