 | Paul Simon’s SurpriseMay 16th, 2006 |
It’s been years, but he’s finally graced us with a new album. And it has the Oscar-nominated “Fathers and Daughters” on it.
It also has Brian Eno’s production, which may be a bit of a “surprise” to most in itself.
His last album, You’re The One, had a hefty dose of world music hangover, but veered into significantly darker territory than the overall uplifting spirit of Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints. Maybe it was his time with the Capeman and his failed musical, but what we have here is a Paul Simon heavily involved in thinking about mortality, futility, and desperation. A lyric here about coloring his hair the color of mud (to look young, presumably), a lyric there about the endless inevitability of war. The sometimes scattershot imagery of earlier albums here sheds narrative almost completely in favor of imagistic impressions that have to be put together by the listener.
And the music: the acoustic guitar he’s well-known for playing is hard to find, buried amidst soundscapes. That’s how they are credited on the album, too. Simon himself spends as much time on electric guitar as on anything else. It feels deep and dark, like You’re the One did, a recording that reveals little touches as you listen repeatedly.
It’s a good album, and it even feels like an inevitable next step after the last one. But I don’t think it’ll have the popular resonance that he had in his world music period. The young want their darkness angsty, and the older… well, they’d rather not think about it. The presence of “Fathers and Daughters” at the end provides a lift of optimism; it’s only in thinking of the next generation that Simon seems to find much to cheer about.
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