Surprise : Paul Simon : Review : Rolling Stone

Six years ago -- after more than a decade of conceptual forays into South African mbqanga, Brazilian folk music and show tunes -- Paul Simon released You're the One, a pretty, relatively straight singer-songwriter album spiked with doses of jazzy patter and modest orchestrations. Surprise plays like a sister record to You're the One, with one key difference: production help from Brian Eno, who pioneered ambient rock in the Seventies before twiddling knobs for U2 and Talking Heads.

Eno outfits some of Simon's most elegant songs yet with spacey accouterments, ranging from the shimmery atmospherics of "That's Me" to the buzzy electro-folk groove of "Another Galaxy." Despite the album's shiny surface, Simon sounds like Simon. Over the spry percussion and electronics-specked Bo Diddley groove of "Sure Don't Feel Like Love," he drops self-conscious barbs with the same pained wiseass spirit that made him poet laureate of New York alienation in the early Seventies. Much of the time, though, he sticks to tender ruminations on time and tide, pledging eternal love to his little girl on "Fathers and Daughters" and working up a gospel-tinged elegy for conflict-ravaged families on "Wartime Prayers."

Surprise's mellow introspection ends up just being sleepy on slow burners like "I Don't Believe." But "Outrageous" slides easily between hard-edged and pretty, with Simon dissing big corporations in the voice of an aging striver who does "900 sit-ups a day," then asking, "Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?" The answer: God, whom Simon praises over a sparkling pastoral groove that almost keeps you from wishing the Eno-Simon collaboration had happened thirty years ago.

CHRISTIAN HOARD

(Posted: May 2, 2006)

News and Reviews

How to Play This Album

Click the play button.
Register or enter your username and password.
Let the music play!

No commitment.
It's FREE.

Track List

Play All

Your Turn

Give us your review of Surprise

Review 1 of 5

5of 5 Stars

Take twenty dollars out of your pocket and buy this album from Barnes and Noble. then break into the room where the Barnes and Noble speaker controls are kept, and play "Beautiful" so that everyone in the store can hear it. You might get to heaven if you do.

Apr 30, 2007 14:54:17

Review 2 of 5

Not Rated

Folk/rock/pop songs: verses, mostly different, alternate with choruses, mostly the same and a break is in there somewhere for variety. This is also the structure of the final, beautiful "Father and Daughter."

But the other ten tracks go to a new place. They are not single songs. Parts of songs, different in tone and temper, are tightly interwoven in structures previously unknown. "A Day in the Life" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" give hints of Simon's new paradigm. Simon paints tracks with a rich variety of music, seemingly unrelated but the deeper you dig, the more the relationships build.

For completeness I should add that Simon is a brilliant writer and singer; he has a wonderful gift for melody and Eno's work, starting with such great material, rises to heights seldom, if ever, seen. My opinion of Surprise rises every time I play it.

Oct 9, 2006 07:49:37

Review 3 of 5

5of 5 Stars

Twice a decade or so now, Paul Simon puts out an album, and invariably it is well worth the wait. Consider that each of his previous three studio efforts – “Graceland” in 1986, “Rhythm of the Saints” in 1990 and “You’re the One” in 2000 – was nominated for a Grammy for Best Album. The surprise is that his latest release, “Surprise,” may be the best album of the four, if not the finest of his 40-year career. In his early 60s, Simon is peerless among thinking pop rockers, and he has never been in better command of his instruments – his pen, guitars and voice. On “Surprise,” there are faint echoes of the African, Brazilian and Latino rhythms that defined “Graceland,” “Saints” and the ill-fated 1998 Broadway musical, “Capeman,” but it is Brian Eno’s alternately drowsy and driving “sonic landscape” that provides the backdrop for this singular Simon CD. Like an ordinary day, these songs take extraordinary twists and turns, suddenly changing mood, melody and time, each one a surprise in and of itself. The common thread is the catchy hook that makes even the most nuanced tune here hummable. From the beatific “Beautiful” to the haunting “How Can You Live in the Northeast?” an ageing Simon ruminates on common and cosmic concerns, deeply moved (if not surprised) by his children and his God.

Jun 14, 2006 13:16:27

Review 4 of 5

5of 5 Stars

Paul Simon's answer to "who's gonna love you when your looks are gone" is:

"God will, like he waters the flowers on your window sill"

In other words, Simon's not praising God at all. When's the last time it rained indoors?

Leave it to Paul Simon to keep us guessing- which gives this album, like the rest, enduring appeal.

Jun 7, 2006 10:43:21

Review 5 of 5

4of 5 Stars

New sounds for Mr. Simon! It remembers sometimes to the records of Daniel Lanois, an old comrad of Eno, who produced SURPRISE. And indeed, its a surprise to everyone who expected the old Paul Simon thing (e.g. folk, jazz or ethno-music). But to me as a fan of Eno and Lanois the new Paul Simon sounds good.

May 27, 2006 06:10:29

Previous Next