Paul Simon

Did Lewis need Clark, or Gracie need George, or Abbott Costello? Because Simon still needed Garfunkel, and if his first solo album aimed to dispel that impression, it fails. The style evolves but Paul lacks Art's vocal range, and Roy Halee's flat production still assumes his presence to fill the aural gap. Plus, what Simon's music really lacks here is a hook. He can find it when he wants to ("Mother and Child Reunion," "Duncan," "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard") but others drown in a morass of their own meanderings ("Armistice Day," "Papa Hobo," "Congratulations") and some otherwise promising songs ("Run That Body Down," "Peace Like A River") simply fall short for one stylistic deficiency or another; it's not that I mind the musings, mind you, but they really ought to go somewhere rather than die off into the runout groove. Everyone is permitted their transition and it fortunately didn't take him long, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give this overall muddled effort a pass. The 2004 reissue adds demos of "Me And Julio," "Duncan" and an unreleased version of "Paranoid Blues;" the former is as uninteresting as such demos usually are, but the "Duncan" demo is a rather different song and the evolution of "Paranoid Blues" adds at least some variety. (Content: adult themes on "Duncan.")

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Paul Simon, Stranger to Stranger

I know of at least three Paul Simons, one of them semi-personally, but this was the first one I ever heard the voice of and decades later his pipes still sound largely the way I remember. Roy Halee is back to helm and this can sometimes be a recipe for disaster when late-career musicians aren't reined in by late-career producers, but the album starts out well enough with the menacingly wry throwback shuffle of "The Werewolf" and its jazzy jam "Wristband." I also enjoyed the instrumental interludes as a change of pace ("In the Garden of Edie," though, really?), and "Proof of Love" has some of his strongest and most enjoyably complex soundwork yet. Simon's usually more trenchant personality sketches fail him here, however, in that the music isn't compelling and the people aren't sympathetic ("Street Angel" on one hand, but particularly "In A Parade" with its namedrops of antipsychotic medication and the atypically profane "Cool Papa Bell"); similarly, the title track feels almost like he couldn't get the words out fast enough, vainly chasing the pro forma beat with his syllables as the session band plays on obliviously. Fortunately, a spark of the old Simon shows in the ethereal conclusion of "Insomniac's Lullaby," sleeping soon unto death, perfectly capturing those disquieting moments of meditation on the void to come and the hope to be after. Despite the title, he doesn't feel like a stranger to me with that same voice playing in my head since my younger days, and even as one-trick ponies go — and this album still is that — I'm glad he's still crazy after all these years. The deluxe edition adds a couple cast-off tracks which are interesting but short and not on the main album for various good reasons, and his self-cover duet of "New York Is My Home" with Dion is sluggish and uninspired, but the live versions of "Duncan" and "Wristband" (recorded from A Prairie Home Companion) are remarkably compelling and fresh especially to someone like me who usually doesn't consider live tracks to be bonuses. (Content: F-bombs on "Cool Papa Bell" and adult themes on "Duncan.")

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