I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

I like the way he keeps saying "favor to the family"

also the little detail about paul simon mispronouncing 'zydeco' (even tho he gets it right... ON THE ALBUM)

cause lobos told him is why

lowblows

Fusion.
The intermingling of two musics.
I say it's the music of the future
And, hey, I oughta know.
Have you heard my latest album?
It's a masterpiece of fusion,
Just a masterpiece of fusion
If I do say so myself.
A true collaboration of the heaviest musicians on the planet.

That's Sakimoto playing the bamboo flute.
He's a monster.
And Big Joseph Nabuma on mbira.
Check it out.
And over on cabasa...who is that on cabasa?
Oh yeah, that's the guy who drove me in from the airport.
I forget his name, but he's a monster, too.
We're all just monsters of--

Fusion.
We're intermingling our musics
In a welter of ethnic confusion.
(Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.
Anh anh.
Zimbabwe, zimbabwe.
Anh anh.
Savuca! Loodloodloodloodloodloodloodloo!)

This pretty tune was written by Hans Leo Hassler
In 1599.
I wrote some words and changed about three notes.
Now ASCAP says it's mine.
I love constructing albums
From objects that I find,

From all kinds of folk riffs
That are just sort of out there.
Nobody owns them. They're in public domain.
And the foreign musicians
Who play those folk riffs,
Well, they're just grist for my fevered brain.

Mama, don't take my copyright.
Gimme that folk riff copyright.
Mama, don't take my copyright from me.
There've been slurs and innuendoes.
There've been nasty little comments.
I don't bother to respond to them.
They roll right off my back.
I'm well aware that there's an element
You could call "exploitation"
In the way that I appropriate the cultures of these peoples
For my own commercial purposes.

But everyone who works for me gets
Credit.
And royalties
And Grammys
And a chance to ride to stardom on my coattails, lay lay lay.
But, hey, let's just remember who's the genius here,
Who is the Master of--

Fusion?
Fusion.
It's a matter of "Finders Keepers."
Cause there ain't no copyrights in
Fusion.
Fusion.
We're all just ripping off each other
In a jungle of ethical con-Fusion.
And having a hell of a lot of fun.
I'm having a hell of a lot of
Ballpark.
I'm thinking this song is in the
Ballpark... (fade)

That was ripped off from an idea I had but never wrote down.

I could never figure out what Los Lobos was doing on that album, anyway.

ILM is feeling like ILM circa 2004, lately.

frankly i just dont get people who dont like graceland.

xpost cool I love c.2004 ILM

maybe start a new board, "ILM Classic"

Re: Los Lobos: Tite Curet Alonso, a greater songwriter than Simon, with a much better reputation as a person, also complained about collaborating with Simon on the Capeman. I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.

maybe start a new board, "ILM Classic"

― swaguirre, the wrath of basedgod (bernard snowy), Sunday, August 7, 2011 11:15 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

can i play Alex in NYC if the original article isn't available?

x-post

Acutally, he didn't really say anything devastating about Simon, just said that Simon wasn't really looking for a collaborator when he enlisted Curet Alonso's help in doing research for the Capeman. I don't know if he ever said that Simon had suggested otherwise to begin with.

that thing he did with eno is the only simon album i have that i don't love (there's something about how the vocals are mixed so high)

what kills it for me is the production on his albums, hearts and bones and rhythm of the saints especially are so sick. the sound of the guitar on hearts and bones (he's also a really interesting and underrated guitar player i think). one thing i like about him is that his best work is his more mature work. like he got better. so many musicians blow their wad, but he obviously spent a lot of his time w/ art garfunkel kindof just focussed on songwriting (stuff like cecelia is more the exception and where you get an inkling of where he might be going with all of this) but his songwriting style is just so *crafted.* his lyrics have a short story quality about them, they're more about observed detail than strong images, although his descriptions are really original ("the Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar"). i mean i could go on, he works well with collaborators, the south african musicians on graceland, the singer on spirit voices (and the way that works as the spirit voice of the song is so ghostly and beautiful) which is funny in light of people saying that he is really anxious about his reputation, i think his best work is just so comfortably masterful. he lets other people shine. i love the way he uses choirs and backup singers, the "oooohs" on hearts and bones just sound incredible. like he has this way of just lightly touching and orchestrating everything around him. he always seems quietly in control.

plax otm

also simon is a better lyricist than stupid ol leonard cohen

lol this is up on some Budweiser-is-better-than-Chateau-Latour stuff

(he's also a really interesting and underrated guitar player i think)

this however is otm. dude can really play. as a lyricist he's maybe the fifteenth best of his generation

as a lyricist he's maybe the fifteenth best of his generation

I love how that initially parses as a diss until you think, hey, 15th of a generation ain't bad!

that first song he did on snl was dope iirc

― J0rdan S., Sunday, August 7, 2011 12:59 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

this!

Otherwise all I have to say is S&G is essential, I can't do without it.

