She’s been steadily releasing well-crafted albums on a more-or-less consistent basis for nearly 20 years, and her music defies easy pigeonholing. Consequently, since her early ’90s breakthrough, Mary Chapin Carpenter has found herself on a downward commercial slope. Ironically, as her music has more deftly incorporated elements of pop, folk, and country, support from any of those formats has been harder to find. Like Shawn Colvin — who we covered not long ago, and who came up during the same period — Carpenter has settled into a sort of commercial limbo, one in which her releases are frequently lauded by critics and ignored by buyers.

As a fan of Carpenter’s brand of mournful introspection, I’d like to think this is because the major label machinery is simply ill-equipped to bring this kind of music to an audience that doesn’t know how to find it. Though a career-long Columbia Nashville artist (at least up ’til now:but more on that later), most of Carpenter’s releases are country albums only in part; that being said, she had the good fortune to hit her stride during a time in which a lot of country records were selling really well, and her best-selling album, 1992’s Come On Come On, was released before country radio was walled off to artists who tinkered so freely with the genre.

Anyway, as I said, I’d like to think that. But it could be just that there isn’t a huge sustainable audience for artists like Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lyle Lovett, Radney Foster, or Jim Lauderdale. Hey, either way, you’re along for the ride with me this week as we take a look back at Carpenter’s catalog. Maybe you were a fan awhile back and lost touch with her; maybe you’ve been here all along; maybe you’ll be impressed enough to pick up an album or two.

Hometown Girl (1987)
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As we’ve discussed here on more than one occasion, there are two kinds of good debut albums: Ones that do such a great job of presenting the artists’ strengths that they’re nearly impossible to follow, and ones that hint at future potential. Hometown Girl is the latter.

Part of the problem is that it has mid-’80s country production, which was frequently even worse than what was heard at other points on the dial during the era. Pop and rock music sounded synthetic in 1987, but they were usually trying to; with recordings like Hometown Girl, what you usually ended up getting was San Antonio by way of Casio, and the sound has not aged well.

On the whole, these songs don’t have the depth of emotion or perspective of her later material, but there’s some good stuff nonetheless. Carpenter covered Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” (download) before, and better than, Rod Stewart, and “Family Hands” (download) gives you a compelling outline of where she was headed.

State of the Heart (1989)
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Two years later, same shitty production, and State of the Heart offers a listening experience that today sounds as dated as Carpenter’s hair in the cover photo looks.

Better songs, though. “This Shirt” (download) is the earliest, best example of the kind of sweetly sorrowful storytelling at which Carpenter would later excel, and her first country hit, “Never Had It So Good,” demonstrates her gift for playing the woman scorned (not to mention her ease with a pop hook). “It Don’t Bring You” (download) closes things out with an old-fashioned moral-of-the-story number that, pleasantly, refrains from heavy-handed moralizing.

State put four singles in the Top 20 of Billboard’s country singles chart, poising Carpenter for a breakthrough.

Shooting Straight in the Dark (1990)
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Most people, if they know of Mary Chapin Carpenter at all, remember her for Come On Come On, but — as Shooting Straight in the Dark demonstrates — the template for that album’s (and, by extension, Carpenter’s) success was being laid down piece by piece well beforehand. That template, essentially, consisted of tossing in a couple tongue-in-cheek, overtly country uptempo numbers that would play to the cheap seats, a few pedal steel ballads that would tug at some heartstrings, and then rounding out the record with a handful of songs that defied easy categorization. It was always the songs from that last group that I liked best — and the songs from the first group that were big hits.

As time went on, this formula stopped working, and became awfully easy to see through besides, but for awhile, it proved a compelling magic act. Consider that “Down at the Twist and Shout” not only got Beausoleil on country radio, but rose all the way to #2, and it’s hard to begrudge a strategy that was likely motivated at least in part by crass commercialism.

Shooting Straight in the Dark spun off another four country hits for Carpenter, but the best stuff is found deeper in. “Halley Came to Jackson” (download) is a finely shaded portrait of a passing comet’s effect on a small town, and “The Moon and St. Christopher” (download) is an early entry in what would become a long line of songs detailing the death of innocence and a deepening acquaintance with regret.

Come On Come On (1992)
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Right place, right time: During a year in which grunge-fearing suburbanites were strapping on big belt buckles and learning how to line dance, Mary Chapin Carpenter released not only one of her best albums, but one of the best mainstream country albums of the era. Everything works: Carpenter is joined by a bevy of guests (including the Indigo Girls, Rosanne Cash, and Shawn Colvin) and covers some notable heavyweights, but the originals stand proud and tall against the outside material, and the focus is always squarely where it’s supposed to be. Aside from the hokey “I Feel Lucky,” there really isn’t anything here that could reasonably be considered a bad song.

Carpenter was rewarded handsomely. Come On Come On sent a whopping eight songs into the country Top 20, and her cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses” crossed over to AC. The album was still spinning out singles two years later.

Fortunately — for the purposes of this Guide, anyway — my two personal favorites were never sent to radio. “Only a Dream” (download) and the haunting “I Am a Town” (download) are shining examples of the empathy and craft that move Carpenter’s finest work.

Up, up, up. You can’t go much higher than eight hit singles from a twelve-song album. Where to now?

You know. But first, here’s Carpenter performing “I Am a Town” on Austin City Limits:

Stones in the Road (1994)
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Okay, so calling Stones in the Road Mary Chapin Carpenter’s fall from grace is jumping the gun a little — that wouldn’t really happen until the next record. Actually, it charted higher than any of its predecessors, hitting #1 on the country charts and #10 on the Top 200. Those peaks were on the front end, though; Columbia promoted the hell out of Stones, and there was no small amount of anticipation for the album anyway, so those peaks were to be expected. What this record ended up lacking was staying power: “Shut Up and Kiss Me” hit #1 on the country charts, and “Tender When I Want to Be” hit #6, but “House of Cards” missed the Top 20, and none of the album’s four singles made much of a dent at other formats.The songs are partly to blame. Whether the album’s sound was by design or due to a lack of strong material is impossible to say (at least for me), but where Shooting and Come On were smart, joyous amalgams of pop, folk, and country, Stones in the Road is mostly just sort of a dull echo. It’s partly a songwriter’s record — nothing is less than well-written — and partly a seemingly conscious attempt to imitate what got Carpenter on the radio before. The audience was getting hip to the formula, however. “Shut Up and Kiss Me” isn’t any worse than similar numbers from previous albums (in fact, it’s got a pretty decent slide solo from Lee Roy Parnell), but it definitely carried a strong echo of singles past.

It doesn’t help that this is a long album (thirteen songs), and ballad-heavy. It drags in spots. Her best songs are more than capable of carrying an album like this, but by and large, this collection doesn’t contain Carpenter’s best songs. “Why Walk When You Can Fly” (download) is a nice leadoff track, and “Jubilee” (download) is undeniably pretty (and boasts some nice pennywhistle from Paul Brady), but cracks were definitely beginning to show.

A Place in the World (1996)
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Like Stones in the Road, A Place in the World charted respectably — #14 country, #20 pop — but failed to register on the radio. “Let Me Into Your Heart” was a Top Twenty country hit, but nothing else had much of an impact.

