Paul Simon

Permit me to be the eight zillionth critic to state the obvious about Paul Simon's latest: Despite its title, there are no big surprises on Surprise. Yes, Brian Eno is on board to provide "sonic landscapes," but this album is essentially of a piece with Simon's last effort, 2000's You're the One. It's a meticulously crafted, insular collection of songs about growing old, raising children, being worried about the state of the world, but for the most part content -- songs, in other words, about being Paul Simon, which will probably only be of interest to dedicated Paul Simon fans.

For those fans, Surprise is full of small pleasures, mainly to be had courtesy of Simon's typically vivid lyrics and the outstanding musicianship of his sidemen -- not so much Eno, whose contributions are virtually subliminal, but a rotating rhythm section led by veteran session drummer Steve Gadd, bassists Pino Palladino, Alex Al and Leo Abrahams, and percussionist Jamey Haddad. On tracks that let these guys really flex their muscles, like "Sure Don't Feel Like Love" and "Once Upon Time There Was an Ocean," Surprise almost sounds like a stripped-down version of Graceland, with intricate rhythms that hold down Simon's rather wispy melodies. It's those melodies, combined with Simon's featherweight vocals, that keep Surprise from being anything more than a connoisseur's record, an essential acquisition for fans of vintage Simon solo albums like Still Crazy After All These Years, but with little to lure back those of us who lost track of Simon's career after The Rhythm of the Saints. Only on the album's closing track, "Father and Daughter" -- which was originally featured in the animated children's film The Wild Thornberries -- does Simon achieve the kind of gravity-defying performance that has made his best work so endearing. -- Andy Hermann

The obvious surprise of Surprise, Paul Simon's tenth solo album and his first since 2000's underrated You're the One, is that the singer/songwriter has enlisted Brian Eno as his collaborator. At first glance the pairing seems odd, even awkward, since they seem to come from opposing backgrounds: Simon the folk-rock troubadour and Eno the avant-garde art rock adventurist. Dig a little deeper, and the similarities do surface. For one, there is the mutual shared interest in world music -- most evident in Eno's productions/collaborations with Talking Heads at the turn of the '70s and on Simon's 1986 Graceland and its 1990 follow-up, The Rhythm of the Saints, but there are undercurrents running as far back as Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia." But more than any other singer/songwriter of his generation, Paul Simon has demonstrated a keen interest in having his albums sound unique and distinct from each other, using each album as an opportunity to explore a different sonic characteristic, so working with a sonic landscaper (as his back-cover credit on Surprise calls him) is not out of character. Similarly, Eno has not been entirely adverse to pop, either, as his ongoing collaboration with U2 proves, not to mention his productions for James or even the flamboyant pop of such early Roxy Music singles as "Virginia Plain." So, their collaboration here is unexpected, but not unnatural -- in fact, it's anything but unnatural, since Surprise is as seamless and graceful as Graceland, which it resembles greatly in how it blends a new sound with Simon's songs. But where Graceland found Simon writing around existing rhythm tracks, the opposite is true here: Eno fills in the space behind songs, creating an evocative, dream-like bed for Simon's words, which, more than ever, scan equally well as poetry as they do song lyrics. Simon was shifting toward this direction on You're the One, but he pushes even harder here, largely abandoning familiar song structures -- only two cuts here have something resembling a conventional chorus, and one of those is "Father and Daughter," originally released on the Wild Thornberrys soundtrack and the only track not treated by Eno -- for elliptical, winding songs that demand attention.

These are songs that cry out for the kind of cinematic sounds Eno brings to them, since he helps give them structure, momentum, and emotional weight, and his "sonic landscapes" do this precisely, following the contours of Simon's words and enhancing his meaning. And while Surprise glides along easily, thanks both to Eno's seamless work and the warmth of Simon's voice, it's an album meant to be listened to closely, and it pays back that effort handsomely. With repeated plays, Simon's songs don't seem as open-ended, and there's more to discover within Eno's production, particularly in how it plays off Simon's recurring themes of faith, aging, fatherhood, and getting by in George W. Bush's U.S.A. But this is not by any stretch a protest record; "How Can You Live in the Northeast?" and "Wartime Prayers" are about the uneasiness of living in the post-9/11 America, yet they're not statements of outrage, they're about the emotional toil of the time, and they have counterparts in the wearied narrators of "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean" and "Outrageous." It adds up to a bittersweet undercurrent that runs through Surprise, not unlike the melancholy threaded throughout Hearts and Bones, which this also resembles in its overall introspective tone and arty bent, but this is hardly a one-dimensional record; there is gentle hope and wry humor as well, giving this music a rich elegance that makes it stand among Simon's best work. Unlike such deservedly praised comeback albums from some of his peers -- such as Dylan's Love and Theft, the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang, Paul McCartney's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard -- Simon doesn't achieve his comeback by reconnecting with the sound and spirit of his classic work; he has achieved it by being as restless and ambitious as he was at his popular and creative peak, which makes Surprise all the more remarkable. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide