Album review: Paul Simon, 'So Beautiful or So What'
3 stars (out of 4)
Paul Simon will turn 70 in October, and mortality figures heavily on his first album in five years, “So Beautiful or So What” (Hear Music/Concord Music Group). Fortunately, he approaches it with a light touch and a skip in his stride. He turns the metaphysical into a series of narratives tinged not just with poignance but humor and groove.
God plays a recurring role in these songs, and he’s blithe, impatient, exasperated -- a hoot, in other words. Simon’s narrators wander from moment to moment hoping for a “glimpse of the divine,” but are just as likely to be left pondering the differences between “Be Bop a Lula” and “Ooh Papa Do.” In Simon’s world, such differences matter, because he’s a master of not just literate wordplay, but of the transformative effect of a nonsense phrase or tail-feather-shaking rhythm.
His melodies are sent skipping and bobbing along by a percolating matrix of Asian and African percussion instruments, marimba and celeste. There’s the shivery, shimmering guitar of longtime Simon sidekick Vincent Nguini. And samples of old gospel groups and preachers pepper the melodies, with the Rev. J.M. Gates shaking down the heavens on the irresistible “Getting Ready for Christmas Day.”
The rhythmic bounce eases the potentially debilitating weight of songs that deal with death and the futility of life. The lyrics often feel conversational and brim with wry asides, whether presenting a chicken gumbo recipe or pondering a Jay-Z advertisement. And sometimes, as in the luminous ballad “Love and Hard Times,” Simon simply gives thanks for the small miracle of finding a welcoming hand amid the din and disappointment of the everyday.
greg@gregkot.com
NPR has been streaming the whole album, so I've listened to it a couple of times. I feel like I need to listen to it yet again. Some of the songs were really striking and quite good, others (especially on the second half of the album)... Were just "there." Kinda dull in places.
Traces of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints (two albums I adore) are heard throughout, but it also sounds more like his 70s work in place. I thought the sampling would annoy me, but it was minimal, and tastefully done.
So I like it, but it hasn't blown me away like Graceland and "Rhythm" did. I think it's easily his best since those two albums though. I have a feeling I need to hear those songs a few more times.
Posted by: Shaun | April 11, 2011 at 10:01 AM