It’s somewhat fitting. If Stones set out to be a songwriter’s record but wound up being too introspective by half, Place comes across as a transparent bid to win back the hearts of country radio programming directors. But the stuff that worked for Carpenter at the beginning of the decade wasn’t getting played anymore, and anyway, a lot of this record’s songs fall in the shadow of what made her famous. It was a disappointing step back for an artist who had always seemed to lead her audience.

Of course, it isn’t without its moments. “Ideas Are Like Stars” (download) is sadly gorgeous, and “Naked to the Eye” (download), but they’re tucked away toward the end of the record.

Commercially, Carpenter was suffering limited returns, but more importantly, she seemed to be treading water creatively. A change was in order.

Time*Sex*Love* (2001)
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If Mary Chapin Carpenter had always been a country artist mostly in a nominal sense, with Time*Sex*Love, she truly sailed off into uncharted waters. Carpenter and longtime partner John Jennings built a breezy, colorfully layered web of sound around the album’s fourteen songs, one which belied their often less-than-cheerful subject matter. Aside from archaic Billboard chart placement rules, it’s difficult to imagine how “Simple Life” (download) was considered a country song (and, by the same token, very easy to guess its fate on the country chart).

Time*Sex*Love is a big record in every way. Aside from its overstuffed length and intricate production, the album has grand ambitions: The full title is a Fiona Apple-esque Time Is the Great Gift; Sex Is the Great Equalizer; Love Is the Great Mystery. Maybe this was just the album she wanted to make at the time, or maybe it was a conscious reminder that — recent failed cops to radio aside — she was an artist worth reckoning with; either way, the whole thing works better than it ought to.

43 when this album was released, Carpenter was now, in age as well as predilection, thoroughly out of step with the new crop of country stars. If her peers had broadened the genre’s borders by tapping into the folk tradition and roots rock, newer platinum sellers like Rascal Flatts were more comfortable drawing on MOR dinosaurs like Chicago for inspiration. In this climate, an artist like Carpenter — who was never really “country” in the first place — stood as much to gain from releasing a wild, woolly mess of a record as they did from bothering to try and fit in. A number of the album’s songs deal with age, both literal and commercial, but even if you aren’t poring over the words, this is one exceedingly cool listen.

Too many artists, when faced with the same crossroads that presented itself to Carpenter, opt to keep frantically squeezing the dried-up teat of past glories. Aside from the loss of dignity involved, what’s sad about this is that the best music, by far, lies along the less-traveled path. There’s no reason to own just one of her albums, but if you insist for some reason, this might be the one. I don’t believe it’s her best — more on that in a minute — but it artfully presents all sides of what makes her special. I could easily include four, five, six downloads, but here’s “Maybe World” (download). Buy a copy for yourself to hear the rest.

Between Here and Gone (2004)
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How you’ll feel about Carpenter’s eighth studio album (and, curiously, her first to be recorded in Nashville) will have a lot to do with whether you prefer her quieter or more uptempo side. If it’s the latter, you might find Between Here and Gone to be a big yawn, at least at first; speaking as someone who has always felt Carpenter’s best foot forward is her most mournful, let me tell you that this album is a masterpiece, a thing of sad, luminous beauty, and her best album yet.

It seems safe to say these songs were strongly colored by events taking place between the release of her last album, in the spring of 2001, and this one, in the spring of 2004. Rather than soapboxing, though, Carpenter opts for the softer, richer middle road, seeking to provide comfort and understanding. Such sentiments could easily stray toward the dippy end of the spectrum in less skillful hands, but even when addressing the universal, Carpenter ties everything strongly back to the personal; rather than corny or foolishly pie-in-the-sky, these songs’ lyrics are full of tenderness and healing.

And what lyrics.

Folks who appreciate the words before the music are definitely in the minority, but put your ear to the surface of this album and you’ll be richly rewarded. Even for a songwriter whose lyrics have always been smarter than most, Between Here and Gone offers some lovely turns of phrase. They’re scattered throughout the album like jewels. Some casually surface — “The key to traveling light is to/Not need very much,” from “One Small Heart”; or the great couplet “Loneliness is like a cold/Common and no cure we’re told,” from “Girls Like Me” (download) — and some are more obvious. From the title track:

Up above me
Wayward angels
A blur of wings and grace.
One for courage,
One for safety,
One for “just in case”

From “Beautiful Racket”:

So your day will end like this
Turning slowly down your street
Silent worlds of kitchens lit
Front yards full of fallen leaves
Trees are bare, the garden’s done
Another season gone to earth
Before you blink a new one comes
To remind you what the old one’s worth

From “The Shelter of Storms”:

You can’t be free till you leave behind
Your bitter heart, but you can’t change
You curse the sun, and pray for rain
You always run
For the shelter of storms

From “Elysium” (download):

I could wonder if all of it led me to you
I could show you the arrows and circles I drew
I didn’t have a map, it’s the best I could do
On the fly and on the run
To dreams that were tethered like kites to the ground
To the bridges I burned, to then turning around
It was here in your heart I was finally found
And the last battle won for Elysium

The album didn’t reverse Carpenter’s commercial slide, naturally; records like this really aren’t made for the radio, or hell, maybe even mass consumption. It peaked at a certainly respectable #5 on the country album chart, but didn’t stick around long, didn’t generate any heat on the radio, and didn’t cross over to the pop charts. It wasn’t surprising — Carpenter always belonged more with the John Hiatts and Shawn Colvins of the world than the Billy Ray Cyruses — but a shame nonetheless. I can’t shake the notion that there are a lot of people out there who’d love this album if they only heard it.

Maybe you’re one of them.

Between Here and Gone was the end of the road for her association with Columbia, but it isn’t the end of the story for Mary Chapin Carpenter. Billboard recently announced that she’d signed with Rounder, the preeminent indie for smart, acoustic-based songwriters, and would be releasing an album in 2007. Personally, I’d hoped she’d sign with Nonesuch, and looked forward to hearing the willfully artistic and borderline strange music that such a marriage would no doubt have produced. But hey, as long as she keeps making albums, that’s the important thing.

[Jefito's Note: So it's come to this. For as long as I've been writing Idiot's Guides (and/or hosting them — I realize it's been awhile since I've actually had to do one of these things myself), the shadow of a Complete Idiot's Guide to Chicago has loomed large. This is a function of both time (I was a wee, Top 40-listening Jefito when Chicagos 16 and 17 were all the rage) and questionable taste (I was also rocking to Chicagos V through X during the same timeframe). I saw the band in concert no less than three times from 1988-89. I owned 18 and 19 (not to mention Peter Cetera's first two post-Chicago solo albums):on vinyl. Yes indeed, I was a hardcore Chicago fan.

But things changed. After the cynical misfire of 1991's Twenty 1 and stillbirth of its intended followup, the lost and lamented Stone of Sisyphus, Chicago dove full-bore into the casinos-and-state-fairs circuit, and though they still pay lip service to the bona fide creativity that bought their homes and pays their alimonies, it evaporated long ago. Being that I'm really not a huge fan of the jammy earlier stuff, have long since ceased to defend the content of those platinum '80s albums, and no longer believe the band is capable of getting far enough up off its duff to fulfill its remaining promise, well:I decided awhile back that I'm probably not the guy to write a Chicago Guide.

