15-06-2016, 16:55
I have only heard "Wristband", so I can't rate the new album, but nothing he has done since his first two solo albums has enthused me very much. None of the tunes seem anything like as interesting as the songs he was writing when he was with Garfunkel.
I suppose Graceland was ground-breaking at the time, though it's not true to say he was the first non-African to introduce African rhythms to the rest of the world - he just made it fashionable. Neil Diamond was doing it some years beforehand with the album Tap Root Manuscript. I always thought it was rather curious that most of the songs on Graceland, which sounded musically as though they could have come straight out of Soweto, had lyrics that were nothing to do with Africa or Africans.
I suppose Graceland was ground-breaking at the time, though it's not true to say he was the first non-African to introduce African rhythms to the rest of the world - he just made it fashionable. Neil Diamond was doing it some years beforehand with the album Tap Root Manuscript. I always thought it was rather curious that most of the songs on Graceland, which sounded musically as though they could have come straight out of Soweto, had lyrics that were nothing to do with Africa or Africans.