{"id":2343,"date":"2011-07-25T22:34:44","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T05:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2011-07-25T22:35:08","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T05:35:08","slug":"paul-simon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/07\/paul-simon\/","title":{"rendered":"PAUL SIMON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

PAUL SIMON<\/h2>\n

So Beautiful or So What<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[Hear Music\/Concord]<\/p>\n

Elvis Costello, himself no stranger to conveying hard-won wisdom in song, pretty much nails it in his liner notes for Paul Simon\u2019s first new album in five years: \u201cThis is a man in full possession of all his gifts, looking at the comedy and beauty of life with clarity and the tenderness bought by time.\u201d Simon\u2019s solo output has always been erratic, a zigzag of indisputable landmarks, most notably 1986\u2019s Graceland<\/em>, and half-hearted efforts like 2006\u2019s Surprise<\/em>. So Beautiful or So What<\/em>, which reunites Simon with producer Phil Ramone for the first time since 1980\u2019s One-Trick Pony<\/em>, leans toward the classic. Drawing from a trusted well of influences\u2014world-music instrumentation, R&B grooves, gospel-inspired vocal jubilation\u2014and boasting some of his sharpest songwriting in decades, Simon isn\u2019t so much breaking new ground here as putting a new sheen on what he does best.<\/p>\n

Often he places a lyric into a framework that should by definition jar but instead fits snugly: In \u201cRewrite,\u201d an author\u2019s frustrating conundrums sway to an exquisite melody played on African instruments and Simon\u2019s guitar, while \u201cLove and Blessings\u201d sets pastoral, romantic images and uptempo doo-wop scatting in a minimalist, bluesy setting. The poor sucker entering \u201cThe Afterlife\u201d finds himself bogged down in heavenly paperwork, but at least he gets to do it to a swinging Cajun-esque rhythm. In 1968\u2019s \u201cOld Friends,\u201d Simon mused that it would be \u201cterribly strange to be 70.\u201d Not at all\u2014this fall, Simon can blow out just that many candles knowing that he\u2019s still ingenious after all these years.\u00a0 \u2013Jeff Tamarkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PAUL SIMON So Beautiful or So What [Hear Music\/Concord] Elvis Costello, himself no stranger to conveying hard-won wisdom in song, pretty much nails it in his liner notes for Paul Simon\u2019s first new album in five years: \u201cThis is a man in full possession of all his gifts, looking at the comedy and beauty of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[196,650,1072,1807,1857,1858],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}