Music CD - Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water

	Music CD: Bridge Over Troubled Water Artist: Simon & Garfunkel List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $5.90 Your Save: $ 6.08 ( 51% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Sony
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Tracks: 1. Bridge Over Troubled Water 2. El Condor Pasa (If I Could) 3. Cecilia 4. Keep The Customer Satisfied 5. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright 6. The Boxer 7. Baby Driver 8. The Only Living Boy In New York 9. Why Don't You Write Me 10. Bye Bye Love 11. Song For The Asking 12. Feuilles-O 13. Bridge Over Troubled Water
Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0074646600429 Format: Extra tracks Label: Sony Manufacturer: Sony Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: Sony Release Date: 2001-08-21 Studio: Sony
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: fine album--BRAVO, SIMON AND GARFUNKEL !!! Comment: Bridge Over Troubled Water is an outstanding, classic rock album from Simon and Garfunkel. These guys knew music and they played and sang so well that they remain very famous even after their split so many years ago. The sound quality is excellent and the artwork is very thoughtfully done. The CD starts with the title track, "Bridge Over Troubled Water." They sing this beautifully and there is such a soothing quality to this rock ballad that you just can't resist it! "Bridge Over Troubled water" has an especially fine arrangement for the piano and this helps the melody along quite a bit. "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" has another very pretty melody for this considerably shorter ballad; Paul Simon sings this flawlessly and the flute is gorgeous on "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)." Great! "Cecilia" rocks! This tune gives us Simon and Garfunkel singing out loud about a girl who can break a man's heart and not feel terribly bad at all about it. The beat is quite good for this song and it all holds its own very well. "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" is a lesser known ballad but it's really very well done; and the use of both major and minor keys enhances the natural beauty of this ballad. "The Boxer" is one of their greatest hits ever--I always enjoy this even if I know there may be hidden meanings in the lyrics that I still don't understand. Simon and Garfunkel harmonize to perfection and the percussion helps to mark the best very well. I predict that you'll enjoy "The Boxer" very much if you haven't heard it already. "The Only Living Boy In New York" puzzles me because despite its beauty it's not a song that gets the full; recognition it deserves. Simon and Garfunkel sing this without a flaw and "The Only Living Boy In New York" is clearly a highlight of this album. Just as Amazon notes, we also get a live cover of The Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love." Simon and Garfunkel put their own stamp on this great ballad by changing a few keys here and there and it works wonders for this number. I love it! "Feuilles-O" is an excellent bonus track on this album; and listen for a bonus track of another slightly different recoding of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." This demo works well but I think the final version worked best. Overall, Simon and Garfunkel fans will want this for their collections; and people who enjoy classic rock and even some of the "oldies" will cherish this CD for years to come. Customer Rating: Summary: OVERRATED? ONLY IF YOU'VE LOST YER MIND ! (this album deserved all five Grammy Awards, and lives up to it's stellar reputation) Comment: There are those who will tell you that Simon And Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) is "overrated", but I don't see it that way at all. The album contains two undeniable masterpieces, Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Boxer. Both songs are songwriting monuments, beautiful and significant, and the vocal performance and production on both is flawless. Bridge Over Troubled Water could quite possibly be the greatest song ever written. With an impressively gorgeous melody and inspiring lyrics that describe the most decent of all of human behavior, it rises to the highest level of greatness while simply and gently touching even the most helpless and vulnerable. When you're weary, feeling small When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all I'm on your side when times get rough And friends just can't be found Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down Cecelia is another great song, and while not as sweeping as the title song or painfully sad as The Boxer, it's infectious melody, Latin rhythms, and intelligent lyrics make it a classic and an all-time favorite of many. The simple folk song El Condor Pasa (If I Could) and the fragile The Only Living Boy In New York are both remarkable songs in their own right, but a little overshadowed by the three hit singles on the album. The big band jazzy Keep The Customer Satisfied is another winner here (I always think of Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman when I hear it). I also like the fun rocker Baby Driver and the live version of The Everly Brothers' Bye Bye Love. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright is a unique tribute to the famous American architect, and Paul Simon and his acoustic guitar close the album quietly and thoughtfully with A Song For The Asking. Bridge Over Troubled Water was Simon And Garfunkel's last studio album, and possibly their best. It won five Grammy Awards including Album Of The Year, went to number one on the Billboard Music Charts, is ranked #51 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list, and has sold over 25 million copies. This album isn't overrated, it's a wonderful classic! Customer Rating: Summary: BLOWN AWAY Comment: This is the first Simon & Garfunkel album/cd I have ever bought...wow! What a GREAT one to start with! I can't stop listening to it..I have subsequently purchased more cds and dvd concerts! I am a huge fan now...Ihave ALWAYS liked Paul Simon..didn't realize the enormous impact he has had on music..but now I see it...forget their "greatest hits" compilations...even if you have NEVER bought an S&G cd..this is the one to start with! awesome Customer Rating: Summary: my song, for the asking Comment: This masterful album can only be called succulent. And that's just to start with. The adjectives need to wax ever stronger in order adequately to describe the movement from one classic piece to the next in this eleven-track celebration of some of the 1970s finest music. Like Seinfeld for the ears, Simon and Garfunkel's music generates many of the lyrics and observations that are engraved upon the brains of us who grew up in that era and which spring almost unconsciously to the lips when circumstances beckon. One is struck by how different each song is from the other. With its intelligent consolation ('When evening fall so hard ...'), 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' is one of the great songs of the second half of the twentieth century. Then comes 'El Condor Pasa', the tune that single-handedly introduced the Andean pipe into the North American musical conscience. Its tempo--somewhere between plodding and jaunty--is a universe removed from the gentle grief of 'Bridge'. Both are of a still different species than the unforgettable 'Celia', which provokes the ever-enlightening heuristic question, 'What were these guys *smokin'*?' 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' defies classification, for it may be the only sung eulogy to an architect. It manages to provide one of the all-time most flexible mantras of meaninglessness: 'Architects may come and architects may go, an everchanging point of view'. I find it particularly useful on very long trips. All of which brings us to the album's central treasure, the unsung 'The Boxer'. I still remember the moment, thirty years ago, when I heard it for the first time, sung badly by my fellow bruised and hungry travelers on an Outward Bound expedition in Wisconsin. A part of me makes me think we should each listen to this song on the first of every January and July, merely on the premonition that it would do *something* good for us each time. It is inexplicable to me why this piece did not find itself a central component of our shared and popular culture in the way it appeared destined to do. Speaking of unsung, 'The Only Living Boy in New York' is life-as-seen-gently-from-below in the manner that would make a career for Paul Simon the songwriter. 'Tom, get your plane-ride on time ...' is an inauspicious opener, that much is clear. But Simon is a past master at telling the little guy's story compellingly and with an authenticity that is not harmed by occasional flashes of wit ('My father was a prominent frogman ...' on the previous track). 'Only Living Boy' is an ode sing-able on every very tired night after accomplishing something worthwhile. It could never have been performed in just this way after the Simon and Garfunkel split, for Garfunkel's very smooth tenor hanging almost mystically above the proceedings on this song is an indispensable part of its magic. Magic may be the operative word with which to sum up the impact of BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER. Still, the concept has its weaknesses. Magic is about smoke, mirrors, and abracadabras, impressive as all that can be. Simon and Garfunkel were about talent and a penetrating musical genious. Together only briefly, they comprised the most talented, smooth-writing duo on the face of the planet. No one seems to know quite what happened after that. No matter. BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER is still with us. That's enough for now. Customer Rating: Summary: Let Your Honesty Shine Comment: One of my all time favorite albums growing up. I burned through my parents' cassette copy of this, but for some reason didn't buy it on CD until a few months ago. I'm glad I waited, as the reissue sounds dynamite. Of course, anything probably would, after the years of abuse that cassette took. I've always been a fan of the folk-acoustic genre and Simon and Garfunkel are at the top of their game here on their last release. The title track is starkly beautiful, the vocals passionate. "Cecilia", "Keep the Customer Satisfied", and "Baby Driver" are all up-temp acoustic rockers. "El Condor Pasa" is a wonderful folk ballad with traditional instrumentation. Their cover of the Every Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" is very well done and is probably the weakest song here. The ballads "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright" and "The Only Living Boy in New York" are both well written, with an air of melancholy. "New York" in particular always seemed to sum up the whole experience of living. And those heavenly background vocals! "Why Don't You Write Me" is very catchy as well. There's not a bad song to be found here. Still, the mainstay for me, the song I listened to over and over, was "The Boxer". The excellent arpeggiated guitar part that opens it, the seen it all lyrics, the drumbeat that accompanies the haunting "li-la-li" choruses. Even in the years between when the cassette gave up the ghost and I purchased the CD, I still knew the lyrics of "The Boxer" by heart. An amazing song and an amazing album. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: No one can say Simon & Garfunkel went out with a whimper. The popular duo's 1970 swan song produced four hit singles and won six Grammy awards, including Record, Album, and Song of the Year. An involving mix of sweeping epics ("The Boxer," the title track) and breezy throwaways (a live cover of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love," the rock & roll trifle "Baby Driver"), Bridge was one of the most popular albums of its era. What's particularly striking about this collection is how brightly lesser-acclaimed songs like "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright" and the gorgeous "The Only Living Boy in New York" shine. (The 2001 reissue adds a pair of demos to the original work, including the traditional "Feuilles-O.")--Steven Stolder