But look who is: It's the talented and punctual reader harmolodic, who has agreed to scale the heights and plumb the depths of a nearly 40-year career. Regardless of how you feel about the band, you should be entertained over the course of his three-part Guide:and maybe you'll learn a few things about a band people started writing off before you were probably even born. Give harmolodic a hand! —J]

In the world of rock bands named after geographical locations, there’s only one that can claim to have its songs intermingled with selections from an identically titled musical-turned-hit movie inside your local karaoke bar’s song book. Adding to the confusion is the fact that this band has employed, over the years, no less than 6 lead singers, not counting occasional peeps from hired hands and a couple of horn players. Such is Chicago, the self-proclaimed “rock n’ roll band with horns.”

In the almost 40 years the band has been together (the big four-oh happens next year), they’ve managed to score almost as many top 40 hits, the majority of which are still heard on the airwaves today and in Chicago’s live concerts. Not bad for a band whose most recognizable face has been out of the band for more than half its life.

That life started in its namesake city in February, 1967, when Jimmy Pankow (trombone), Lee Loughnane (trumpet), Danny Seraphine (drums), Terry Kath (guitar), and Robert Lamm (keyboards) met in the apartment of Walt Parazaider (woodwinds). God pointed his finger down upon them and said, “make some noise!” The Big Thing, soon to be the Chicago Transit Authority, soon to be Chicago, was born. Add one blond, tenor-voiced bass player named Peter Cetera, and you’ve got your classic lineup of the band that would dominate AM radio throughout the 1970s and rule the Billboard charts with a series of albums bearing Roman numerals for titles. And of course, the logo the band adopted would become their most recognizable visual, becoming an American icon on the level of Coca Cola, Hershey and Disney.

Over the years, these guys have been accused of everything from selling out, to making music for the lowest common denominator, to being wimpy, and just plain not being very cool or hip or what have you. Same goes for the Beach Boys, before everyone finally discovered how incredible Pet Sounds was. And since Chicago never made that one record everyone could agree was great from beginning to end, and since they had so many assembly-line, sappy, substance-free hits after their golden period was over, they have not received the same due as their two-time touring partners from Hawthorne, California. Taken together. their catalog is fascinating, frustrating, brilliant and awful all at once. Just like the Beach Boys, eh? Read on and judge for yourself.

Chicago Transit Authority (1969)
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Like many big hitmakers before and since, Chicago’s roots were with the college crowd, or the 1960s equivalent of the “alternative” scene. With the help of their buddy and producer, Jimmy Guercio, Chicago was able to take their hard work ethic out of the windy city and over to Columbia Records’ New York studios for recording sessions that resulted in a debut double LP. It was still kind of a big deal at that time for a new band to start out with a double album, even though the Mothers of Invention had done it already with Freak Out! The Beatles, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix had also released double albums by then, though they were already established stars.

So did these guys think they were the Beatles with horns, or what? Well, they certainly were fans, and even quoted the opening lyric from “I Am The Walrus” in “South California Purples” (download) I’ve always wondered where the idea came from to call this mutated blues jam “Purples.” My theory is that it’s the color of L.A.’s smog when one is tripping on acid.

Chicago Transit Authority was indeed a bold debut — not so much because it was a double LP, nor because Terry Kath’s “Free Form Guitar” (download) was 6 minutes of loud noodling and feedback that set the stage for Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Rather, it was because Robert Lamm wrote a killer bunch of tunes for these bad-ass musicians to play. “Beginnings,” “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” “Questions 67 & 68,” the aforementioned “Purples” — all stone cold classics. But even better is Kath’s writing contribution. Though its title is about as imaginative as, well, their album titles, “Introduction” (download) makes a great case for letting the music do the talking. Everything you need to know and would care to love about Chicago is wrapped up in this 6-and-a-half minute mission statement/showboat of a song. The blazing horns, tricky rhythms, schmaltzy balladry, psychedelic guitar solo and gutsy vocals are all there. You could stop the album after that first song and be able to say “yeah, I know Chicago.” But as we’d come to realize over the years, these guys just love to keep going, and going, and going:

Chicago II (1970)
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The first album fared reasonably well, after chopping their name down to just Chicago, but this second effort was where the big time success really began. FM radio loved the first release, with all its long-form tunes and endless solos, but AM radio was where the hit potential was, and as Columbia was eager to make some money off this band, they decided to chop a couple of pieces out of Jimmy Pankow’s “Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon” and turn them into two sides of a 45 RPM single. The single’s A-side, “Make Me Smile,” became Chicago’s first big hit single. The other side, “Colour My World,” has probably soundtracked more than a handful of weddings in its time.

Meanwhile, album buyers got an even greater treat. Terry Kath wrote and sang one of the best songs to ever grace a Chicago album, the lovely “In The Country” (download). And the long forms displayed on the first album got even longer. The “Ballet” and Lamm’s anti-war rant “It Better End Soon” (download) both ran over 10 minutes, while Kath’s maudlin “Memories Of Love” featured an orchestrated three-part intro. “Fancy Colours” (download) was inspired by an acid trip, and utilized wind chimes as an intro a good four years before the Doobie Brothers put out “Black Water.” They had collectively stepped beyond the “rock n’ roll band with horns” description into prog rock, though they wouldn’t stay there long. The shorter material, like the extracted singles and Lamm’s “Wake Up Sunshine,” were a closer indication of where this ambitious band was heading. And again, they produced another stone cold classic in “25 or 6 to 4,” perhaps the greatest rock song about trying to write a song.

Chicago III (1971)
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Maybe this record happened too soon after the first two, but when you’re under the gun, you do what you gotta do.

From a pop standpoint, the third Chicago album lacks the monster hooks and memorable songs that dominate the first two albums. The good news is, these guys were an imaginative bunch when they were young and stupid. Meaning, we get to hear another side-long multi-part suite jammed with the most far-out ideas Chicago would ever commit to wax. Exhibit A: “When All The Laughter Dies In Sorrow,” a Kendrew Lascilles poem recited by Robert Lamm, which sets up the mood for the remainder of the all-instrumental “Elegy” — presumably for our mother Earth. This was, again, a Pankow composition. Lamm contributed his own lament for the planet, which again, very imaginatively, is titled “Mother.” Industrialization and pollution are bad! Bad! But avant garde, polyphonic horn solos are good, very good.

Elsewhere, a suite of songs about life on the road find the band pretending to be Crosby, Stills & Nash (”Flight 602″ [download]) while also venturing into avant garde territory yet again with a flute-piano duo titled “Free Country.” While “Mother” (download) and “Elegy” were thoroughly worked out pieces, “Free Country” clearly is not. Neither is the pleasant enough but seemingly pointless “Happy ‘Cause I’m Going Home” (sample lyrics: “la da da da da da da / da da da da da da”). Even the opener, “Sing A Mean Tune Kid,” sounds like a work in progress.

Elsewhere, Terry Kath sings Lamm’s jazzy “Loneliness Is Just A Word” and injects the third record with a strong dose of all-too-human personality with his song of longing from the road, “An Hour In The Shower” (download). It’s perhaps the first rock song to reference a vibrator (”Just reach underneath your bed / And turn on your electric friend / And turn your thoughts to me”), and arrived about a year before Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would name their band after one.

