Riffs, Rants & Rumors: Sifting Through The Paul Simon Story

posted in: Features • Rock

There was a lot of action in the Paul Simon world in 2011. In and of itself, that statement might not automatically signify much, since Simon’s album releases tend to be few and far between, and he’s generally more inclined to labor lovingly over his work than to flood the marketplace in a flurry of activity. Nevertheless, the past year has seen a steady flow of Simon-centered news regarding projects brand new, archival and curatorial. It all began with a bang back in April, when Simon unleashed his latest batch of songs, So Beautiful Or So What, his first new album in five years. These days, no one expects Simon’s albums”or anyone else’s, for that matter to”be doing Graceland-like business, so it was no huge shock when the album’s aesthetic excellence wasn’t quite matched by its (nonetheless respectable) sales figures. The important thing was that we had Paul Simon back in our collective bosom; here he was playing the snaky, sardonic “Rewrite” on late-night TV, there he was taking his band out on the road to greet audiences with Simon songs old and new. All along, it was lost on few pundits that the quintessential boomer troubadour, who mused “How terribly strange to be 70” back in 1968 would be achieving septuagenarian status this very October.

Whether the impetus was the big birthday, the new album or simply a certain shift in the psycho-sonic continuum, the folks at Sony decided that no one would leave 2011without the opportunity to immerse themselves in Simon’s solo catalog, kicking off an ambitious reissue campaign of deluxe re-releases encompassing everything from Simon’s self-titled 1972 album through 1990’s Brazilian-flavored Rhythm of the Saints. To top it all off, there’s also the Songwriter anthology, a double-CD affair whose first disc is occupied mostly by hits and signature songs, but whose second half focuses on the less-traveled pathways in the Simon catalog, concentrating on tunes that are mostly known only to hardcore Simon mavens.

While we’re lolling through the legacy of Paul Simon this year, a few things are worth keeping in mind. One that’s more frequently forgotten than some might suppose is that the guy is simply one of the finest songwriters ever to plod the planet. We’re not qualifying that statement with a phrase like “of his era,” because whether you put Simon alongside Neil Young or Sammy Cahn, he’ll still stand up equally well. Another is that he’s one of the very, very few artists of his stature who has maintained a consistent degree of creativity throughout the decades. Album after album, Simon has delivered the goods; with the exception of the regrettable anomaly called Songs From The Capeman, Paul has presided over an undeniably excellent array of albums from the very first to the most recent, even if inattentive bystanders failed to notice, as with such sleepers as One Trick Pony and You’re The One. Think about it”other than Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, which of Simon’s peers can make such a claim? Most of the names usually tossed around as comparable talents”Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Van Morrison”don’t even come close.

But the most important thing to take into account when musing over the masterworks of Paul Simon may simply be the fact that, in an entertainment world with an ever-increasing emphasis on youth culture, this seventy-year-old songwriter made one of the best albums of the year, relying on nothing even remotely retro in his presentation and resting on nary a single laurel, the aforementioned archival spelunking notwithstanding. So Beautiful Or So What isn’t simply a great Paul Simon album; it would have been an equal knockout if it was made by Bon Iver, Cee Lo or Janelle Monae, if such a scenario was possible. It’s not, though”only Paul Simon can weave the particular brand of magic that’s made his work consistently compelling not just from the start of his solo career, but from the beginning of Simon & Garfunkel‘s ’60s sojourn. And possibly the most exciting thing about it all is that he’s not through yet”we might have to wait a good bit to see what he’s got waiting around the next corner, but it will almost certainly be worth the wait.