Columbia, 1986
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2007
Price: $1
Man, I am so fucking sick of Paul Simon right now. I really should have left this one for tomorrow, but it's early yet and I wanted to get it all out of the way. I've ranted and raved about how I have come to be really annoyed by Paul Simon over the course of 2 hours. I mean, homie has like, maybe 7 great songs that are worth listening to. This one has a couple of them. The title track is, of course, very good, and always good, and it's always fun to see bands cover it. “You Can Call Me Al” is also fucking awesome, and if you haven't heard Jens Lekman's version with just his voice and the Kalimba, well you must! However, I wonder if those bros from Vampire Weekend know that this Simon fellow has been ripping them off. Just listen to “I Know What I Want!” God, that was a terrible way to introduce this topic. But anyway, the segue was supposed to lead into this thing where it's probably Paul Simon's fault that all of these white musicians are copping African music lately. Ok, yeah, white folks have been copping black music forever and ever, but the African thing is bizarre. Lately there's Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors, some weird collective unconscious about what genre to ripoff. Maybe there's a newsletter. I don't know, but all of a sudden all these really white, Ivy League guys are loading their songs with African guitars and rhythms. And sure, I like the music, but it's just weird. This is actually maybe the best record I've listened to all night though, in terms of Simon-ese stuff. And it's still getting on my nerves. Man, maybe I'm just cranky tonight. Maybe if I had a copy of this on tape and had a cassette deck in my car and it was 1986, I would be digging this. Actually, that's a lie. I'd pry hate it more. But if I had those things NOW, well, I might end up listening to it, but only because I was too lazy to put a new tape in.
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