Nevertheless, Chicago was hot, and III was a hit. “Free” and “Lowdown” were also top 40 singles. And did I mention that III was the band’s third double album in a row? It would also be its last for a few years.

Chicago At Carnegie Hall, Volumes I, II, III & IV (1971)
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Critics have always had harsh words for Chicago, and a lot of that bad blood dripped heavily over this mammoth set. Keep in mind, this was long before compact discs effectively extended the time limit one associated with an “album,” and before multi-disc box sets and live bootlegs became all the rage in the ’90s.

In 1971, four vinyl records of live Chicago was A LOT of Chicago.

Nowadays, a set like this is a treasure trove. And though I’ll freely admit that this is my “desert island” Chicago collection, it’s certainly not without flaws. For one, Danny Seraphine seems to drag “In The Country” down a bit, and the horns don’t sound too hot on that song either.

On the other hand, Terry Kath has brilliant guitar solos all over the place. “South California Purples” and “Sing A Mean Tune Kid” (download) both edge close to 15 minutes with Kath’s extended workouts, as he carried on in the shadow of the departed Jimi Hendrix, never to receive the accolades he deserved.

The most noteworthy aspect of this behemoth is the inclusion of “A Song For Richard And His Friends” (download), which Chicago never formally recorded in the studio (although an instrumental ‘rehearsal’ version eventually surfaced on Rhino’s re-release of Chicago V). It’s impossible to imagine these days, but Chicago at one time did have a political conscience. Back in the day, they weren’t just speaking out against the Vietnam War with “It Better End Soon,” they also were openly calling for Richard Nixon’s resignation with “A Song For Richard.” Musically, the song is filled with rage. The horns stomp and sulk, while Kath finds the perfect use for his “Free Form Guitar” antics in the context of an actual song. Lamm cooks the administration, and if one were to simply change the title of the song, it could easily be adopted by today’s Bush-bashers:

If you will think now, then you will see
How you can change things

People are waiting, turning away
Tired of killing

Hey now
Will you go away
We’re so tired
Of things that you say

Even though you never said word that would help anyone but yourself
Tomorrow is such a bad dream
Oh, bad dream

If you stay now,
It will only get worse
Let us pray now
‘Cause the truth really hurts

After the events of today with your brothers and sisters dead and dying
Tomorrow is such a bad dream
Yeah, Such a bad dream

Listen
Please be gone
Go away and leave us alone
Brain police
Go away and leave us in peace
Yeah

Please be gone
Go away and leave us alone
Brain police
Go away and leave us in peace

Will you go now
Will you take all your friends
Whoa now, If you’d stood like a man
Even though I know that you cannot be blamed all alone for the sadness
you’ve caused
Tomorrow is such a bad dream
Yeah, such a bad dream
Oh yeah, such a bad dream
Dig it

If you will think now then you will see
How we can change things
People are waiting, turning away
Tired of killing

Chicago V (1972)
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How do you follow three double albums and one quadruple live album? Why, with a regular, everyday average single album, that’s how! The woodgrain take on the band’s iconic logo is boring as fuck, but the music was and is pretty great. In particular, “A Hit By Varese” (download) likely exposed a million or two people to Edgard Varese’s surname for the very first time, while finding room to fit interweaving sax, ‘bone and trumpet solos with superhuman guitar work and lyrics that bemoaned the state of popular music at the time. Again, one could easily take these lyrics and apply them to today:

Please won’t you sing me
A thing that will bring me right into the sky
If you would play it
Just lay it down, say, it will help me get by

Something to move me
Remove me and grove me, you want to know why?
I’m so tired of oldiess
And moldies and goldies, that I want to cry

Can you play free
Or in three or agree to attempt something new
The people they need you
A seed that will lead to a hit by Varese

That was Robert Lamm again, on a roll that seemed unstoppable at the time. Seven of the album’s nine songs were his, including the two hit singles “Dialogue” and “Saturday In The Park.” The former took a wry look at the apathetic mindset permeating college campuses (”I also hope to keep a steady high” was a rather clever lyric), with Terry Kath singing the ‘concerned citizen’ lyrics and Peter Cetera responding as the ‘blissfully ignorant student.’ “Saturday In The Park” fared much better on the charts. Lamm’s sunny pop song, inspired by a 4th of July stroll through Central Park, made the top 5, and is still a staple of Chicago’s annual summer tours.

Elsewhere on numero cinco, Lamm’s social and political consciousness drove bitter songs like “State Of The Union” (download) and “While The City Sleeps,” with his compositional style at a peak. The former was based on an actual occurrence at a Chicago concert, where Lamm was apprehended by police for uttering an obscenity from the stage.

Lamm found a way to make room for concise, hooky lyrics and for band members to stretch out and be heard. Jimmy Pankow’s horn arrangements were front-and-center, Terry Kath’s guitar was on fire, Cetera’s McCartney-inspired bass lines were hard to ignore, and Danny Seraphine was both keeping time and freely commenting like a jazz drummer. This, my friends, is the Chicago that should have always been.

Chicago VI (1973)
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After four studio albums recorded at Columbia’s New York studios, the band headed to the Rockies for their next five studio records. Producer Jimmy Guercio set up his Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado, so Chicago dutifully followed him to the cold and snowy locale.

Whether it was adjusting to a higher altitude, artificially flying a little too high, or just the effects of cold weather, something about this move clearly changed Chicago. Oh, the hits kept on coming, all right. VI bore two more of those — the monster ballad and Walt Parazaider showcase “Just You N’ Me,” and “Feelin’ Stronger Everyday,” which can easily be heard as the blueprint for the arena rock of Journey, Foreigner and Boston. But suddenly, the fiery interplay and ambitious compositions of previous albums were gone, to return only sparingly.

Clearly, Lamm had been reading too many bad reviews in the press, and had been taking them personally. So much so, he wrote a song called “Critics’ Choice” (download), which he sings accompanied only by his piano, in defense of the band to which he was and remains fiercely loyal:

What do you want
What do you want
I’m givin’ everything I have
I’m even trying to see if there’s more
Locked deep inside
I’ll try
I’ll try
Can’t you see, this is me

What do you need
What do you need
Is it someone just to hurt
So that you can appear to be smart
And use a steady job
Play God
Play God
What do you really know
You parasite
You’re dynamite
An oversight
Misunderstanding what you hear
You’re quick to cheer
And volunteer
Absurdities, musical blasphemies
Oh Lord
Save us all

What do you want
What do you want
I’m givin’ every thing I have
I’m even trying to see if there’s more
Locked deep inside
I’ll try
I’ll try
Can’t you see, this is me

Lamm was still the majority songwriter, but now it was only a simple majority. Not only that, the best songs were Pankow’s. The two aforementioned hits were from Pankow’s pen, featuring the voice of Cetera (who gets a cowriting credit on “Feelin’ Stronger”), as is the funky “What’s This World Coming To.” They really tear it up on “World,” and the three-way tag team vocals add some excitement, but clearly, the socially conscious lyrics were best left in Lamm’s care. Case in point: “rich folks spend their time just counting money / poor folks really ain’t got much to say.” Maybe because their mouths are too busy eating cake?

