What are Paul Simon’s best studio albums? Select up to 3.
0 voters
Everyone wanted to vote, no one wanted to discuss!?
I’ll say the front-runner is obvious, and while “Still Crazy” isn’t one of my favorites, I’m not surprised to see it in 2nd. Rhymin Simon’s an interesting album musically, and has one of Simon’s best songs, American Tune.
I am surprised that more people didn’t vote for “Paul Simon”. I think it has some of his best guitar playing outside of Bookends.
OK, I’ll discuss.
I voted for Graceland, Rhymin’ Simon, and Still Crazy.
But I would like to shine a little bit of light on the underrated Hearts and Bones and the extremely underrated Songs of the Capeman.
On Hearts and Bones, the title track, Train in a Distance, and Rene and Georgette Magritte are up there with Simon’s best, in my opinion.
The much-aligned Capeman has some awesome doo-wop, a few surprises, and tells a compelling story. That it was such a failure, both on stage and on record, perplexes me.
And I agree that “American Tune” is wonderful. It is probably my favorite Paul Simon tune, including his output with Arthur.
mmm
ETA: “Paul Simon” contains “Duncan”, another personal super favorite.
Agree with that. Great song.
I voted for Hearts and Bones, Graceland is a close second. They were both the soundtrack of all road trips we took as a family. Hearts & Bones is my favorite Paul Simon song (and as a solid GenX-er, I can really appreciate it’s about Princess Leia) so it gets the slight edge.
Edited to add: It’s amazing to me that as teenagers/kids, we NEVER got tired of those two albums even though they were probably on constant rotation on every vacation.
I didn’t vote. I don’t have any Paul Simon albums. I don’t really care for him too much at all, but I know enough about him to know he’s a freakin’ musical genius. He’s just done so much, so well. I’m not a huge fan, but I certainly respect him.
Whatever it is, I, for one, can listen to Graceland over and over.
Me too. And I did, for a good year or so, when it was released. Graceland is one of the very few albums that I’ve never really tired of.
mmm
I voted for Graceland, but I also really like Rhythm of the Saints, and I’m a bit surprised it’s not getting more attention here. It’s kind of a go-to album I listen to a lot on road trips and such. I think it got eclipsed by Graceland, which was such an original and unexpected musical direction for Simon. Then he came out with ROTS and I guess fans were like “yawn, another ‘Big Sound’ album with a bunch of backup musicians from another country. Been there, done that”.