Paul Simon
So Beautiful Or So What

Anyone who knows me, knows this. And they’ve heard it said to the point of nausea...: so-called light music has, like everything and everyone (let me tell you a secret...: even us), a beginning, a development, a golden period, a decline (which should be managed with the minimum standard of dignity) and an end.
This is fundamentally the reason why I am and remain convinced that a fart from one of the greats is better than the masterpiece of one of the recent, perhaps acclaimed, young artists.
In short, just as Messiaen inevitably seems bad if compared to Mozart, or the talented Paolo Fresu if compared to Miles Davis, any random one of the many artists who pollute our ears from the radio is a poor soul who inspires pity if compared to Paul Simon.
Especially since we're not in front of a "fart"...: quite the contrary.

The fate of the greats, often if not always, is to have released true masterpieces, and with them being condemned to measure themselves throughout their artistic lives. And it is precisely on this ground that the unbridgeable difference between an Artist with a capital "A" and a good craftsman is measured.
The artist is the aforementioned Davis who wisely didn't rest on the laurels of "birth of the cool" or "kind of blue," or De André who didn't stop at Marinella, Battisti who reshaped the history of Italian music by teaming up with a literary genius and diving headfirst into more advanced electronics.
And an Artist is Paul Simon, who has behind him at least two grand lives. The first - unnecessary to cite - is the one lived together with the tall curly-haired partner (whom I never truly understood how tall he was, with PS being so small that it distorts every comparison), and the second, as splendid as it is difficult, is the one birthed from one of the absolute masterpieces of the eighties ("Graceland"), followed - for some - by excellent craftsmanship, - for others - by clumsy attempts to replicate the masterpiece.
I believe that the professionalism and seriousness of the artist has never been in question and that, even in the worst case, he has devoted himself to excellent primarily acoustic craftsmanship, with a very high standard level and perhaps - it must be admitted...- without absolute masterpieces.

Today, this "so beautiful or so what," considered hic et nunc, sounds beautiful, true, felt. There is fun, sincerity in this album with sounds both original and ancient, deeply linked to the ethnic style the author has always loved, but also to the typical singer-songwriter structure.
There is noticeable absolute absence of bass ("I have come to the conclusion that the bass is unnecessary", PS said - mysteriously - in an interview I read a few months before the album's release, when the author announced the total absence of the instrument in the work, only to - equally mysteriously - change his mind and add it in a couple of tracks), which makes the sound something novel and pleasant, something our ears are not accustomed to.
Something, to understand, similar to singing with guitar and bongos... but, of course, at an infinitely higher and refined level.

In short: a small yet grand album. For some, a swan song of singer-songwriter music, for others a final flourish.
Perhaps - I am becoming more convinced - simply proof of the existence and survival of singer-songwriter music as a small, sublime, and lovely form of craftsmanship. Of small things written well, played well, and interpreted well.
A reality that is not very new, very philological, citational, and often self-citational.
But, when things come together perfectly, with something divine.
In short: singer-songwriter music is becoming a more complex, and certainly lesser, form of blues.