Kath, meanwhile, helped elevate Lamm’s “Darlin’ Dear” to something of a majestic blues romp with his smooth and assured slide guitar playing. And Kath’s “Jenny” (download) finds him sounding less like Hendrix and more like Clapton as he sings to his dog, without even the slighest hint of irony, asking her to look after his woman while he’s on the road. If she could understand what he was singing, she might have wondered exactly what his intent was in admonishing, “there’s always someone waiting just to shit on you.”

To really underscore the fact that Chicago’s direction had changed in a big way, the album art provides the most perfect metaphor. If you have an original vinyl copy, you can feel how ornate the cover’s texture is, and just looking at it, be it LP or CD, any American would know that visual style. Stumped? Open up your wallet or your purse, and pull out a dollar bill. A ha!

Chicago VII (1974)
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The softer, less sparky vibe characterized by Chicago’s new recording environment ventured straight into easy listening territory with the seventh album. Fortunately, this doesn’t turn out to be a terribly bad thing at all.

Initially, VII was supposed to be a jazz album. Given the the group’s ability, this should have been a no-brainer. However, lack of agreement within the band forced a compromise. The risk of releasing a jazz record would be reduced with a number of standard pop songs, in what was fast becoming classic Chicago fashion. This resulted in, ironically, their first double album since III.

The jazz sides are actually quite credible performances. They just sound like typical mid-’70s pop productions, rather than 1940s bebop throwbacks or 1960s Blue Note sessions. Lamm plays his electric piano throughout, lending “Aire” an almost proto-smooth-jazz feel, and the electronic blips and bleeps in “Italian From New York” are just plain weird. Danny Seraphine, meanwhile, sounds even more at home switching up rhythms and tempi in “Devil’s Sweet,” and swingin’ hard in the brisk “Hanky Panky” (download)

The pop sides actually start midway through side 2. “Hanky Panky” segues into Lamm’s cheery “Lifesaver,” making the transition from jazz to pop virtually painless.

Again, we don’t hear as much from Lamm on VII as on the first four studio albums, but it wasn’t for lack of prolificacy. The same year VII was released, Lamm dropped his first solo album, Skinny Boy, the title track of which was also the closer on VII — the only difference in the two recordings being the presence of horns and no fade on the Chicago version.

Lamm’s songs were moving further away from what was typical of mainstream pop — he was writing less hook-laden pop material, and fewer shout-along choruses. But those in the band who were writing what was selling — namely Jimmy Pankow and Peter Cetera — placed enough hits on VII to continue Chicago’s 1970s reign of the pop charts. “”I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long,” Pankow’s string-laden ode to self-realization, scaled the charts, as did Cetera’s dreamy “Wishing You Were Here,” a song which fulfilled his dream of being a Beach Boy by featuring Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine on background vocals.

These hit songs, along with Lee Loughnane’s “Call On Me,” had this in common: All were huge hits, all were defining moments for ‘easy listening’ or ’soft rock,’ and all featured Peter Cetera on lead vocals. The band that once had credibility with FM radio and the college crowd, played the Fillmore and toured with Jimi Hendrix, had crossed over to the same crowd that was buying records by Barry Manilow and Anne Murray. It didn’t matter that Terry Kath wrote an engaging folk-rock story in “Byblos” (download) or had perfectly evoked the spirit of winter in “Song Of The Evergreens” (download) Chicago were officially typecast by this point.

Chicago VIII (1975)
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Chicago rocks out a little bit more with their eighth album, though the songs were among the weakest they had released by this point. Pankow again provided the album with a selling point as Peter Cetera sang his way through the corny “Old Days.” All elements of rock in this song are negated by the fact that Cetera is singing about “drive-in movies, comic books and blue jeans, Howdy Doody,” etc. It’s almost like “We Didn’t Start The Fire” for ’50s nostalgia buffs, only with less listing and more reminiscing. And this was the album’s biggest hit!

Lamm did manage to turn in another relatively popular 45 with “Harry Truman,” but who was the idiot that decided the Japanese would appreciate a single record wishing that the man who dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would return to fix up America?? I mean, sure, the song is pretty goofy and the little “son of a bitch!” exclamation heard during the instrumental break makes it clear that it’s not necessarily the most serious statement the band had made, but come on!

The saddest fate of VIII was the failure of Pankow’s “Brand New Love Affair” (download) to break the top 40. This is one of the songs that earned Terry Kath the proud moniker “the white Ray Charles.”

If only one type of listener truly must own VIII, however, it’s the guitar fan. Kath turns in one of most heartfelt Hendrix-inspired songs ever with “Oh, Thank You Great Spirit” (download). He captures the spacey vibe of the best moments on Electric Ladyland, and solos passionately throughout what was to be the last ‘jam’ one would hear on a Chicago album for way too long.

But again, with the hits on VII not too far behind and with the nostalgia of “Old Days” up front in the public ear, who was really paying attention to Terry Kath anymore?

Chicago IX: Greatest Hits (1975)
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Chicago “cheats” its fabled numbering system for the first time with this best-seller. For many folks out there, myself included, this was their first Chicago album. And really, it’s a fine collection of the band’s early mega-hits. But even though the band’s career would more clearly hit a dividing line in the ’80s, even at this point there was a clear divide in its music. Side One was primarily the ‘pop-rock’ side, containing mostly uptempo numbers like “25 or 6 to 4,” “Saturday In The Park” and “Feelin’ Stronger Everyday.” Side Two, for the most part, gives us ‘easy listening’ Chicago, with the three hits from VII weighing down the middle, and closing with “Beginnings.” It bought them some time and gave them something else to promote while touring the country with the Beach Boys, who had recently had a career resurgence:thanks also to a greatest hits album.

Chicago X (1976)
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The schlocky easy listening direction that was slowly creeping into Chicago’s work was kept in check for the tenth album, but you wouldn’t know it from the singles — Peter Cetera became the all-time king of schlock rock with “If You Leave Me Now,” which was the band’s first number one hit single, and the other top 40 hit, “Another Rainy Day In New York City,” found Cetera softening and making more palatable the odd Caribbean feel of a New York-themed song. Huh? And then there was “You Are On My Mind,” which has a pleasant, enjoyably jazzy groove, but did the few that heard it on the air recognize it as Chicago? Jimmy Pankow sang the tune with a breathy delivery, but by this time, Cetera was the voice of Chicago. The logo could only support so many distinct qualities.

But fun, bouyant rock and soul makes X one of Chicago’s best overall ‘pop’ albums. Terry Kath does his best Otis Redding on “Once Or Twice” (download) and the bari voices sing in unison on “You Get It Up,” which holds the distinction of being the only song in the Chicago discography to overtly refer to male sexual arousal. Even Cetera gets into the party groove on “Skin Tight” (download) He kinda ruins it later, though, with “Mama Mama” (download), which couldn’t scream “1970s schlock” any louder if it tried.

