Chances
are that the answer ‘Surprise’ will meet with derision. After all, how many
people can name a single solo Simon LP other than Graceland, the ultimate world
music mainstream crossover? MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
Wednesday, 31st May 2006
Paul Simon - Surprise (4 out of 5)
Stephen Gilliver
In the year 2106, when a cryopreserved Les Dennis asks the Glazer family of Manchester to name something you’d associate with Paul Simon, will the top answer be cloying karaoke fave Bridge over Troubled Water? Bright-eyed mop-top Art Garfunkel? Or wannabe cradle snatcher Mrs Robinson?
Chances
are that the answer ‘Surprise’ will meet with derision. After all, how many
people can name a single solo Simon LP other than Graceland, the ultimate world
music mainstream crossover?
For this his first album since 2000’s lukewarmly received You’re the One, Simon took the very smart decision to get erstwhile Roxy Music keyboard wiz and ambient pioneer Brian Eno on board in order to create what is described in the credits as a ‘sonic landscape’.
When translated, this constitutes the choice of subtle yet inventive electronica as the latest context for Simon’s foreground-monopolising vocal tones. Nobody is better qualified to reward such a decision than is Eno.
Simon’s famed African music influences are sparsely represented (Beautiful’s percussion, Once upon a Time there Was America’s lively rhythm). And whilst the Jessie Dixon Singers ably infuse Wartime Prayers with gospel, Surprise is very much the Paul and Brian show.
Obvious pop melodies are off the menu and perseverance something of a necessity. By the same token, faith is rewarded well and only Simon’s funky guitar playing on Outrageous misses the mark.
But where is the ‘Surprise’?
Simon’s lyrics are more a source of intrigue than anything else. ‘I registered to vote today. Felt like a fool’, he laments without explanation (Sure Don’t Feel Like Love). It is not the prelude to the sort of political opining that is very much de rigueur.
Wartime Prayers is rather more concerned with the spiritual than the military (in spite of its reference to ‘lunatics and liars’). Elsewhere, Outrageous makes explicit reference to the great almighty.
How Can You Live in the Great Northeast?, by contrast, finds him in a confrontational mood. ‘How can you be a Christian,... a Jew,... a Muslim,... a Hindu?’, he demands of unidentified subjects. What’s his beef? Some or other example of religious hypocrisy?
And why are certain words in the lyric sheet highlighted in bold? It requires not an Enigma machine to crack the connection between ‘river’, ‘flood’, ‘ocean’, ‘clouds’, ‘pond’ and ‘rain’, but what’s the message?
Such side issues are mere curiosities. The front page headline should read ‘Simon Makes Impressive Return’. Admittedly, less eye-catching than pictures of socialist firebrand John Prescott enjoying a jolly good game of croquet but, whilst he’ll be finished soon, it does not sound as though Simon will.