Jon

@ oh.

Only because I love you...

by Glenn O'Brien and Roger Egbert

Graceland is a pilgrimage. On the title track the singer heads for the Presley estate in Memphis, filled with faith, trailed by doubt, led by hope. And pretty soon Graceland is more than the palace of the rock 'n' roll Sun King, it is a state of mind that borders on heaven at the intersection of the road to enlightenment and the road to ruin. Graceland is the Promised Land, build on landfill. It's the end of the rainbow, a pot of gold grown from the wise investment of chump change. It's a great beauty built from the eyes of a million beholders. It's a distraction turned into a quest. It's the search for the grail as an excuse for a joy ride.

This is Paul Simon's greatest work. It's a strangely beautiful album of multinational, urbane country music. Most of the tracks are played by South African musicians and overdubbed by Simon and a variety of American musicians, notably guitarist Adrian Belew. Simon just happened to bump into the South African sound a few years ago, was struck by its pop beauty, and pursued it to its source. He liked its simplicity and its positive, joyful sound. It reminded him of the innocent rock 'n' roll of the '50s. By the time he arrived in Johannesburg in 1985, he was well aware that the music of that country was a gold mine of rhythm melody, and poetry, untapped by the outside world.

South African music is related to African musics that we have been exposed to. Some of King Sunny Ade's songs share rhythmic roots with South African styles (and an affection for the pedal steel guitar -- King Sunny's steel man Demola Adepoju is a featured player here). And fands of Malcolm McLaren's South AFrican Collaborations on the Duck Rock and Swamp Thing albums will hear familiar beats and vocal styles. Graceland is, however, an impressive intruduction to the music of South Africa. But it's still very much a Paul Simon album. Simon writes with an easy power here, and he performs with sensitivity, grace and wit.

Rock 'n' rollers may be resistant to the idea that Paul Simon can really show them something. But as rich and famous as the man is, I do think he's vastly underrated as a writer and musician. The man is one of the few songwriters we have who is a true first-class poet -- up there with Bob D., Neil Y., Lou R., and Lenny C. Simon writes lines that are purely sublime:

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth

And he writes lines that are pure hip mirth:

I said, 'Hey Senorita, that's astute'
I said, 'Why don't we get together
And call ourselves an institute.'

[Typist's note: is that a misquote?]

And what's more extraordinary is Simon's way of melding cool wit and electric profundity in the space of a few lines. It's like those old country songs, from Hank Williams to Elroy Blunt, that make you want to laugh till you cry yourself off the bar stool.

This is country music. It's the satellite bounce meeting the minds from Nashville to Swoeto and back. It's the township jive running in Cajun overdrive. It's Dixified East L.A. Chicano lyric poetry that rocks like a voodoo queen's pelvis on automatic pilot.

In addition to the distinguished South African players here -- Tao Ea Matsekha, Genera. M.D. Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters, and the Boyoyo Boys Band, to name the principals -- there are als tracks featuring the bayou zydeco sound of Rockin' Dopsie and the Twisters, and the party-hearty sound of eminent Angeleno rockers Los Lobos.

Music is a universal language. That's a cliche only when applied to cliched music. And this is universal country music in that it's got the rhythms of the earth in it. They say mathematics is the language of the spheres, but music is the language of love and the algebra of the pleasure and intelligence that unites all brothers and sisters of good feeling.

Graceland isn't a political statement about South Africa. It's a cultural balm mixed from the roots of South Africa and the fruits of American cities and all the branches of growth blowing in the rhythm of the free wind circling the planet. Living well is the best revenge and having fun is what big chiefs everywhere call "powerful medicine."

on OldStand: SPIN, November 1986 at April 14, 2008 8:13 PM
Score = 0

@ Paul Ramon
Whether you're way off on The Cure or not (hint: you are), check out some of the bands and albums that appeared somewhere on those reader/artist/critic picks and tell me that an album that contains a single as monstrous and influential as "Just Like Heaven" has no place on any of these lists:

Best Album:
Whitesnake, Whitesnake
Bad Animals, Heart
A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd
Tunnel of Love, Springsteen (had some good songs, but miles from his best)
Babble, That Petrol Emotion
Look What the Cat Dragged in, Poison

I'm awarding all of your points to Belinda Carlisle (and Suzanne Vega -- she had KMx3 on her list too).

In reply to Paul Ramon's comment on OldStand: Rolling Stone, March 10, 1988 at March 31, 2008 5:23 PM
Score = 3

@ bearface
You just blew my mind. I forgot that irony wasn't invented until 1991. Ram it!
Check out the Raiders from the same year: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-eEF8zplJY8.
Also, the Mets, featuring Joe Piscopo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=S0txUWNpSlc

on Video Hangover: "Baseball Boogie" at March 25, 2008 1:32 PM
Score = 1

Yep, my bad. Got my wires crossed there.

In reply to You R. Anidiot's comment on Video Hangover: "All Star Rap Jamz" at March 11, 2008 2:24 PM
Score = 0

Better fake rasta accent: Method Man or the rapping frog?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h6Cl0BRvXd0

on Who Is A Better Actor: Method Man, Or Brad Pitt? at May 5, 2008 2:51 PM
Score = 1

Remind me never to drive 50 cent anywhere, in anything.

on Fresh Prince Of Persia at May 1, 2008 2:43 PM
Score = 0