‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon and Garfunkel

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was Simon and Garfunkel’s swansong, the final studio album of their time as a duo, and generally regarded as their crowning achievement. This is a pretty reasonable thing to think – there is some truly wonderful stuff on this album - the uptempo brass-assisted ‘Keep The Customer Satisfied’, the rich narrative of ‘The Boxer’ and the gently glorious ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’. What lets the album down, I’ve always thought, is its structure.

The album kicks off with the title track. In a sense, it’s a logic choice – it certainly sets the tone. The trouble is, its so big, and climactic, and brilliant, that it’s very hard to follow. ‘El Condor Pasa’ certainly doesn’t cut it, and ‘Cecila’, the albums third track, doesn’t manage it either, despite all its qualities. If the title track had been the final song on the album, I can’t help feeling it would have worked a lot better (although ‘Song For The Asking’ could have still been a good final ending).

None-the-less, these quibbles aside, the overall quality of the record is in no doubt. The filler on this record would be standout tracks on lesser albums, and 30 years on, it’s still a benchmark of its type.

‘Bookends’ by Simon & Garfunkel

By the time ‘Bookends’ was released, Simon and Garfunkel were well established and successful. Presumably, this success is what led them to experiment with their formula a little more than they had previously done. Some of ‘Bookends’ follows the classic Simon and Garfunkel formula, other parts are more surprising.

‘America’, ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ and ‘Mrs Robinson’ are traditional stuff – largely acoustic, sung in gorgeous harmony, and immediately catchy. Alongside these tracks, however, you get ‘Voices of Old People’, which is what the title suggests, ‘Old Friends’, which is sung over a simple swooping line of strings, and the remarkable ‘Save The Life Of My Child’ which is strangely a discordant track full of synthesizer, as though Simon and Garfunkel are deliberately subverting the very things that make them appealing.

Ultimately, it has to be said, the more experimental tracks aren’t as successful as the usual stuff – a shame, because it’s always interesting to hear musicians try new things. Having said that, it’s all pretty good, and the best tracks are very god indeed. It would be overshadowed by their next, and last album, but it’s well worth a listen.