CD Odyssey Disc 642: Paul Simon

I’m on a bit of a cold streak, ratings-wise on the CD Odyssey. This next entry marks the third straight two star review.

Disc 642 is….So Beautiful or So What

Artist: Paul Simon

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover? This is a picture by Sven Geier called “DNA Mutation” which is as descriptive a title as any. It goes well with the album’s title as well as the themes of many of the songs, which delve into the mysteries of life and afterlife. Either that or Paul Simon really likes the X-Men. I’m more of an Avengers guy myself.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila bought this for me back when it came out. It received good critical reviews at the time. Certainly better that I'm about to give it.

How It Stacks Up:  My Paul Simon collection is woefully inadequate, consisting of a Greatest Hits album, Graceland and two of his more recent records, including this one. Of those three studio albums, I’d put this one third.

Rating:  2 stars, but almost 3

Paul Simon has never forgotten the lessons he learned about rhythm when he made "Graceland". “So Beautiful or So What” shows him continuing to make interesting musical choices. While the results are hit and miss, I admire him for continuing to find ways to keep his brand of folk-pop interesting and up to date.

My guitar teacher often reminds me that the guitar is also a percussion instrument, and Simon clearly understands how to use it as one on this record. “Getting Ready for Christmas Day” and “The Afterlife” both jump to life in large part because of the interesting strumming patterns and textured guitar playing.

For the most part I enjoyed the album’s focus on varying the rhythm, although I learned that it isn’t for all occasions. I was at the gym trying to squeeze in one more listen before writing this review, but the odd time signatures are not good when running on a treadmill.

Simon’s voice was very pretty on this record. You’d never know he was pushing seventy based on how pure his tone is. Like all good songwriters, he knows how to write songs that are in his wheelhouse vocally as well.

The album’s overarching theme is the exploration of the nature’s mysteries. Unfortunately, Simon opts for flippant musings on the nature of the universe, or falls back on stock religious answers. He skirts around most of the hard stuff, and settles for whimsical stories about what the afterlife might be like. It’s like he wrote some of these songs for his grandchildren, and they have a ‘story-time’ quality that I found a bit condescending.

“Rewrite” is a nice break from this approach, which is a song that muses about how we would’ve done things differently at key moments in our life. Like a lot of the album, the song is fairly gentle in its approach, and you get the sense that there is always room for a ‘rewrite’ of some decisions before we’re out of time.

The second half of the album slows down considerably, and become more 'easy listening' than folk or pop. The songs are pretty enough, but they didn’t grab me and it felt like the album was dragging itself to the finish line.

Because of the musical quality on the album and a few high points I’m going to keep this album, but it didn’t overwhelm me.

I’d like to see this record mashed up with Megadeth’s “So Far, So Good, So What” (reviewed way back at Disc 108). That’s another record that is musically promising, hit and miss in terms of the songs. Together it would make one strong album – and just think of the tour! It would be worth going just to see the two groups of fans mingling in the parking lot before the show.

Best tracks:   Getting Ready for Christmas Day, the Afterlife, Rewrite