The third Simon and Garfunkel covers album I've
come across (and to be honest, that's three more than I ever knew existed prior
to starting this blog), but surely the winner of 'the most literal album cover'
prize - I mean, there's a bridge, there's rough looking water and there's a
couple standing on that bridge over it. Genius. Except it's not; in depicting
the metaphor of the song in a literal way it's kind of missed the whole point,
which is the promise to provide emotional support during bad times. But no
matter - if that was the only thing about this that missed the target then we'd
be doing well, but unfortunately it's not. Not by a long shot.
Let's start with the tracklist, in amongst the usual 'Mrs Robinson' and 'Sounds Of Silence' suspects, two illegal aliens (wisely left off the front cover) stand out like blood on whitewash - 'Granma Pepper' and 'The Longest Day'. The former is a tale about a pipe smoking octogenarian bootlegger who rides a goat while the latter is an end of days, Book of Revelation type affair of doomy preachers, the sun and moon hanging in the sky side by side and snow falling on days when it's 100 degrees. Both are delivered in a rollicking, barn dance kind of way and neither rank amongst Paul Simon's better known songs. Or even amongst Paul Simon's songs at all - we're on the Stereo Gold Award label here and so my regular readers will have guessed that both of these efforts were penned by L Muller up to his usual cash in tricks.* I'm not saying that they aren't as good as the rest of the Simon & Garfunkel songs, I'm saying they're not good full stop. They aren't in any way keeping with Simon's writing and you couldn't even see them as pastiche or parody - what they are is f*#+?%£g awful; surely nobody who bought this album on the strength of the title would have either expected or wanted crap like this?
What of the rest of it? Well song one, side one aims straight for the stars by taking 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' head on, which is unwise. But what's even more unwise is its attempt to stay as faithful to the original as it can. That would be a plateful of trickiness for anyone to cope with but those Tony Mansell singers en-masse can neither compete with Garfunkel's choirboy soar or even play in the same ballpark; the best they can manage is a wince inducing squawkfest of clunking harmonies that drown the lyric in a sack of clue free over ambition. Perhaps recognising a lost cause when they see one, for the remainder the ensemble stray from the familiar and offer up a unique take on the songs in a cacophony of sound that at times sounds like it's being strangled out of home made instruments with the percussion supplied by someone hitting tin can with a pencil; it sounds like Simon and Garfunkel left out in the rain.
Even that could have been an interesting proposition if there was intent behind it, but there's not - the stuff on this is the result of incompetence and it sounds bad because it is bad; badly sung, badly played, badly arranged and badly produced with classic song after classic song being put through the shredder to no good purpose other than to get a cheap cash in into the shops. I'll admit that the closing "Homeward Bound" is an interesting take in that it has a skitterish, mutant folk feel that wouldn't have been out of place in 'The Wicker Man' or on a 60's Giallo soundtrack. Again though, although it's the only thing on this that does bear repeating I can't see it as anything but a fluke, and even if it wasn't it's still way too little way too late and it does precious little to elevate the catalogue of horrors that have gone before it. About as bad as these albums get.
* For those who are not regular readers, then firstly shame on you, but by way of explanation L Muller is the shadowy figure behind the Stereo Gold Award label who has already written songs for Jimi Hendrix, Burt Bacharach and Glenn Miller, as well as arranging popular tunes by Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Dvorak; there's a good compilation there somewhere.
Let's start with the tracklist, in amongst the usual 'Mrs Robinson' and 'Sounds Of Silence' suspects, two illegal aliens (wisely left off the front cover) stand out like blood on whitewash - 'Granma Pepper' and 'The Longest Day'. The former is a tale about a pipe smoking octogenarian bootlegger who rides a goat while the latter is an end of days, Book of Revelation type affair of doomy preachers, the sun and moon hanging in the sky side by side and snow falling on days when it's 100 degrees. Both are delivered in a rollicking, barn dance kind of way and neither rank amongst Paul Simon's better known songs. Or even amongst Paul Simon's songs at all - we're on the Stereo Gold Award label here and so my regular readers will have guessed that both of these efforts were penned by L Muller up to his usual cash in tricks.* I'm not saying that they aren't as good as the rest of the Simon & Garfunkel songs, I'm saying they're not good full stop. They aren't in any way keeping with Simon's writing and you couldn't even see them as pastiche or parody - what they are is f*#+?%£g awful; surely nobody who bought this album on the strength of the title would have either expected or wanted crap like this?
What of the rest of it? Well song one, side one aims straight for the stars by taking 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' head on, which is unwise. But what's even more unwise is its attempt to stay as faithful to the original as it can. That would be a plateful of trickiness for anyone to cope with but those Tony Mansell singers en-masse can neither compete with Garfunkel's choirboy soar or even play in the same ballpark; the best they can manage is a wince inducing squawkfest of clunking harmonies that drown the lyric in a sack of clue free over ambition. Perhaps recognising a lost cause when they see one, for the remainder the ensemble stray from the familiar and offer up a unique take on the songs in a cacophony of sound that at times sounds like it's being strangled out of home made instruments with the percussion supplied by someone hitting tin can with a pencil; it sounds like Simon and Garfunkel left out in the rain.
Even that could have been an interesting proposition if there was intent behind it, but there's not - the stuff on this is the result of incompetence and it sounds bad because it is bad; badly sung, badly played, badly arranged and badly produced with classic song after classic song being put through the shredder to no good purpose other than to get a cheap cash in into the shops. I'll admit that the closing "Homeward Bound" is an interesting take in that it has a skitterish, mutant folk feel that wouldn't have been out of place in 'The Wicker Man' or on a 60's Giallo soundtrack. Again though, although it's the only thing on this that does bear repeating I can't see it as anything but a fluke, and even if it wasn't it's still way too little way too late and it does precious little to elevate the catalogue of horrors that have gone before it. About as bad as these albums get.
* For those who are not regular readers, then firstly shame on you, but by way of explanation L Muller is the shadowy figure behind the Stereo Gold Award label who has already written songs for Jimi Hendrix, Burt Bacharach and Glenn Miller, as well as arranging popular tunes by Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Dvorak; there's a good compilation there somewhere.
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