Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon (Vinyl record album review)

Record basics

• Album name: Still Crazy After All These Years
• Artist name: Paul Simon
• Year: 1975
• Number of discs: one
• Label: Columbia Records
• Collection: Selman
• Distinguishing characteristics:
  • Clipped top right corner of album
  • Track list sticker on front of album: Columbia Records / Demonstration / Not For Sale
  • Sticker on both sides of LP: DEMONSTRATION / NOT FOR SALE
  • Scratched into side one of LP: PAL 33540-3A
  • Scratched into side two of LP: PBL 33540-3A
• Buy it on Amazon: $20.47

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I recognize a couple of these songs by name, the title track and 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, and I expect that I might recognize another one or two when I listen, but I’ve never listened to this record as a whole. Here are the other six Paul Simon records that I’ve reviewed:

• Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. by Simon & Garfunkel (1964): 5/5
• Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (1966): 5/5
• Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by Simon and Garfunkel (1966): 4/5
• Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’ (1974): 4/5
• Greatest Hits, Etc. by Paul Simon (1977): 3/5
• The Concert in Central Park by Simon and Garfunkel (1982): 4/5

What I expected

Folk rock, soft rock, singer-songwriter.

What it was actually like

Still Crazy After All These Years is a very bad song, with totally unnecessary use of organ, and Kenny G. level saxophone that made me want to turn the music off and listen to silence instead. When I reviewed Paul Simon’s greatest hits, I wrote about it:

Still Crazy After All These Years was terrible, slow and boring – and that was before the saxophone. It could have been the worst Paul Simon song.

In the same review, I wrote:

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover was half a good song, and half crap easy listening, but the good part, which was the chorus, was excellent, and I especially loved the bass guitar.

I felt exactly the same way today, but also want to add that the marching style snare drum made the song worse than it needed to be.

My Little Town had the the vocal harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel’s early work, but in the context of a bad and uninteresting song.

Have a Good Time was totally bland and ignorable, up until its abysmal saxophone solo at the very end.

Silent Eyes had the indulgent style of an awful Faul McCartney piano ballad.

Gone at Last was the most interesting track on the record, an up-tempo soul song with an Oompa Loompa sound.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing