surprise

Well the words of the prophets are no longer written on the subway walls
One of them lost his hair, the other one publishes poetry
here and there and that is all

Jude Christodal, She Gets the Feeling

It's sounds like him, but it doesn't. And it's wonderful.

Paul Simon's Surprise, released in mid-2006, is a collaboration between him and Brian Eno and you can most definitely tell - no mellow African choir is to be heard (though he did manage to pull an energetic Southern Baptist Sunday morning choir out from under his hat.) Quiet introspection doesn't abound here either, nor does self-indulgent string plucking. It's not weepy or purely atmospheric or, well, somnolent - some of it admittedly comes close but there's nothing approaching the likes of, say, Capeman.

It doesn't sound like Paul Simon, in other words, and it was about damn time he grew up a little.

What it is that's familiar is delicately harmonic and pointedly melodic and surprisingly direct. It's crunchy. And it's angry, not in that world-changing, 'oh the injustice of it all from a quiet, artistic distance' way that Simon's so depressingly good at, but in a 'fuck you' sort of way.

And still, you still can't dance to it without tons of, um, help - his transmutation into Neil Young is not yet complete, which is stranger still when you consider that Neil Young's 2006 release, Living with War sounds disturbingly like Paul Simon. You can definitely dance to that, though Simon's is a more interesting album.

Pardon me while I go find some chalk to draw peace symbols on the sidewalk with.

Track List:

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

Huh. a review of this guy that doesn't mention that other guy.
Pipelinks don't count.

Sur*prise" (?), n. [F. surprise, fr. surprendre, surpris; sur over + prendre to take, L. prehendere. See Sur-, and Prehensile.]

1.

The act of coming upon, or taking, unawares; the act of seizing unexpectedly; surprisal; as, the fort was taken by surprise.

2.

The state of being surprised, or taken unawares, by some act or event which could not reasonably be foreseen; emotion excited by what is sudden and strange; a suddenly excited feeling of wonder or astonishment.

Pure surprise and fear Made me to quit the house. Shak.

3.

Anything that causes such a state or emotion.

4.

A dish covered with a crust of raised paste, but with no other contents.

King.

Surprise party, a party of persons who assemble by mutual agreement, and without invitation, at the house of a common friend. [U.S.] Bartlett.

Syn. -- Wonder; astonishment; amazement.

© Webster 1913.

Sur*prise" (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Surprised (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Surprising.] [From Surprise, n.: cf. F. surprendre, p.p. surpris.]

1.

To come or fall suddenly and unexpectedly; to take unawares; to seize or capture by unexpected attack.

Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Isa. xxxiii. 14.

The castle of Macduff I will surprise. Shak.

Who can speak The mingled passions that surprised his heart? Thomson.

2.

To strike with wonder, astonishment, or confusion, by something sudden, unexpected, or remarkable; to confound; as, his conduct surprised me.

I am surprised with an uncouth fear. Shak.

Up he starts, Discovered and surprised. Milton.

3.

To lead (one) to do suddenly and without forethought; to bring (one) into some unexpected state; -- with into; as, to be surprised into an indiscretion; to be surprised into generosity.

4.

To hold possession of; to hold.

Not with me, That in my hands surprise the sovereignity. J. Webster.

Syn. -- See Astonish.

© Webster 1913.