Paul Simon will celebrate his 50th year of making records with a huge surprise. Actually, with SURPRISE, a new record several years in the making out May 9th. Why is it a huge surprise? Because his producer is Brian Eno. I’ve loved both men’s music for years but they’re just so different that I’m having a hard time imagining what the collaboration will sound like.
In an AP interview, Simon says he has admired the British experimentalist for years and after meeting at a dinner party they agreed to try see what working together would generate. “We’re both ‘sounds’ people,” Simon explained. “We’re both about soundscapes. I thought he would bring an element that I hadn’t ever encountered before, electronics, into a guitar record. Theoretically, it seemed to be a good idea. And when we actually did it, you could tell right away it was a good idea.”
The closest to this I can think of is way back in the late ’70s when frequent Eno collaborator Robert Fripp produced Daryl Hall’s first solo record. I quite liked Sacred Songs but this was a very minority view; compared to all the other Hall & Oates releases in those days it sold almost nothing, not even as much as you’d expect just from core fans going to the store on the day of release. While Eno has had some great successes as a producer, they’ve come with artists very different than Paul Simon: Talking Heads, some late ’70s David Bowie, Devo and, most prominently, U2.
Surprising? Sure. But Simon has got my attention in a way I don’t remember since 1986 and Graceland.
BillSaysThis 