And that’s kind of the story of Chicago from here on out — for every “Once Or Twice” there’s an “If You Leave Me Now.” [Or two or three — Ed.]The latter gets single status, becomes a hit, and defines the band’s sound in the ears of the public. Granted, there are plenty of ‘guilty pleasure’ moments to be found on almost every Chicago album, but with the competing musical personalities inherent in their releases as their success grew, the worth of trawling through their catalog post-1977 for some musical salvation becomes more and more questionable. Thank goodness for these Guides, right?

Chicago XI (1977)
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This one should have turned out a lot better than it did. Peter Cetera has only one vocal contribution on the whole platter, on his obvious follow-up to “If You Leave Me Now.” “Baby What A Big Surprise” went top ten, so it fell short of its predecessor’s success. But it’s still a better record. He goes for a Beatles kind of sound, with a strings-and-horns arrangement clearly inspired by George Martin’s work on “Penny Lane.”

So what happened with the rest of the record? Terry Kath can’t be blamed, that’s for sure. He carries the whole affair with the excellent “Mississippi Delta City Blues” (download) (collector’s note: this song was being performed in concert as early as 1972, and appeared on the live album issued in Japan documenting their shows there in support of Chicago V) and “Takin’ It On Uptown” (download). The latter especially holds a dear place in my heart. As a little tyke, I used to play the BWABS 45 on my Fisher Price record player, but I preferred hearing “Uptown” on the b-side for the funny guitar sounds Kath inserted at the beginning. His guitar almost sounds like it’s laughing. It’s another Hendrixian moment; sadly, it would be the last such moment to ever grace a Chicago album.

Kath also saves a merely OK song written and sung by Lee Loughnane, called “This Time,” with an awesome backwards guitar solo. Such a thing became a cliché of ’60s psychedelic music very quickly, but in this instance, it served as a breath of fresh air.

Kath closes the record singing “Little One,” the first in a series of songs drummer Danny Seraphine would write with David “Hawk” Wolinski of Rufus fame. Kath’s delivery is passionate enough to convince the listener that it could have been his own song. It was a welcome relief from the ultra goofy “Vote For Me,” in which Robert Lamm took “Harry Truman” to its logical extreme (though in defense of “Vote,” the candidate illustrated in its lyrics is so utopian that this humorous ditty is sadly all too relevant again). And then Pankow’s plodding vocalizing on “Till The End Of Time” came off like Joe Cocker with emphysema; fortunately, this would be the last time Pank would hog the mic.

Sadly, XI marked Terry Kath’s last appearance on a Chicago album. In January of 1978, Kath ‘accidentally’ blew his brains out in the presence of a band roadie. The stories surrounding this tragedy are varied, but a few things are for certain — Kath was not the happiest camper at this time in his life, he had a substance abuse problem, and he had a dangerous fascination with firearms. Whether he intended to end his life or not, the ingredients for an early death were in place. It was only a matter of time.

Okay, okay, I know. Artists like Paul Simon don’t really need Idiot’s Guides. Who hasn’t heard of Paul Simon, or heard a bunch of his music?

Then again, there’s a fairly significant misunderstanding of Simon’s work, in my opinion; it’s one that he’s probably largely responsible for, but nonetheless, the popular concept of Simon as a self-important, pompous, feckless musical dilettante/thief doesn’t really tell the whole story. Regardless of his music’s flaws — and there are definitely flaws — I think he’s earned a place among the great American songwriters. More importantly, his hits have often failed to present an accurate picture of the depth of his talent; though stuff like “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and “You Can Call Me Al” has its merits, it isn’t really important music, of which Simon has written more than his share.

Paul Simon’s ninth proper solo album comes out today, too, so what better time for a fond look back? Buckle up, chilluns, and get ready for some relaxed, literate pop music.

The Paul Simon Songbook (1965)
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I was on the fence about whether or not to include Songbook in this overview; it was mainly a UK release, and flickered in and out of print for decades before Sony’s Legacy imprint put out a remastered version in 2004. Recorded on the fly to satisfy a need for product during Simon’s brief run as a British solo artist in the mid-’60s, Songbook is of interest mainly as a curio for the most serious of Paul Simon fans. Though the Simon & Garfunkel versions of these songs were sometimes guilty of overproduction, they don’t benefit from the simple acoustic treatment as much as you might think.

Some of this is due to the engineering, which is as sloppy as you’d expect, given the album’s impetus and timetable; a larger problem, though, is Simon himself. At this point, his performances tended to be as heavy-handed as his songs, and without Art Garfunkel’s guileless tenor, large portions of The Paul Simon Songbook are never able to do more than feebly hint at Simon’s eventual capabilities. It’s interesting to hear new/old versions of these familiar songs, and some — in particular “Kathy’s Song” (download) and “Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall” (download) — stand up well enough on their own.

It’s easy to see, though, why this never amounted to more than a short interlude in Simon & Garfunkel’s partnership, and why Simon worked for so long to prevent its domestic release. The weariness and wounded optimism that would eventually become his hallmarks are here, but they sound like a pose; he hadn’t earned them yet, and his lyrics — which always tend to waver between smart and insufferable — are hurt in the presentation. Anyone who ever said Simon didn’t need Garfunkel should hear Songbook.

Paul Simon (1972)
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Though his early forays into literate folk-pop territory sometimes edged uncomfortably close to silliness, Simon eventually emerged as a songwriter of uncommon depth and insight; by the time he and Garfunkel released their final album together, 1970’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, it was difficult to imagine where else he could go within the genre. Simon probably wondered the same thing — his restlessness is evident on a number of Bridge’s tracks, most notably “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)” and “Cecilia.” After the duo’s breakup, Simon faced the unenviable task of recording a solo debut as the follow-up to an album that most artists would have been lucky to call career-defining.

The result was 1972’s Paul Simon, an album both more intimate and more expansive than Bridge; though it lacks its predecessor’s intricately crafted, often grandiose production, it does a better job of reflecting Simon’s wandering musical spirit. His continuing fascination with Latin American music is evident in “Duncan,” but he also toys with reggae (in the hit “Mother and Child Reunion”) and the album in general has a looser, more open-ended feel than any of the Simon & Garfunkel stuff.

It’s also a very understated record. For most of it, Simon fronts a small combo (including some heavy hitters, naturally, including Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, David Spinozza, Mike Manieri, Ron Carter, and Hal Blaine, not to mention Stefan Grossman, Airto Moreira, and Stephane Grappelli), and the songs are generally fairly simple and quiet — hushed, even. “Duncan,” “Reunion,” and “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” were the hits, but they don’t tell the whole story; in fact, you could argue that the album’s real heart lies in lesser-known cuts like “Everything Put Together Falls Apart” (download) and “Run That Body Down” (download). They do a better job of illustrating how far Simon had come as a chronicler of small, universal human moments, rather than a guy who swung for a major statement every time he stepped up to the plate.

He’d been moving this direction for some time, obviously; that he continued thusly as a solo artist was no real surprise. The truly gratifying discovery in Paul Simon’s eleven tracks was how completely assured he sounded on his own. That Simon & Garfunkel was more than the sum of its parts, there is no doubt, and yet its creative principal’s growth continued unabated after the split. Simon’s easy boredom with himself — what would eventually become his Achilles’ heel — was still working in his favor.

There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973)
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Like I was just saying, with his post-S&G debut, Paul Simon demonstrated an increasingly impressive ability to hone in on small, universal human moments. And though his angle and delivery were often subject to change, one thing about that focus remained relatively unchanged; namely, the human moments in question tended to be filled with emotional drift and dissatisfaction.

Enter There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. It isn’t that the rest of his albums are dour, exactly; he’s always been good at pointing out the silver lining along with the cloud. But none of Simon’s other albums are imbued with the quiet joy that runs throughout Rhymin’.

When it came to where and how to record the album, Simon chose perfectly, heading to Muscle Shoals and using local musicians (most notably the Dixie Hummingbirds) on several tracks. Rhymin’ might represent producer Phil Ramone’s finest hour — everything has a loose, organic feel. And the songs, almost to a cut, are classics; not just the hits (namely “Kodachrome” and “Loves Me Like a Rock”), but pretty much everything else — the passive-agressive kissoff “Tenderness,” the domestically blissful “Something So Right,” the wry lullaby “St. Judy’s Comet,” the calmly optimistic “Learn How to Fall” (download) — ranks among the finest work of Simon’s career.

Particularly powerful is “American Tune” (download), a song whose bloodied-yet-quietly-defiant patriotism remains just as painfully appropriate today. Warner Bros. ought to re-release it as a single every four years.

Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)
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Just as quickly as he went all warm and fuzzy on his audience, Simon made a hard 180 with his next release: Still Crazy After All These Years is soaked through with flip resentment and spiteful humor. Crazy, like all of Simon’s albums, is eclectic enough to wriggle out from under blanket statements — the unbridled joy at redemption found in “Gone at Last” isn’t resentful or spiteful at all — but for the most part, the record reflects a sense of bloated urban disillusionment and self-loathing. Simon’s arrangements mask his sentiment effectively, to the point that someone could easily listen to Still Crazy and hear nothing more than tasteful soft rock, delivered with precision by a tight, jazzy combo.

That combo, again, included some heavy hitters; pretty much every member of the New York session mafia was present and accounted for, including Richard Tee, David Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Hugh McCracken, Ralph McDonald, Bob James, Steve Gadd, and others. Everything — from the drums to the electric piano to Simon’s laid-back vocals — has a warm, full-bodied sound. And so many of Simon’s bitter swipes are delivered in passing, or couched in such mellow surroundings, that it’s difficult to tell whether Crazy was a hit because Simon’s audience could identify with the feelings he expressed, or because the record is just so pretty.

Either way, it’s hard to argue with the command of craft evident in songs like “My Little Town” (download) and “I Do It For Your Love” (download). Awards ensued, along with the sort of paralyzing anticipation that causes an artist to take five years to release a follow-up.

One Trick Pony (1980)
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One of the popular knocks against Paul Simon is the widespread perception of him as a pompous jerk — something that One Trick Pony, the five-years-in-the-making, not-quite-a-soundtrack to the film of the same name (written by and starring himself) did nothing to dispel.

Whether the film was an act of monumental hubris or an overlooked gem is beside the point of this article, but the idea of Simon playing a rock star on the big screen doubtless colored many people’s opinions of the album that he released alongside the movie. Though Pony wasn’t a complete flop, it did break a chain of unqualified commercial success stretching all the way back to Simon & Garfunkel’s second album. Factor in the equally tepid critical response to the record, and One Trick Pony becomes the fulcrum Simon’s solo career rests upon. Up to this point, he’d enjoyed a relatively chummy relationship with public and media alike; since then, the response to each release has consisted of equal parts palm fronds and brickbats.

On its own merits, One Trick Pony isn’t so bad. Musically, it’s surprisingly of a piece with Still Crazy — it’s got the same mellow, jazz-fusion New York vibe — and though only “Late in the Evening” was an actual hit, a number of songs (particularly “How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns” [download] and the title track [download]) still hold up.

Hearts and Bones (1983)
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If One Trick Pony represented a bit of a setback for Simon, Hearts and Bones was an unmitigated disaster.

The album had a troubled birth from the beginning; it was initially supposed to be a Simon & Garfunkel reunion, inspired by the duo’s well-received touring throughout ‘81-’83, but Garfunkel didn’t care for the songs (which are nakedly self-absorbed, even by Simon’s standards), and Simon, eventually, decided he didn’t much care for Garfunkel’s voice on the songs, and erased his erstwhile partner’s tracks.

In retrospect, it’s pretty clear that the album’s failure had more to do with a Paul Simon backlash than a real absence of quality on the songs themselves. Some of the synths haven’t aged well, and the production on the whole has the flat, glassy sheen of the era, but the set isn’t without its charms. You can feel Simon’s restlessness again — aside from working with Nile Rodgers and Philip Glass, he managed to write a song about numbers, songs about (at least on the surface) cars and the moon, and used doo-wop to tell an imaginary story about René Magritte and his wife (download); among the more ‘traditional’ songs, the title track (download) has aged particularly well.

The album’s failure was unfortunate, but some good came out of it; Simon — the kind of fussy perfectionist who takes even his successes personally — reacted to the sting by falling into a deep creative funk, one from which he wouldn’t emerge until he’d recorded the most successful album of his career.

Graceland (1986)
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Three years removed from the greatest disappointment of his career, Paul Simon returned with Graceland, the album that not only remains his greatest success, but remains, twenty years after its release, at the vanguard of continent-fusing American pop.

Coming, as it did, at the height of apartheid awareness in this country, Graceland — which melds South African gumboot music with American folk and rock, largely through the use of South African musicians — couldn’t help but spark controversy. Simon’s decriers accused him of breaking the cultural embargo against South Africa, a charge he flouted by taking his Graceland tour there; meanwhile, others dismissed the album as the feckless dilettantism of a creatively bankrupt musical poacher who sought to take credit for music he had nothing to do with. (Supposedly, the instrumental bed for the Graceland track “All Around The World Or The Myth Of Fingerprints” [download] consists of a Los Lobos jam that Simon took full writing credit for without the band’s knowledge or consent.)

Fortunately, I have the luxury of saying that the comments area is the place for debating accusations; what matters here is that Graceland — as a piece of musical entertainment, and perhaps even as an act of cultural ambassadorship — works supremely well. Though Simon was in the process of moving away from linear lyrics and song structures (wide swaths of Graceland’s lyrics consist of words that sound good together rather than form a coherent narrative), he still had enough of a pop tether to keep the songs from floating off into the ether. In fact, these are some of the catchiest songs Simon’s ever written.

What Graceland isn’t is a gumboots record, not really; purists used this as another excuse to wave away the album, but this criticism misses the point, because it never pretends to be any one thing. Simon mixes South African, Latin American, and American Southern/Northeastern ingredients into one big gumbo pot, and the result is a beguiling blend that isn’t wholly indebted to any one nation or genre. It’s just a fun listen. You’ve probably heard it all a thousand times, or have a copy of your own, but listen to “That Was Your Mother” (download) anyway.

The Rhythm of the Saints (1990)
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Four years after he went to Africa and came back with Graceland, Simon attempted to repeat the experiment in South America for The Rhythm of the Saints, and fell victim to the law of diminishing returns — commercially, anyway. Saints has always gotten a bad rap, but I enjoy it just as much as its predecessor.

