Bookends, though I love all of Simon and Garfunkel's albums.
Little late to the party, but whatever.
Yeah, I'm including Simon & Garfunkel's albums here as well. Artie was a fine backup singer but he wasn't the star of the show. However, I'm cutting off Wednesday Morning, 3 AM; One Trick Pony; and Songs From The Capeman because my god why would anyone pick any of those (i.e. cover-heavy juvenalia or soundtracks that flopped) as their favorite? Well, feel free to vote Other and yell at me if I'm wrong about that.
I'll add my opinions in another post.
Everytime I hear "Homeward Bound" I think of my very first day working on the campaign in 2012. I was filling out petitions and the scheduler asked me what I liked to listen too, and I mentioned Folk and sure enough "The Concert in Central Park" was in her DVD collection.
I was kinda trolling with that, of course. But I actually do prefer Simon's solo work- his sound got more diverse and adventurous, and I also think his lyrics (which are of course his greatest gift) improved with maturity and middle age, at least up through his '80s work.
Anyway... I was the vote for
Hearts and Bones, of course. It was the biggest flop of his career- everyone was expecting a big S&G reunion after that Central Park concert, and in fact
H&B started out as one. But the material was just too personal, it didn't work as a duo, everyone was disappointed, and nobody remembers it anymore. If it's brought up at all, it's in the context of "he needed to change his sound and reinvent himself with
Graceland". But I actually think it's the strongest, most personally affecting songwriting of his career. If there was any justice in the world, it would instead be considered his
Blood On The Tracks (fitting given that both are divorce albums, by the way). "Think Too Much (a)" was a dud, but everything else is just perfect- the title track, "Think Too Much (b)", "Song About The Moon", the John Lennon tribute (featuring a Philip Glass coda!) "The Late Great Johnny Ace", "Allergies", and... well, the song I get my screen name from here.
Anyway that was an embarrasing bit of fanboyism but it's all 100 percent true.
This is not to knock
Graceland, of course- that's a fine album too and probably his second-best. And the follow-up
Rhythm of the Saints is criminally underrated.
The eponymous first solo album is one of my favorites, as well, and surprisingly I actually think
So Beautiful or So What is in the top half as well.
You're The One and
Surprise were both huge disappointments and the two albums of his I'd actually call
bad (one or two good cuts amongst unlistenable filler, bah!), so the fact his most recent effort was a
genuine return to form, rather than just hyped as such, was a minor miracle.
As for S&G, I've always liked
Bookends best though
PSR&T grows on me with time.
Bridge over Troubled Water has some great cuts (actually not so much the title track, more the three song stretch of "Keep The Customer Satisfied", "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright", and "The Boxer"), but I find it just uneven and commercial enough to call it the one overrated thing he's ever done, and
Sounds of Silence is of course great but probably needed a little more care in the studio- it was a rush job to release and some of the seams show.
Poll
