I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

no "Song About the Moon"?

song abt the moon is idk a lil too 'formal' for me

that is a hard question to answer, paul simon is so close to my heart.
but its like, in your mix there's this emphasis on bracing choruses. its paul simon the songwriter with brill building style hooks. that's pretty much a list of his more singalong hits though still kinda weird in that regard because like call me al is missing so hmm its not like completely diagnosable but it still it seems to emphasise certain aspects and increasingly its got this stop start logic, a fast one followed by a slower one.

i feel like what i like about paul simon is more about this sense of drift that he has in his songs despite the fact that they tend to be really obsessively structured. like the boxer is a good example, that melody line that keeps threading through, or like hearts and bones where it just gently plateaus several times instead of ever really reaching a crescendo. that guitar strum rising out of the keyboards. and maybe there's this moment after graceland where this becomes especially prominent but its always been there. peace like a river or the only living boy in new york. like its built into his songwriting but its something that i love about a lot of his production and arrangements. i would probably do something like:

peace like a river,
hearts and bones
50 ways to leave your lover,
father and son,
born at the right time
late in the evening
the obvious child
mother and child reunion
spirit voices
train in the distance

father and daughter i meant

Good mix, but you're primed and ready now for You're The One!

who is that for?

7 he has a sort of gross chummy mode that im really not that into

could u expand on this?

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah im struggling w/how to express this but theres a sort of forced intimacy to there goes rhymin simon and still crazy after all these years that just makes me uncomfortable, its the full dork swag, at its worst on the bluesier tracks

yeah i get what you mean except that i have never heard there goes rhymin simon

i feel like in many ways his first album is his most *accomplished*

i feel like what i like about paul simon is more about this sense of drift that he has in his songs despite the fact that they tend to be really obsessively structured. like the boxer is a good example, that melody line that keeps threading through, or like hearts and bones where it just gently plateaus several times instead of ever really reaching a crescendo.

― judith, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:54 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i like this v much abt him too, leaving those songs out prob has more to do w/how i think abt 'mixes' than paul simon

i have never heard there goes rhymin simon

!!!

yeah i guess i'm thinking of this how somebody who djs ambient house might do a paul simon mix is my problem

haha, i am abt to make yr mix and listen to it btw

i have been slowly rolling out paul simon since i realised how much i love his first album a few years ago after having grown up with graceland on car trips which seems to be the like ultimate cliche. maybe its that that album is so colorful but why does it seem to have lodged in so many ppls memorys as this album from their childhood. except for like old people i guess.

because it was a huge album that was marketed at our parents, unlike, say, the other massive 80s albums which were directed at a younger generation (Thriller, Madonna, etc. Springsteen's kinda in the middle I guess)

i have also not heard you're the one

wait what age are you shakey mo?

I think Shakes andI are both in our late thirties.

all I heard on road trips were Anita Baker, Najee, Basia, and Genesis.

it was graceland and rumours

as in they were literally the only tapes in our house

later my dad bought some christy moore albums and born in the usa

it's entirely possible I'm projecting, it just seems to me that Simon had an appeal to my parents generation - white, middle class, vaguely liberal - that things like Madonna and MJ did not. Like, my parents would be happy to listen to Graceland, Thriller was more something to be tolerated and confused by.

xp

One of my fondest memories is dancing in the living room on a Friday night with Mom and my sister to Thriller, then freaking out because something in the toaster oven started to burn.

having grown up with graceland on car trips which seems to be the like ultimate cliche. maybe its that that album is so colorful but why does it seem to have lodged in so many ppls memorys as this album from their childhood.

― judith, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:08 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha otm, im p sure graceland is the album ive heard the most in my life because of this, and then i just never really stopped listening to it

my parents would be like the generation between you and your parents. graceland was released before i was born.

btw the transition from hearts and bones to 50 ways is like amazing.

i recommend it.

i was 10 when graceland came out, my dad LOVED it

cool, hearts and bones is just wrapping up

hell the transition from Hearts and Bones and Graceland is amazing.

graceland was like the concensus between my parents. my dad likes folk-rock and smooth jazz pop. my mam likes classical music and stuff like james last, who was until like her forties the only person she had ever seen live in concert. with his orchestra.

you know whats kind of interesting is the word graceland sounds kind of african, it some how vibes to the post colonial milieu at least to me a guy who has never set foot in africa, it sounds religious but on the edge of a more expansive animism, its v lively and virtuous feeling, but lol its just the name of elvises house

btw plax listening to yr mix u were otm re the limitations of mine, i really doesnt capture my full feeling toward the art of paul simon

heard Graceland so many times growing up

<3 judith for <3in <3s n bones

i have added the songs from plaxs mix not already on my mix to the end of my mix, the universe is at peace

the logic i was working on in my mix is that they are generally more atmospheric and groove based right up until obvious child where there is the big breakdown that lets you have the more angular and mother and child reunion followed by the comedown of spirit voices and finally fade out on train in the distance, looking out onto the horizon, remembering old times.

this is a fairly comprehensive list of highlights for me but omits like gumboots or papa hobo and a few other songs.

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

the only one of those i ever enjoyed was the rem one just because of how the results were rolled out over the course of about a year. it was such a gentle appreciation.

anyway i think my perfect paul simon mix would lean more heavily towards the kinda wistful and yearning and sweet songs i like those songs where hes explaining s.thing to you abt how it is to be alive but its not garish or forced or w/e and theres always a part that you can sing-along to w/o really like SINGING stuff like 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' or 'lisa' or 'duncan' even

diamonds is definite top 5

i think for me his best upbeat and rhythmic stuff is like 'all around the worlds' where hes still just telling you this story and it sometimes means something and sometimes doesnt and you can just vibe out to the sound of it, like the shape of the thing, but there are still these jarring and thoughtful bits that aim to haunt you like 'abandoned now just like the war'

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

― the parable is the parable of the (Lamp), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:44 PM (14 minutes ago)

Yeah, you'll be up pretty soon. Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls

I was outta college when Graceland came out, but my slightly younger sister was a manic Simon fan from the age of EIGHT so I heard all the LPs as they were released in the '70s and '80s. We went to the Graceland tour at Radio City.

the only one of those i ever enjoyed was the rem one just because of how the results were rolled out over the course of about a year. it was such a gentle appreciation.

― judith, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 you for this, the funny thing of course is that that only happened through total incompetence and getting-behind-on-shit on my part. It also overlapped with me moving to India for a while, I remember using about 15 minutes a day of my pre-work internet time throwing together a result to post...good times.

it is hard to make a paul simon mix because he has so many good songs

it is! and because some songs fit so well in the context of their own albums but rub up against each other weirdly on a mix. i had to take "the boxer" off a paul simon mix for my sister for this reason. also she really vibed on specific songs like "slip slidin' away" and "the obvious child" but she says she finds it hard to listen to the mix in its entirety. it's like too much unvariegated goodness.

whereas, the first thirty times you listen to the self-titled, something like "papa hobo" kind of slides past your ears unobtrusively and then one day you're like, oh this song rules.

oh plax i didn't even see that you singled out papa hobo, too <3

this thread title still makes me hulk out a little tbh