I like Simon's lyrics, because he's such a big proponent of elliptical phrases that just fit or sound right even if they don't make a lot of sense, and he's man/rich enough to admit it, too.

I love how that initially parses as a diss until you think, hey, 15th of a generation ain't bad!

yeah this is true! he's really good! but he's really not very daring - "Richard Corey" is a great poem by an underrated poet, but it's sort of telling that Robinson's sort of you-can-parse-this-cleanly style is where he goes when Cohen & Dylan are reading say Baudelaire and Rimbaud

i strongly dislike paul simon

a song like gumboots where he doesn't mention new york and its all african musicians but i hear it and i'm on prince street in autumn, i don't think his parsability accounts for how evocative he can be.

always felt like he vacillated btw adult contempo island rock and over-poignant emotionality. neither work for me.

whaaaaaat

"island rock"

you are crazy

yeah this is true! he's really good! but he's really not very daring - "Richard Corey" is a great poem by an underrated poet, but it's sort of telling that Robinson's sort of you-can-parse-this-cleanly style is where he goes when Cohen & Dylan are reading say Baudelaire and Rimbaud

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, August 7, 2011 12:18 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

youre a snob

the mama pajama rolled out of bed and logged onto ILX to post

youre a snob

http://freesamplefreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/commercials-grey-poupon.jpg

do u have any french poets that i could smear on my leonard cohen sandwich

it's true i have been really into clarity in song lyrics lately. i like leonard cohen, too, though; it wouldn't really occur to me to pit him against simon.

i don't get cohen until he puts on a corny deep voice and starts singing things like STICK ANOTHER TURTLE ON THE FIRE / GUYS LIKE ME ARE MAD FOR TURTLE MEAT. that's obv better than paul simon but that aside they're about on par for me.

"no one listens to me, I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record..."

i like leonard cohen too i was just being mean

i value your services itt max

also surm y u braek hart

paul simon is the best and people who dont like him can go str8 to hell

exactly

been listening to hearts and bones, the album, a lot lately. the smartest people in the world are gathered in los angeles / to analyze our love affair and finally unscramble us.

the new album is really good, too.

max srsly tho I get that you love Paul Simon, kick ass, but it's not snobby to say that he's formally a lot more limited than Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Phil Ochs, Townes van Zandt, Neil Young, and others - those people all really stretch out a lot. Not always successfully! but Paul Simon is musically kind of...ignorant?

Simon doesn't really dislike the idea of musical theater, only what the musical theater has become. So as much as he may shake his head in dismay at the success of "Cats," he happily listens to the likes of George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein and Cole Porter.

"It's not rock and roll, but I liked it," he says, then laughs. "I didn't mean to parody the Stones, but that's exactly what it is. I liked it.

"But it ended up in a weird cul de sac -- probably because it was never energized by rock and roll," he says. As Simon sees it, the trouble with modern musical theater is that "it's all descended either from the musical theater from its heyday in the '40s and '50s, or it's the English variant that Andrew Lloyd Webber popularized. Those are the two mainstreams of what a Broadway musical is today."

Trouble is, there's nothing terribly special about the music these plays employ. "There are all of these different stories out there, but the music kind of all sounds the same," Simon says.

You're sort of doomed to complacency when you think that what the stage that gives us Sondheim needs is...you!!!

the smartest people in the world are gathered in los angeles / to analyze our love affair and finally unscramble us.

typed this in all caps, clicked "submit", your post appeared

i guess i should red some edwin arlington robinson

xp <3

I mean I will defend him against people who say he sucks, but he really is kind of a Lou Reed figure. "Hey guys guess what I just discovered last week and now I have a lot to say about it? African music!!!"

Graceland, which is the only record of his that I have burned into my brain deeply enough to play this game with, has some flat-out corny lyrics but imho they are generally salvaged by the delivery (best example that comes to mind = "hey señorita, that's astute / why don't we get together and call ourselves an institute?")

then again it also has its moments of absolutely undeniable brilliance e.g. "she said 'honey, take me dancing' but they ended up sleeping in a doorway"

"Next, I will discover Cuba and Brazil, you ungrateful fucks!!"

aerosmith OTM re:sondheim/theatre/complaceny

that was a dumb thing he said about musical theater and maybe it does reflect badly on his approach to music but the self-titled album is still one of my favorite things in the world.

not tryna to play cap'n save-a-dilettante here but didn't the whole apartheid/sanctions situation make it kind of... difficult... for western musicians to engage more deeply with their african peers?

also real-time LOLs at this:

It is so clear that the talent behind Simon and Garfunkel rests solely in his taller, silent partner.

tho I would love to read a passionate defense of Artie's artsitry

"Next, I will discover Cuba and Brazil, you ungrateful fucks!!"

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, August 7, 2011 4:55 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

... idg where you're getting this from

i think graceland is one of my least favourite just because of the big gated drums