Red Mosquito

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

wease wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

The Argonaut wrote:Is it possible that Simon and Garfunkel are better than The Beatles?

Yes

No, but I think George Martin is a really big part of why The Beatles are the better band.

Simon & Garfunkel are not a band. They are a group.

But, I agree with you otherwise.

thank you for this earth-shatteringly important distinction

surfndestroy wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:If all other music, besides the Beatles, disappeared from the Earth all at one time, I'd be 100% fine with that. If I never listened to anything other than the Beatles for the rest of my life, I'd be totally okay with it.

Not the biggest classical music fan but I'll take Beethoven over the Beatles if I had to choose just one.

Higgs wrote:

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:Simon supposedly stole a lot of the music on "Graceland" from Los Lobos, and they are still furious about it. He sounds like a real douche.

Higgs wrote:Peter Ames Carlin’s Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon is one of curiously few books about the songwriter. Hundreds, probably more, have meanwhile been written about his great ’60s rival, Bob Dylan. If he gave it any thought at all, is this the kind of discrepancy that might rankle, peeve or otherwise irk Simon?

You bet.

According to Carlin, the 75-year old Simon is in many ways unchanged from the tubby Jewish kid from Queens, growing up sick with the knowledge he was never going to be elvis. In other words, he’s still a mess of anxieties, insecurities and self-doubt unrelieved by years of therapy, awards, hit records, critical acclaim and largely pampered celebrity.

In Carlin’s meticulously assembled portrait, Simon’s neediness is matched only by his self-importance, a pumped-up sense of himself and his apparently unmatchable talent, tyrannical in most respects, everyone in his orbit there only to do his bidding, lackeys attending his demanding whims. For all the expansive generosity of his music, he can also be petty, malicious, prone to spite and envy, especially of his oldest friend and musical partner, Art Garfunkel, who he seems to have equally loved and resented, mainly because of the unwanted knowledge that he would always be more popular as part of Simon & Garfunkel than he was even at his most successful as Paul Simon.

And don’t get Carlin started on Simon’s bullish intransigence, the mule-headed belief that his opinion is the only one that matters, his inability to compromise, back down or negotiate, and a stubborn unwillingness to heed wiser council.

His friend, Harry Belafonte, for instance, was still negotiating on his behalf with the African National Congress for clearance for him to record in South Africa when Simon, typically headstrong, turned up for the first sessions. With a little more patience, the whole sanctions-busting hoo-hah that subsequently pursued Graceland could have been avoided. even a belated apology for not waiting for ANC approval – which they were happy to give – would have put paid to the controversy. Simon refused to issue one and the row rumbled on.

Simon is ruthless, too, and sometimes duplicitous. When he and Garfunkel signed their first recording contract as a duo, he simultaneously negotiated a solo deal for himself without mentioning it to an eventually furious Art. Years later, aspiring songwriter Heidi Berg gave him a cassette of the African township music she wanted to incorporate into the songs she’d written for the LP Simon had promised to produce for her, which became instead the sound of his own Graceland, the record that put him back on top after a few fallow commercial years.

He has also been cavalier about songwriting credits, paying generous session rates, but retaining all publishing rights, which has incensed some collaborators, notably Los Lobos, who suggest their contribution to Graceland was based on a song they’d already written that Simon claimed as his own.

tragabigzanda wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:Man, Black Messiah is just so so good.

One of my favorites from the last ten years or so.

tragabigzanda wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:Man, Black Messiah is just so so good.

One of my favorites from the last ten years or so.

I hate the album title so much that I haven't even bothered to listen to it

Yea, it's in direct competition with Yeezus.

tragabigzanda wrote:

theplatypus wrote:It's a gorgeous album, politics notwithstanding. Like a Prince album through a D'Angelo/Questlove filter. The sonics and compositions are really lovely

And don't forget the playing. The band is killer! Some of my favorite guitar playing ever recorded.

tragabigzanda wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

Strat wrote:Damn. I just listened to the first track Aint that easy. Fuck that is good!