Paul Simon – Graceland

I went into this album knowing a single song from it (You can call me Al) which really is a catchy pop tune that you find yourself humming in quiet moments during the day after you’ve heard it. I did some research into what the album is about and saw that Paul Simon purposefully injected traditional African beats, instruments, and melodies into the music (Specifically an African accordion band)

Overall the music really has a mid-80’s vibe to it with lots of synthesizer tracks typical to the time period. This really works with Simon’s dense lyrical prose which is filled with allegories and references. I’ve always enjoyed Simon and Garfunkel and pop-folk is one of my favorite musical genres (to play as well as listen to) and he continues this folk mentality with songs that tell entire stories

What this album reminds me of: I didn’t really hear this album until this challenge – which is a shame because it falls into the wheelhouse of the kind of eclectic music I enjoy. When it came out I was 12 years old and wouldn’t have gotten the same experience from it that I have now with age and well, a life lived. Honestly, I would have bailed after a few songs because at that age I was REALLY into top-40 and Hip-Hop so folk music would have been a hard sell.

Rating: 3/5 – While I enjoyed the album for it’s lyrics and progressive melodies sometimes it can get repetitive and while I prefer lyrically dense songs some of the tracks were a bit repetitive – after a while the tracks started blending together. Some of the lyrics are too obtuse to really infer what he was trying to say. I don’t mind lyrical allegory but I don’t want to work too hard deciphering lyrics!