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Surprise
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Surprise
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Track Listings
1 | How Can You Live In the Northeast |
2 | Everything About It Is A Love Song |
3 | Outrageous |
4 | Sure Don't Feel Like Love |
5 | Wartime Prayers |
6 | Beautiful |
7 | I Don't Believe |
8 | Another Galaxy |
9 | Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean |
10 | That's Me |
11 | Father And Daughter |
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Among the most popular artists and greatest songwriters of our time, Paul Simon returns with his first album in six yearsand the album titled Surprise is exactly that. First, three songs were co-written with electronic music guru Brian Eno; second, the other songs are straightforward, wonderfully American pop. Surprise is a pleasant surprise for Simon fans.
Amazon.com
Since severing his epochal partnership with Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon's solo career been characterized by restless reinvention. But while it's easy to see such disparate, cross-cultural collaborations as Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints as Simon's quest for new creative partnerships, beneath them lies a more crucial willingness to continually challenge the very assumptions and craft of his own songwriting. Six years after his sublime, underappreciated You're the One Simon has pushed that sensibility into a rewarding, if equally unlikely, partnership with Brian Eno. Yet the former Roxy Music texturalist cum contemporary producer/sound conjurer supreme (aided by such stellar sidemen as Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock and Steve Gadd) offers barely half the "surprises" here.
The playful "Sure Don't Feel Like Love" argues Simon can still beckon his more traditional pop muse at will. Yet some of his best work here turns as much on hypnotic, if no less politically pointed, quasi-spoken word pieces (like "Wartime Prayers" and the gripping, post 9/11 rumination "How Can You Live in the Northeast?") as traditional songcraft. Eno is credited with providing "Sonic Landscape" to Simon's production, but also co-wrote three tracks, infusing "Another Galaxy" with contrasting doses of bracing energy and ethereal elegance, while seasoning the more traditional folk musings of "Once Upon a Time There Was An Ocean" with infectious electro-funk rhythms. "Outrageous," their best full collaboration, suggests that while Eno and Simon may approach world music - and indeed most pop forms - from polar extremes, the common ground they find is truly elevated. In an era when many of his peers are content to craft mere artistic comebacks, Simon's re-emergence here is a bold, compelling step forward. --Jerry McCulley
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Product Dimensions : 5 x 5.75 x 0.25 inches; 3.53 ounces
- Manufacturer : Warner Bros.
- Date First Available : January 28, 2007
- Label : Warner Bros.
- ASIN : B000F0UV1S
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,646 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #356 in Contemporary Folk (CDs & Vinyl)
- #463 in Adult Alternative (CDs & Vinyl)
- #634 in Folk Rock (CDs & Vinyl)
- Customer Reviews:
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This album ranks with his finest. Eno's remarkable soundscapes perfectly frame and add muscle to Simon's insightful, poignant, searching, playful lyrics and delicate melodies that otherwise might risk cloying. I particularly enjoy the open-ended quality of some of these songs ("How Can You Live in the Northeast?"), as if they are not quite finished and the artists want you to know that precisely that is what makes them as real as life.
Of all his work, this is the one that is always with me in the car.
Eno's "sonic landscapes" on the non-collaborative efforts seem to be mainly his guitar treatments. Eno is probably rock's foremost guitar producer, doing guitar treaments since 1972 for Fripp, David Byrne, The Edge and others. You primarily hear them here as the subdued but shining reverb beds. He's incredibly subtle and tasteful, so you'll need to listen.
Here's what got me - on the collaborations, I'm familiar with Eno's loop manipulation - building on layers of loops to create a song. But in "Another Galaxy" you hear the Eno loop building and Simon comes in on it, he gets it, but then he turns it to his styling, carries it, and then returns to the loop. Nice collaboration - unexpectedly deft.
Top reviews from other countries
Merita anche solo per Father and Daughter.
Davvero gradevole
Produziert hat Simon selbst; unüberhorbar hat indes Brian Eno (u.a. Roxy Music und Windows-95-Titelmusik) seine "Klanglandschaften" dazu beigetragen. Die Fleißarbeit, die vielen Musiker aufzuschreiben, mit denen Paul musiziert, hat hier schon jemand gemacht. Altbekannte Namen sind dabei, doch wieder hat Simon mit seiner Liebe zum Produzieren eine neue Mischung geschaffen.
Die elf Songs sind allesamt von Paul Simon, ausgenommen "Outrageous", "Another Galaxy" and "Once upon a time there was an ocean", bei denen Brian Eno mitschrieb. Ihnen gemeinsam sind starke, auch schon einmal zornige oder nachdenkliche Texte über einer Melodie, die wieder ganz neu ist, von Pauls unverkennbarer Kantorenstimme vorgetragen.
Ausgestattet ist die CD liebevoll mit künstlerischen Farbphotos (auf einem Bild freilich scheint Paul Simon gerade nassgespritzt zu werden). Die Texte sind enthalten, Simons mit "Wasser" verbundene Wörter sind hervorgehoben, das wirkt etwas wie 'mit dem Holzhammer'.
Fazit: bitte keine Simon&Garfunkel-CD erwarten, sondern ein reifes vielschichtigeres Spätwerk.