If any musical justification were needed for the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, it could be found on this striking collection, Paul Simon’s post-split debut. From the opening cut, “Mother and Child Reunion” (a Top Ten hit), Simon, who had snuck several subtle musical explorations into the generally conservative S&G sound, broke free. -AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann
263 Paul Simon – Paul Simon
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One response to “263 Paul Simon – Paul Simon”
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Paul Simon is SO BAD at choosing album cover art, that I feel it important to celebrate this album for him doing a good job in that realm for a change (possibly the only other time being Graceland). All the Simon and Garfunkel album covers are embarrassingly lame. Well, Sounds of Silence is okay, but that Greatest Hits cover, woof. And then There Goes Rhymin Simon is giving Steely Dan a run for the worst album cover by a great recording artist of all time. When Paul Simon was picking his stats he put everything into song writing and musical ability and attributed no points to graphic design, the min-maxing motherfucker.
I just watched The Wrecking Crew documentary and was surprised to recognize several of the session musicians from that movie as playing on this album. Makes sense I suppose. Paul Simon is the type to bring in whoever will make his album as good as it can be. It’s really no different than going to Kingston to record with members of Toots and the Maytals in order to make “Mother and Child Reunion” sound like actual Reggae and not a pale imitation. Paul Simon was going to make the best music he could make and didn’t care if he had to beg, borrow or steal to do it.
The first song on each side is the hit and up there amongst the best pop music of all time. But the rest of the album isn’t filler. It never reaches the heights of the two singles, but they are almost all compelling songs in their own way. This is a great artist making an album when he was in his prime. The world is a better place for this album being in it.
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