Paul Simon

As you people know I've been on a Simon & Garfunkel run recently, and while I can't say I care too much for Paul Simon's solo career other than The Obvious Child, I agree with this article re: he is curiously overlooked in comparison to his peers.

Pop typically prizes youth, yet Simon has from the beginning embraced and even perhaps fetishized the idea of aging, which means death haunts almost all of his songs, whether explicitly or not. Revisiting his catalog on “Songwriter” or any of this year’s other reissues won’t necessarily remind a listener of more carefree times, at least not the way early songs by Dylan or Young or Phil Spector still evoke the intoxicating defiance of youth. On the other hand, those compositions have allowed Simon to age gracefully, to avoid pure nostalgia or the embarrassment of being an aging rocker pantomiming youthful songs.