The Greatest Band Of All Time.

SPECIAL FEATURE: Greatest Album of All Time
Bookends

This week, Greatest Band of All Time ventures in to slightly more narrow territory than is usual, with an appraisal not of an artist's sprawling career, but of a single snapshot moment—the Greatest Album of All Time. As per usual, the means of measure as a little hazy: records that are perhaps overlooked, under-appreciated, poorly judged, or simply spec-tack.

It's 1968. That year probably sounds sort of familiar, right? Social climate aside, it was sort of a year of panic for the recording industry—the bar raised dramatically by another one of those Beatles records. Suddenly, everyone was rushing into the studio to record their singular definitive statements—the mixed results of which mostly sounding a good deal like Sgt. Pepper's.

Simon and Garfunkel had just come off of their mixed success with the whole Graduate debacle, and with heads roundly inflated, decided to record their next album as co-producers (along with longtime producer Roy Halee). The resulting work would go on to become the definitive appraisal of adult alienation in a decade of heaping competition.

One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel stories, though a little hazy on facts, is something like the following: sometime in the mid- to late-60s, the misguided student programing department of an institute of higher learning scheduled the then up-and-coming band The Doors to open for Simon and Garfunkel. The Doors performed their usual schtick, Morrison flailing around like a drunken lout. Within twenty minutes, the band was literally laughed off of the stage. The significance being that this story is a clear indicator of S&G's audience at the time—immediately piercing the Lizard King's tired tower of bullshit. That's what makes Bookends, the group's fourth record, so remarkable for it's time—an incredibly successful album that saw through the deep, confounding bullshit of it's contemporaries.

Skipping the party-line at the time of dripping psychedelic and youthful upheaval, Bookends is instead a dour vision of loss and aging. A seamless masterpiece tracing time's ravages through youthful alienation to elderly regret, Paul Simon's plaintive discontent was never more clearly felt than in its simple songs. Beginning with the opening track, the quiet, 32 second instrumental "Bookends Theme," which quickly segues into the screaming moog intro of "Save the Life of My Child"—a funny, beautiful narrative about a boy committing suicide that samples soaring gospel voices amidst a brilliantly placed, self-referential recycling of "Sounds of Silence." It's the production peak of the record, flowing subtly into what is arguably the narrative peak, a personal postcard of innocence and emptiness in the form of a road trip called "America." "America" is a beautiful juxtaposition—a light-hearted, subtle love song is complicated but listless alienation, with a simple introduction of a sweet love affair transitioning into lyrics like "'Kathy, I'm lost' I said/though I knew she was sleeping/I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."

"Overs" follows, one of the more subtle, self-contained songs in the cycle, about the slow disintegration of a loveless relationship (a song which, I might add, has passed my depressingly deep sleep repetition test). Next is the inventive Art Garfunkel field recordings composition (the only thing he ever authored for the group) "Voices of Old People"—a sad collection of blurbs collected from elderly people in assisted living recollecting their lives—that introduces "Old Friends," a dismal vision of the future when Paul and Art meet silently on a park bench at 70.

"Bookends Theme" is again revisited, this time concreting the narrative lyrically:

"Time it was
and what a time it was
it was...
A time of innocence,
A time of confidences.

Long ago... it must be...
I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories;
They're all that's left you."

The album begins a slight decline with the still more than functional "Fakin' It" (an attempt at a more literal "Day In the Life" rip), and the silly "Punky's Dilemma" (which is vaguely reminiscent of some Beach Boys Smile recordings of the same era), but is immediately restored with the reappearance of "Mrs. Robinson," and the most Rock n Roll composition of their career, forbodding "Hazy Shade Of Winter." The record is rounded out by the fine but forgettable "At the Zoo," a cheekily Orwellian conclusion.

The record is a production marvel, especially considering the limited sonic exploration of S&G's previous records. From the classically cold Richard Avedon cover photo—Paul starring solemnly—to the sweeping soundscape within, Bookends is nearly a perfect album. No, scratch that. Bookends is a perfect record. Bleak enough to compare to albums like the Velvet Underground's Loaded, the true brilliance of Bookends can only be truly understood when you realize that the album was number 1 on the Billboard albums chart for 7 weeks—meaning that this deeply depressing meditation ended up on the turntables of thousands and thousands of American listeners at one of the most volatile periods of the nation's history. Bookends offered little in means of escapism—something that motivated so much of the musical climate at the time. It was a black, bleak, shimmering tome of fear, dread, and loss. and it is the Greatest Album of All Time.

Posted by zac at June 21, 2004 10:34 AM