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| Pitchfork |
 On Graceland, "the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio"; it's a "bomb in the marketplace" on So Beautiful or So What. The shift in strategy is minor, but those rhyming images speak to the 25 years separating these two albums: 1986 could be eons ago, or it could be yesterday. Those were the days of miracles and wonder, as Paul Simon entered his forties with humor and curiosity intact. These days, however, haven't been too kind: Even as his influence has grown, his output has suffered. After opening the millennium with the dull-by-obligation You're the One, he hired Brian Eno for 2006's Surprise, whose true surprise was that one of the most careful and rigid pop songwriters of the last 50 years could be just as rambling and self-indulgent as any other aging Baby Boomer.To his considerable credit, however, Simon has never succumbed to a record with Rick Rubin or a Great American Songbook album, perhaps because his standards aren't pre-rock pop tunes. While there was a period when his South African and Brazilian excursions in the late 1980s were derided as exploitative, both Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints have proved enormously influential to a new generation of indie-pop songwriters from the Shins' James Mercer to Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig. Simon, who turns 70 this year, is still forging his own path even this deep into his career and remains devoted to and fascinated by old R&B, gospel, and world music. So Beautiful or So What blends them all into a pop sound that's simultaneously laidback and spry, almost self-consciously alluding to his past triumphs. Replacing Brian Eno, long-time cohort Phil Ramone co-produces, and the pairing is comfortable, if not complacent. They've corralled a small band to suggest a live-in-the-room intimacy and spontaneity, and "Rewrite" and "Love Is an Eternal Sacred Light" crackle with energy. Some of the ambient elements from Surprise remain, but they're couched in the earthy rhythms of the percussion and the spidery guitars. His voice still strong, Simon shows off his own fretwork more prominently, especially on the short, sweet instrumental "Amulet". Only the sampled sermon on "Getting Ready for Christmas Day" sounds out of place; contemporary listeners may be more likely to connect it to Moby's pre-millennial techno-folk than to its true source material, a 1941 sermon by Reverend J.M. Gates....full text |
| Rollingstone |
| On "The Afterlife," an African-pop-flavored standout from his 12th solo album, Paul Simon describes the wait at the Pearly Gates like it's a trip to traffic court, all long lines, mumbled excuses and jokey asides. (The narrator even tries to pick up a woman while killing time.) But underneath the mischief are serious concerns. "It seems like our fate/To suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek," Simon sings amid a sharply syncopated groove and heavenly electric riffs. "The Afterlife" resolves darkness and light with a tossed-off charm — a specialty of New York poets from Frank O'Hara to Biggie Smalls, including Paul Simon. Simon's first album in five years is full of heavy business: life's meaning, beauty, brutality and brevity. Simon is pushing 70; it's appropriate that he's got mortality on his mind. But the songs rarely feel heavy. Instead, they combine the freewheeling folk of 1972's Paul Simon with the brilliant studio sculpting of Graceland. It's his best album since 1990's The Rhythm of the Saints, and it also sums up much of what makes Simon great. Spring Music Preview: Lady Gaga, Foo Fighters, Lil Wayne and 42 More of 2011's Hottest Albums The world-music fusions on So Beautiful or So What sound as matter-of-fact as ever, common tongues of a polyglot modern world. On "Rewrite," about a Vietnam vet working at a car wash while revising either a screenplay or his own haunted memory, Simon trades virtuoso lines on acoustic guitar with the kora harp of Yacouba Sissoko (who politely declines to outshine him; 21 strings versus six strings is an unfair contest) in what could be an afternoon jam session in Washington Square Park. "Dazzling Blue" feels just as organic, combining country-folk melodies with South Indian percussion in a love song about driving out to the beach on Long Island. Exclusive: Paul Simon's New Video For 'The Afterlife' So Beautiful or So What is old-fashioned in its brevity (10 songs, 38 minutes) and vivid in its storytelling. On "Love Is Eternal Sacred Light," a roadhouse-blues jam that rides a ghostly techno pulse, a character who appears to be the Almighty (in one of a few album appearances) bitches while driving "a pre-owned '96 Ford" down the highway: "Check out the radio/Pop-music station/That don't sound like my music to me." Yeah, yeah: Everyone's a critic....full text |
| Prefixmag |
| Paul Simon, of solo and "and Garfunkel" fame, claims that So Beautiful or So What is his best material in twenty years. That's what they all say! That would put it close to Graceland, which remains Simon's biggest solo success to date. Simon also has a bunch of reissued material on the way, which will shed a bigger spotlight on this album--Leno probably isn't getting "You Can Call Me Al" unless he gets the new single, natch. The album features cuts like "Getting Ready for Christmas Day," which makes sense for So Beautiful or So What's May release, and is produced by long-time collaborator Phil Ramone. What, Steve Albini wasn't available?...full text |
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