Artist – Album: Paul Simon - Graceland
Released: 12th
August 1986
Sounds Like: Music for the world, by the world
There are some albums that, for
all their failings, controversies and cheese, you just can’t help but love.
Paul Simon’s Graceland is the Holy Grail for me, perfect in its imperfections,
the most enjoyable and fresh album of the musical hinterland that is the
Eighties.
I’m not inclined to go in to the
hullabaloo that surrounds the album as: a) being only six years old when the
apartheid in South Africa was finally lifted, I don’t have the requisite understanding
of the intricacies and finer details and wouldn’t want to pretend that I fully
understand both sides of the argument, b) that could make a bloody boring blog
and c) because I don’t want to take anything away from the music. All that you
really need to know is that when Simon enlisted the help of African musicians
(including Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Youssou N’Dour, alongside well known
Western artists such as The Everly Brothers and Linda Ronstadt) he brought to
the attention of the world at large the beautiful, pure sounds of the Dark
Continent. In turn, they gave him a new lease of life and granted his always
exemplary lyrics with a vividly colourful background on which to rest. The
gorgeous acapella of ‘Homeless’, the wonderfully evocative ‘Diamonds
on the Soles of Her Shoes’, the
playful ‘I Know What I Know’, the
locomotive title track and
the portrayal of an ever shrinking world in ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ are all stone cold classics, and
they are songs that it is impossible to imagine could have existed without the
help of his scouted companions.
The biggest hit was ‘You Can
Call Me Al’, an exuberant pop rock anthem (with a killer Chevy Chase
fronted video) that featured only smatterings of the African influence, save the bass-led instrumental breakdown (slappa da bass) and the Ladysmith backing vocals. But the song sets
the scene for his journey to South Africa, as Simon wittily questions the
direction his life was taking (“Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my
life is so hard”) before he finds himself on a “street in a strange world,
maybe it’s the Third World”. His denouement of “angels in the architecture,
spinning in infinity, he says Amen, Hallelujah” suggest an epiphany; that Simon
has realised that this is where he’s supposed to be. After listening to this
resulting gem of an album, it’s hard to argue that he was wrong.
Albumaday... rating:
10/10
1. The
Boy in the Bubble – 3:59
2. Graceland
– 4:48
3. I
Know What I Know – 3:13
4. Gumboots
– 2:44
5. Diamonds
on the Soles of Her Shoes – 5:45
6. You
Can Call Me Al – 4:39
7. Under
African Skies – 3:37
8. Homeless
– 3:48
9. Crazy
Love, Vol. II – 4:18
10. That
Was Your Mother – 2:52
11. All
Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints – 3:15
Listen to ‘You Can
Call Me Al’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA
Also released on the 12th August:
1991: Metallica – Metallica
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