Premier Rock Forum

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:As my old man used to say, "Art Garfunkel? That sounds like a dirty word." And so it is. Why listen to Simon & Garfunkel so long as Everly Brothers recordings are available? S & G are to the Everlys as Kingdom Come is to Zeppelin, as Pat Boone is to Little Richard, as Toby Keith is to David Allan Coe. The only vaguely listenable S & G song is "Hazy Shade of Winter"--the BANGLES version!

Oh, I feel so bad for you. You have missed out on all the amazing work S&G have done past their first LP, it seems. To judge S&G only from their early material (Tom & Jerry material, really) the resembled the Everly Bros (mostly in form, mind you) is like saying the Beatles were just like the Dave Clark Five. Though I think the very first S&G record is fantastic, I also see how they grew in front of our ears and explored different subject matter, arrangements, recording situations, instrumentation... all long singing very heartfelt, serious, sad, and hopeful music. In my mind they outshine any comparison to the Everly Bros.

Your ability to show the Bangles in positive light while tearing down S&G makes me think you may be need to change your dosage.

(Kingdom Come? Oh, c'mon!)

Angry_Dragon wrote:CRAP considering that anyone who says they like this band only like the songs from The Graduate and this includes me.

"The Sound of Silence" is a GREAT song...and after watching The Gradulate i had it stuck in my head for a month...so i just broke down and bought their Sounds of Silence album...of course none of it is as good as that one song...but i love that one song and i guess i don't hate the rest of it...

as for ALL the songs from The Graduate: "Scarborough Fair" or whatever is called is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE song...i hate that song...i'm sure i'd NEVER get Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme just because of that damned song...and if the album gets its title from that song that's no good sign...the other song "Mrs. Robinson" is okay...

it seems i've already voted on this poll...so i'm sure i voted CRAP a long time ago...now i'm not so sure about it...in spite of the fact that i don't hate Sounds of Silence as a whole, it's not something i would own were it not for the strength of that one damned song...

dude scarborough fair is a mediavel classic. that's what the young king arthur would get down to on the weekends

shagboy wrote:dude scarborough fair is a mediavel classic. that's what the young king arthur would get down to on the weekends

if by "get down" you mean "get down on his knees and start suckin' some dick" then i would agree...while i don't like the song itself, i do appreciate its uncanny ability to make me wanna participate in homosexual activities...

robert thefamilyghost wrote:

shagboy wrote:dude scarborough fair is a mediavel classic. that's what the young king arthur would get down to on the weekends

if by "get down" you mean me... wanting to participate in homosexual activities...

No, he means it is an old traditional mediavel folk song.

http://www.geocities.com/paris/villa/3895/

Mayfair wrote:No, he means it is an old traditional mediavel folk song.

so we're agreed...

it is actually spelled "medieval"

i got it wrong above, and mayfair used the same spelling, and now i feel terrible!

apologies!

doh.

i greet this poll with profound ambivalenece. i appreciate the fact that the early s + g stuff is way ahead of its time. at ages 9-11 i had a cassette copy of their collected works that i rode hard. their entire body of song is not crap, almost assuredly.

but then there are tunes like "bridge over troubled water," and, worse, "celia." these tunes are outright crimes against the everyday life of american people (and people of those nations who fall under the US hegemon and its soft-rock ministry.)

like a lot of things i energetically hate, these atrocities ride in on horses of sentimentality and smart-but-not that-smart playfullness that seem to warrant other people's equally energetic love and admiration. ever seen a crowd of people share an unapologetic dancefloor moment over "celia?" ever seen a graduating class wallowing in somebody's rendition of "bridge?" seeing people's cultural rites besmirched with paul simon's vapid song-paste really bothers me: it's like a very mellow black mass. (with this in mind, don't get me started on "still crazy after all these years.")

anywho, these two songs and their ilk earn simon and garfunkel a very special "crap" vote from segerandpriest. to those who'd draw my attention to their otherwise mostly "not crap" catalog, i would offer the example of evangelical revolutionary terrorist demagogue jim jones. this man was honored by the NAACP, and even won positive recognition as a force for social justice in the united states, before descending into violence. whether his righteous beginnings or his ignomineous end speak to jones' "true self" (ha!), i myself shall associate him forever with the "crap" pile, for his wrongs were of a magnitude that they forever tainted, if not erased, his good deeds.

so it is for art and paul, in my book.

I will agree with you that lyrically they often wear their hearts on their sleeves, especially on the songs Art is singing lead on in my opinion... he sings so earnestly.. But that to me is easy to look past as their songs and harmonies and arrangements and voices are so great. I mean Neil Young can also be a bit rosy with his lyrics. I guess I don't listen too much to lyrics... and I certainly do not care how others co-opt their songs for their own uses.

And where I will agree there are a few bad apples in the bunch, the good songs and records far far out weigh the not quite so good.