artful, yet Artless

(check out how badass Bakiti Khumalo was - dude looks like Miles Davis wishes he looked)

Inspired by a visit to Graceland following the breakup of his marriage to Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon decided to ensure that the next album was going to be an immensely popular behemoth of world music exploitation by doing two things, namely stealing all of Los Lobos' ideas and surrounding himself by people far, far cooler than he was (number two was obviously not very hard). So he enlisted Mpumalanga's only famous export, Stimela guitarist and mbaqanga badass Ray Phiri, Zulu bass legend Bakiti Khumalo and.. erm.. the Everly Brothers, country musicians known for gigging in tuxedos and old enough to have hung out with Buddy Holly. So he got the coolness factor right with the South African contingent and spectacularly wrong otherwise.

That said, the result was Graceland (the album) and Graceland (the song), both of which won Grammys. Which is better than Art Garfunkel ever did on his own, so how about that Art? The song obviously has a serious mbaqanga influence with booming slide bass and fingerplucked, trebley guitar courtesy of messrs Phiri and Khumalo, artfully melded with a country-style slide guitar and vocal harmonising courtesy of the fat rednecks in tuxedos. On top of this, Simon sings his neurotic, wistful lyrics wistfully and neurotically, but without any overt emotion. You do tend to think he'd be more into a song that he thought was the best song he ever wrote (this may not be a massive achievement). Maybe the Art was just missing from his life at that point (sorry). He does talk about a slut though, euphemistically referring to her as a "human trampoline". Nice. Bet he didn't think anyone would read that into his lyrics.

And what do I think of the song? It galls me to admit this, but I quite like it. It brings back memories of it being played in my parents house and on car trips when I was much younger. I remember really liking it and "You Can Call Me Al". Plus, it's always nice to see some of South Africa's unsung musical heroes receiving some of the wider acclaim that they deserve. It's got a little funk and it comes across, strangely, as less exploitative than Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Workhouse of Ethnic Music Exploitation, probably because it sounds like Phiri and Khumalo were given free reign musically rather than a jolly good whipping and some time in a Cuban jail, as per the Master Cooder school of album making.

Verdict: Less exploitative and more South African than Buena Vista.

Tomorrow: Joan Jett - I Love Rock and Roll (oh jesus...)