Pleasant Surprise

Certain musicians have earned a status of high esteem from fans and other artists alike by virtue of decades of innovative contributions. For example: Tom Waits, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, etc. Once this status is achieved, I believe that anything they do is worth an open-minded listen at the very least.

Recently, two such icons, Paul Simon and Brian Eno, teamed up to create Surprise. This unlikely collaboration seemed unusual and alluring to me, but I was afraid that it could suffer from both artists' downward trajectory away from their respective creative peaks. If you subscribe to the parabolic model of an artist's career (which I do at times), then both Eno and Simon surpassed their maxima decades ago.

But this model doesn't always accord well with observation. Depeche Mode, Madonna and Pet Shop Boys all recently released albums that are easily their best in at least a decade. Mission of Burma came back after twenty years of dormancy and sounded fresher than most new post-punk acts. Swans were at their finest just before their break-up. Tom Waits has reinvented his sound several times, causing his career arc to resemble a sine wave. Could Simon and Eno escape the parabola too?

Critics disagree on whether this is the case. Pitchfork's Marc Hogan calls Surprise "half-formed tone poems that live down to the self-absorbed, vapidly mystic, utterly clueless conception of Baby Boomers one sees in TV commercials." Ouch. Alfred Soto at Stylus has a higher opinion: "[G]ive it 20 years and its cadenced ruminations and instantly dated production will get some love from the usual suspects."

Having listened to it in full, my opinion runs closer to the latter. There are some dull moments, but for the most part it lives up to the promise of a Simon/Eno collaboration. If you are a fan of either artist, give it a listen.

Here's is what I've been listening to last night and today:

1. The Futureheads: News and Tributes
2. Saturday Looks Good to Me: Sound on Sound
3. Asobi Seksu: Citrus
4. Nomo: New Tones
5. Paul Simon: Surprise
6. Gregor Samsa: 55:12
7. V/A: 2006 Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler
8. Nick Drake: Bryter Layter
9. Talkdemonic: Beat Romantic
10. Evangelicals: So Gone