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Surprise

Paul Simon Format: Audio CD
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 313 ratings
$11.01
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Track Listings

1 How Can You Live In the Northeast
2 Everything About It Is A Love Song
3 Outrageous
4 Sure Don't Feel Like Love
5 Wartime Prayers
6 Beautiful
7 I Don't Believe
8 Another Galaxy
9 Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean
10 That's Me
11 Father And Daughter

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Among the most popular artists and greatest songwriters of our time, Paul Simon returns with his first album in six years—and the album titled Surprise is exactly that. First, three songs were co-written with electronic music guru Brian Eno; second, the other songs are straightforward, wonderfully American pop. Surprise is a pleasant surprise for Simon fans.

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Since severing his epochal partnership with Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon's solo career been characterized by restless reinvention. But while it's easy to see such disparate, cross-cultural collaborations as Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints as Simon's quest for new creative partnerships, beneath them lies a more crucial willingness to continually challenge the very assumptions and craft of his own songwriting. Six years after his sublime, underappreciated You're the One Simon has pushed that sensibility into a rewarding, if equally unlikely, partnership with Brian Eno. Yet the former Roxy Music texturalist cum contemporary producer/sound conjurer supreme (aided by such stellar sidemen as Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock and Steve Gadd) offers barely half the "surprises" here.

The playful "Sure Don't Feel Like Love" argues Simon can still beckon his more traditional pop muse at will. Yet some of his best work here turns as much on hypnotic, if no less politically pointed, quasi-spoken word pieces (like "Wartime Prayers" and the gripping, post 9/11 rumination "How Can You Live in the Northeast?") as traditional songcraft. Eno is credited with providing "Sonic Landscape" to Simon's production, but also co-wrote three tracks, infusing "Another Galaxy" with contrasting doses of bracing energy and ethereal elegance, while seasoning the more traditional folk musings of "Once Upon a Time There Was An Ocean" with infectious electro-funk rhythms. "Outrageous," their best full collaboration, suggests that while Eno and Simon may approach world music - and indeed most pop forms - from polar extremes, the common ground they find is truly elevated. In an era when many of his peers are content to craft mere artistic comebacks, Simon's re-emergence here is a bold, compelling step forward. --Jerry McCulley

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 5.75 x 0.25 inches; 3.53 ounces
  • Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Warner Bros.
  • Date First Available ‏ : ‎ January 28, 2007
  • Label ‏ : ‎ Warner Bros.
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000F0UV1S
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 313 ratings

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4.3 out of 5 stars
313 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Robert Canipe
    5.0 out of 5 stars Nutritional Soul and Brain Food
    Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2006
    Verified Purchase
    Paul Simon's new album features the songwriter in a new light that freshens his music and his message. Brian Eno treats each song with the right amount of electronic soundscape poetry to envelope the listener's soul in a comfortable blanket while Simon's thoughtful wordscape poetry targets the emotional center of the intellect creating a delectable, nutritional blend that feeds both. Simon realizes that his poetry requires an updating to that which carries it to the listener. The drone and flatness that many reviewers notice IS that new carriage. Mixing the current technology of thumping sub-woofer and electronica with the gentle notes of acoustic guitar would be hard for the most creative of artists. However, Simon and Eno pull it off here as each artist obviously respects the other's area of talented expertise. On my high-end home and lesser-end car systems, the album sounds perfectly mixed. The Simon's vocals and guitar center while Eno's treatments cascade around the room. Moreover, the album reminds one at times of both artist's best works. One can hear strains of Eno's production on and contribution to the Talking Head's REMAIN IN LIGHT while at the same time bringing to mind Simon's best work on GRACELAND. This synthesis is exciting and original and should be listened to and accepted as the synthesis that it is; the album sounds new/old, and I find that exciting. It seems as though I've always known these songs, and to me, that is a good thing. The album sounds friendly and wears like a comfortable shirt. At the same time, the synthesis makes me sad and nostalgic for the feelings of discovery these wonderful, talented men brought me when we were all younger and more open to new things. I miss those days of discovery; however, SURPRISE offers a hint of the idealism lost in and on youth, and consequently, reopens the intellect with a tear or two, an anguished grunt over time lost, and hope for the future in one's children. Buy it and listen. SURPRISE is good for you.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • M. P. Friedman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece
    Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    As a boomer, key parts of the soundtrack of my life were written by Paul Simon. I can tell you where I was the first time "Sound of Silence" came on the radio, and the heated debate we had over whether Simon and Garfunkle were more important than The Mamas and the Papas (I saw them together in concert). I hated the preciousness of many of their greatest hits, and loved most of Paul's solo debut but not "Me & Julio", and celebrated his Grammies for "Still Crazy", and regretted when some of his finest songs went under-appreciated in the 80s, and was delighted by his resurgence behind Graceland, and so it went.

    This album ranks with his finest. Eno's remarkable soundscapes perfectly frame and add muscle to Simon's insightful, poignant, searching, playful lyrics and delicate melodies that otherwise might risk cloying. I particularly enjoy the open-ended quality of some of these songs ("How Can You Live in the Northeast?"), as if they are not quite finished and the artists want you to know that precisely that is what makes them as real as life.

    Of all his work, this is the one that is always with me in the car.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • frater SODDI
    4.0 out of 5 stars Nice collaboration between two artists I didn't expect to collaborate well
    Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Eno listener reviewing a Paul Simon album. (I never thought I'd be doing that.) Actually, Simon impressed me on this CD for being occasionally rockier than I though he was capable of. I'm not a big fan of his voice or his lyrical cadence, but there are songs I do like. "How Can You Live...", Outrageous, "Wartime Prayers", "I Don't Believe" are good songs.

    Eno's "sonic landscapes" on the non-collaborative efforts seem to be mainly his guitar treatments. Eno is probably rock's foremost guitar producer, doing guitar treaments since 1972 for Fripp, David Byrne, The Edge and others. You primarily hear them here as the subdued but shining reverb beds. He's incredibly subtle and tasteful, so you'll need to listen.

    Here's what got me - on the collaborations, I'm familiar with Eno's loop manipulation - building on layers of loops to create a song. But in "Another Galaxy" you hear the Eno loop building and Simon comes in on it, he gets it, but then he turns it to his styling, carries it, and then returns to the loop. Nice collaboration - unexpectedly deft.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • amedeo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ok
    Reviewed in Italy on November 26, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Tutto ok, grazie.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived safely
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    .
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  • Maciej Stasiowski
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
    Reviewed in France on September 23, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Arrived very quickly and in great condition, without scratches or tearings on the cover, which, as for a second hand CD, is quite remarkable.
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  • Serenus Zeitblom
    5.0 out of 5 stars Neuartig und doch auch eindeutig ein Paul-Simon-Album
    Reviewed in Germany on January 21, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    Große Augen auf dem Cover, die den Hörer ganz anzusehen scheinen: Die immer noch große Neugier ist bei Paul (Frederic) Simon, Jahrgang 1941, Programm. "Surprise" ist als Titel ein Versprechen, das Simon durchaus einlöst.

    Produziert hat Simon selbst; unüberhorbar hat indes Brian Eno (u.a. Roxy Music und Windows-95-Titelmusik) seine "Klanglandschaften" dazu beigetragen. Die Fleißarbeit, die vielen Musiker aufzuschreiben, mit denen Paul musiziert, hat hier schon jemand gemacht. Altbekannte Namen sind dabei, doch wieder hat Simon mit seiner Liebe zum Produzieren eine neue Mischung geschaffen.
    Die elf Songs sind allesamt von Paul Simon, ausgenommen "Outrageous", "Another Galaxy" and "Once upon a time there was an ocean", bei denen Brian Eno mitschrieb. Ihnen gemeinsam sind starke, auch schon einmal zornige oder nachdenkliche Texte über einer Melodie, die wieder ganz neu ist, von Pauls unverkennbarer Kantorenstimme vorgetragen.

    Ausgestattet ist die CD liebevoll mit künstlerischen Farbphotos (auf einem Bild freilich scheint Paul Simon gerade nassgespritzt zu werden). Die Texte sind enthalten, Simons mit "Wasser" verbundene Wörter sind hervorgehoben, das wirkt etwas wie 'mit dem Holzhammer'.

    Fazit: bitte keine Simon&Garfunkel-CD erwarten, sondern ein reifes vielschichtigeres Spätwerk.
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  • toetoe
    5.0 out of 5 stars 20年ぶりの傑作
    Reviewed in Japan on May 9, 2006
    Verified Purchase
    聴きましたけど、こりゃ凄いですね。

    この人の近作は「呑気なオッサン」というか「隠居の趣味人」的なところがあって、それはそれで悪くなかったのだけど、これは所謂“マジ”ですね。

    ニール・ヤングもそうだけど、この世代の人が今本気ですね。

    そういうアメリカの世相なのでしょう。

    久しぶりにポール・サイモンが頼もしく思えましたよ。この感じは「グレイスランド」以来です。
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