It’s easy to see why Saints has always been pegged as Graceland’s ugly stepbrother; Simon was moving further away from traditional song structures and linear narratives, and in the process, forsaking melodic hooks. For every old-fashioned verse-chorus-verse number like “The Obvious Child,” “Born at the Right Time,” or “Proof” (all of which were medium-sized hits), there’s a gauzy tune like “Spirit Voices” (download) or the title track (download). It’s the kind of album that needs to be fully absorbed before it’s appreciated, and absorbing it takes time. The fact that it wasn’t Graceland II, even though it may have threatened to be on the surface, kept a lot of people from bothering to discover this.

Having co-opted South African mining music and Brazilian polyrhythm, Simon seemed to have exhausted his globetrotting options, at least for the moment; short of making a pop album out of Icelandic folk music or Aborigine ballads, he was going to have to head back home for his next move.

You’re the One (2000)
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You’re the One sold half a million copies and earned a Grammy nomination, but that’s almost the default result of an artist of Simon’s stature taking ten years to make an album. To say that One received a warm critical or commercial response would be a bit of an overstatement — it wasn’t roundly panned, but for the most part, people didn’t know what to make of it.

It’s an odd bird, for sure. Musically, it’s a slight culmination of all the various forms and genres Simon has toyed with throughout his career, yet at the same time, it’s a continuation of his move away from anything you could legitimately call pop songwriting; though it contains its share of the lovely (”That’s Where I Belong” [download]) and the catchy (”Old” [download]), the majority of the album consists of songs that take their time to get where they’re going:if they’re going anywhere at all. It’s as though Simon, having already abandoned linear narrative, decided he wanted to see what would happen if he threw stuff like melody and easily discernible song structure out the window too.

It’s an ambitious decision, admirably so, but it makes for difficult listening. It’s surprising, because as often as Simon has struggled to carve out new territory in pop music, he’s usually been fairly good at adding a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. He knows his audience. You’re the One, though, travels into territory so insular that it’s almost as though Simon forgot anyone else might be listening to these songs. It’s charming, to a point, but ultimately disappointing.

What the album makes clear is the amount of emotional distance Simon has added to his songs. It’s been a development long in the making, but on Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, he was able to use the natural warmth of the music he borrowed from as a proxy for the heart he’d once worn on his sleeve — well, maybe not on his sleeve, exactly, but someplace nearby. Here, the arrangements and instrumentation can’t — don’t try to — disguise the way Simon has largely moved away from telling stories and toward setting moods.

Surprise (2006)
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Leading up to its release, the big story about Surprise was that Simon had enlisted the aid of Brian Eno as a “sonic landscaper” for this set of songs; certain music dorks (myself included) also perked up at the news that Bill Frisell played electric guitar on the album. It wasn’t the most obvious of combinations, but it had no small amount of weird, exciting promise.

The reality is much more mundane than you might expect. Neither Eno nor Frisell exert the kind of influence they typically do over recordings they’re involved with — the production is a little more modern, and the guitars are a tad stranger in spots, but for the most part, the new additions are fairly subtle.

They work, though. Simon has ventured further out onto the insular, elliptical limb he started climbing with You’re the One; the statements these songs make — about love, youth, old age, and modern American life — are as indirect as the songs themselves. They’re mood pieces, paintings with words, and they benefit — more than is immediately apparent — from the extra color Eno’s “landscaping” provides. It’s subtle, as I said, but listen to “How Can You Live in the Northeast?” (download) and “Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean” (download) and you’ll see how the added noise helps broaden the music’s appeal.

That being said, it’s hard to listen to Surprise without thinking that Simon’s constant restlessness has robbed his work of a lot of what made it great. His music and lyrics once evoked aspects of the American experience so powerfully that their impact remains undiminished, even after more than three decades; these days, he often seems to be talking mainly to himself. He deserves no shortage of credit for refusing to simply rest on his laurels, but ambition is often a poor substitute for emotional resonance. Simon’s creative journey doubtless has more than a few twists and turns left in it, and he seems to be in little danger of falling into a rut — but it would be nice to hear him settle into another groove.

It’s April at last, and spring is officially in the air. What better time to devote an entire Idiot’s Guide to my favorite jazz musician of all time, Kenny G?

You know, we talk about a lot of music here, and a lot of different opinions are expressed, but I just don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who didn’t love the music of Kenny G. It’s smooth, sophisticated, and relaxing — just the thing to listen to if you’re enjoying a Bartles & Jaymes or doing some light calisthenics. Or doing anything, really. There aren’t many artists you can say this about — particularly artists who have been recording for as long as Kenny G — but every song on every album is just full to the brim with talent. The guy can play, write, and — rumor has it — even sing a mean tune.

And let’s not forget the whole circular-breathing thing. That’s talent.

But anyway, let’s get down to business. You probably own most or all of these albums already, but why not take a fond look back?

Kenny G (1982)
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Right from the eye-catching cover shot, featuring Kenny G’s winsome smile and flowing mane, this album draws the listener in. A brilliantly seamless collection of uptempo numbers and gorgeous ballads, Kenny G gave old fans everything they could have hoped for, while still managing to bring millions of new listeners into the fold.

Is it his mellifluous playing or the beautiful songs that make the record so great? Heck, that’s easy: Both!

It’s so hard to choose, but this one might be my favorite Kenny G album. Listen to the hauntingly melodic “I’ve Been Missing You” (download) and “Come Close” (download).

G Force (1983)
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Right from the eye-catching cover shot, featuring Kenny G’s winsome smile and flowing mane, this album draws the listener in. A brilliantly seamless collection of uptempo numbers and gorgeous ballads, G Force gave old fans everything they could have hoped for, while still managing to bring millions of new listeners into the fold.

Is it his mellifluous playing or the beautiful songs that make the record so great? Heck, that’s easy: Both!

It’s so hard to choose, but this one might be my favorite Kenny G album. Listen to the hauntingly melodic “I Can’t Tell You Why” (download) and “Sunset at Noon” (download).

Gravity (1985)
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Right from the eye-catching cover shot, featuring Kenny G’s winsome smile and flowing mane, this album draws the listener in. A brilliantly seamless collection of uptempo numbers and gorgeous ballads, Gravity gave old fans everything they could have hoped for, while still managing to bring millions of new listeners into the fold.

Is it his mellifluous playing or the beautiful songs that make the record so great? Heck, that’s easy: Both!

It’s so hard to choose, but this one might be my favorite Kenny G album. Listen to the hauntingly melodic “Last Night of the Year” (download) and “Where Do We Take It” (download).

Duotones (1986)
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Right from the eye-catching cover shot, featuring Kenny G’s winsome smile and flowing mane, this album draws the listener in. A brilliantly seamless collection of uptempo numbers and gorgeous ballads, Duotones gave old fans everything they could have hoped for, while still managing to bring millions of new listeners into the fold.

Is it his mellifluous playing or the beautiful songs that make the record so great? Heck, that’s easy: Both!

It’s so hard to choose, but this one might be my favorite Kenny G album. Listen to the hauntingly melodic “Sade” (download) and “You Make Me Believe” (download).

Silhouette (1988)
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Right from the eye-catching cover shot, featuring Kenny G’s winsome smile an