This particular album seems to be one of those records that everybody who knows a thing or ten about popular music will tell you is the cat's ass. Well, almost everybody. I'm sure somebody out there think it's vile, overrated, or uninspiring. I for one ain't one of those people. I'm one of the multitude of music lovers who think it's the cat's ass. It really is, regardless of how seemingly cliche and predictable it has become to be giving it any sort of appraisal. Having appreciated to varying degrees the dulcet acoustic folk-isms of Simon & Garfunkel, I'm not surprised that this album is as good as it is. Very very good, in fact. Paul Simon is without a doubt a musical genius and a creative force to be reckoned with, and nor does he need Art Garfunkel to show people he could pen songs as gracefully and as thoughtful as the likes of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. But Art Garfunkel made Simon & Garfunkel just as Simon did, and I'm grateful for both. But with Graceland, I'm likewise glad he went out on his own as well. Making what was then a controversial decision to travel to South Africa to record the album, the end result was an amicable consolidation of indigenous South African genres as well as the staple rock and pop varieties of the eighties. Audacious and radical, Graceland is unexpected in its brilliance, and predictable in the competence and greatness of its authors. "Boy In The Bubble", "Graceland", "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes", "Crazy Love, Vol. II", "Under African Skies" and "Homeless" are what you should be playing first. If you don't own a copy of this album, buy it. But at least put listening to it on your bucket list. A+
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