I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

i have been slowly rolling out paul simon since i realised how much i love his first album a few years ago after having grown up with graceland on car trips which seems to be the like ultimate cliche. maybe its that that album is so colorful but why does it seem to have lodged in so many ppls memorys as this album from their childhood. except for like old people i guess.

because it was a huge album that was marketed at our parents, unlike, say, the other massive 80s albums which were directed at a younger generation (Thriller, Madonna, etc. Springsteen's kinda in the middle I guess)

i have also not heard you're the one

wait what age are you shakey mo?

I think Shakes andI are both in our late thirties.

all I heard on road trips were Anita Baker, Najee, Basia, and Genesis.

it was graceland and rumours

as in they were literally the only tapes in our house

later my dad bought some christy moore albums and born in the usa

it's entirely possible I'm projecting, it just seems to me that Simon had an appeal to my parents generation - white, middle class, vaguely liberal - that things like Madonna and MJ did not. Like, my parents would be happy to listen to Graceland, Thriller was more something to be tolerated and confused by.

xp

One of my fondest memories is dancing in the living room on a Friday night with Mom and my sister to Thriller, then freaking out because something in the toaster oven started to burn.

having grown up with graceland on car trips which seems to be the like ultimate cliche. maybe its that that album is so colorful but why does it seem to have lodged in so many ppls memorys as this album from their childhood.

― judith, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:08 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha otm, im p sure graceland is the album ive heard the most in my life because of this, and then i just never really stopped listening to it

my parents would be like the generation between you and your parents. graceland was released before i was born.

btw the transition from hearts and bones to 50 ways is like amazing.

i recommend it.

i was 10 when graceland came out, my dad LOVED it

cool, hearts and bones is just wrapping up

hell the transition from Hearts and Bones and Graceland is amazing.

graceland was like the concensus between my parents. my dad likes folk-rock and smooth jazz pop. my mam likes classical music and stuff like james last, who was until like her forties the only person she had ever seen live in concert. with his orchestra.

you know whats kind of interesting is the word graceland sounds kind of african, it some how vibes to the post colonial milieu at least to me a guy who has never set foot in africa, it sounds religious but on the edge of a more expansive animism, its v lively and virtuous feeling, but lol its just the name of elvises house

btw plax listening to yr mix u were otm re the limitations of mine, i really doesnt capture my full feeling toward the art of paul simon

heard Graceland so many times growing up

<3 judith for <3in <3s n bones

i have added the songs from plaxs mix not already on my mix to the end of my mix, the universe is at peace

the logic i was working on in my mix is that they are generally more atmospheric and groove based right up until obvious child where there is the big breakdown that lets you have the more angular and mother and child reunion followed by the comedown of spirit voices and finally fade out on train in the distance, looking out onto the horizon, remembering old times.

this is a fairly comprehensive list of highlights for me but omits like gumboots or papa hobo and a few other songs.

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

the only one of those i ever enjoyed was the rem one just because of how the results were rolled out over the course of about a year. it was such a gentle appreciation.

anyway i think my perfect paul simon mix would lean more heavily towards the kinda wistful and yearning and sweet songs i like those songs where hes explaining s.thing to you abt how it is to be alive but its not garish or forced or w/e and theres always a part that you can sing-along to w/o really like SINGING stuff like 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' or 'lisa' or 'duncan' even

diamonds is definite top 5

i think for me his best upbeat and rhythmic stuff is like 'all around the worlds' where hes still just telling you this story and it sometimes means something and sometimes doesnt and you can just vibe out to the sound of it, like the shape of the thing, but there are still these jarring and thoughtful bits that aim to haunt you like 'abandoned now just like the war'

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

― the parable is the parable of the (Lamp), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:44 PM (14 minutes ago)

Yeah, you'll be up pretty soon. Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls

I was outta college when Graceland came out, but my slightly younger sister was a manic Simon fan from the age of EIGHT so I heard all the LPs as they were released in the '70s and '80s. We went to the Graceland tour at Radio City.

the only one of those i ever enjoyed was the rem one just because of how the results were rolled out over the course of about a year. it was such a gentle appreciation.

― judith, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 you for this, the funny thing of course is that that only happened through total incompetence and getting-behind-on-shit on my part. It also overlapped with me moving to India for a while, I remember using about 15 minutes a day of my pre-work internet time throwing together a result to post...good times.

it is hard to make a paul simon mix because he has so many good songs

it is! and because some songs fit so well in the context of their own albums but rub up against each other weirdly on a mix. i had to take "the boxer" off a paul simon mix for my sister for this reason. also she really vibed on specific songs like "slip slidin' away" and "the obvious child" but she says she finds it hard to listen to the mix in its entirety. it's like too much unvariegated goodness.

whereas, the first thirty times you listen to the self-titled, something like "papa hobo" kind of slides past your ears unobtrusively and then one day you're like, oh this song rules.

oh plax i didn't even see that you singled out papa hobo, too <3

this thread title still makes me hulk out a little tbh

man i so want a horseshoe, plax, jho paul simon top ten but i dont want to ruin my poll also you all have to participate even if u dont normally otherwise ill be really mad

my dumb immigrant parents did not expose me to graceland as a child btw; clearly gross negligence

i am so freaking excited for that poll that it is a little sad

i like those songs where hes explaining s.thing to you abt how it is to be alive but its not garish or forced or w/e and theres always a part that you can sing-along to w/o really like SINGING stuff like 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' or 'lisa' or 'duncan' even

this is so otm; so satisfying speak-singing along to all the repeated lines in "duncan"

My friend was one of those ppl whose parents never played it growing up, i made him listen to it for the first time a couple years ago. The other night we put it on when we were drunk and he said 'you know what, i've kinda decided this is my fav album of all-time now'. <3

other friend quoted you can call me al in his wedding speech over the wkend <3

really good post / mix by judith (plax?) itt

lots of good posts but i think he singled something out there

yeah the greatest thing about his 1st album and much of his later catalogue is precisely the mix of precisely arranged and tightly written songs and the room to breathe (melodically and in terms of pacing and arrangement) he gives them... he's someone who is obviously concerned with written "good" songs (in a way that's become a cliché of adult-album-alternative) but who has also absorbed the lessons of much of the blues, folk, gospel, and world music he loves. peace like a river is a good example.

no no you guys this one's pretty easy

"I look outside my window and I watch the Cars" - Paul is in London where Roy Thomas Baker is producing their debut, he sees them arriving at the studio daily for tracking
"I fear I'll do some damage one fine day" - he is thinking of covering one of their songs in his own style
"but I would not be found guilty by a jury of my peers" - old hippies will love my Cars cover no matter what it sounds like
"still crazy after all these years" - I am an axe murderer

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ absolutely lolling at this right now

Have really really been feeling the first album again lately. I think I go through phases with this guy, but boy is "Papa Hobo" resonating somehow. I'm living on Gatorade...

gatorade is tasty it's tru

Solo careers are so underrated
Keep your Garfunkel and Simon completely separated