425. Paul Simon, "Paul Simon"

 


Oh look, it's the guy from the open mic who plays 4 songs when you're only supposed to play 2!  I'm kidding, I'm kidding.  It's the guy who shows he was culturally appropriating reggae ("Mother and Child Reunion") years before he had a huge hit culturally appropriating African music!  Kidding again!  Yes, I'm kidding.  Maybe I've subconsciously adopted my wife's loathing of Paul Simon, a loathing whose source I cannot say.

Paul Simon probably invented quiet, introspective acoustic non-country guitar songwriter singing, and his idea lives on in the likes of Sufjan and Bon Iver and all the other sensitive bros you would make an excuse to leave the room they were in if they picked up an acoustic at a party.  NEVERTHELESS, there are some classics on this album, none ever put to better use than "Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard" in "The Royal Tenenbaums."


What else, what else.  "Peace Like a River" is a pleasant enough song with a nice groove, and "Paranoia Blues" apes the conventions of blues with an extremely white-boy overlay.  He's got the paranoia blues from walking around New York City.  Muddy Waters has the blues because everyone he knows is dead. Not the same innit.

But maybe I'm too harsh.  These are all, I guess, meticulously constructed and objectively pretty songs, and there's an obviously high degree of emotional sharing that makes it a personal statement.  But the ultra high glass polish on the songs just makes it sort of too much for me.  

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