The importance of Paul Simon's Graceland?

I think the cultural aspect confuses people. How is it any different than Paul Simon hiring a bunch of American musicians and using what they come up with to create music? No one bats an eye and it's not considered an exploitation. But because these musicians were South African, all of a sudden race comes into it. It's not as if he claimed anything other than he discovered the music and wanted to make an album with those musicians. But because he's white and most of the musicians were black and from a pooer country, there must be something sinister happening.

 

Definitely essential Paul Simon, my personal favourite album of the 80's and to me a successful introduction into non-Western music.

Dunno about its importance in the grand scheme of things, though. I love the music, the lyrics and the production, but it isn't world changing in the sense that other albums might be.

 

erggh--getting the name of one of my favourite songs wrong!

 

Shout out to James Finlayson!!!

 

I can’t speak for others’ supposed confusion, but your statement definitely expresses a certain amount of confusion as to the political and cultural realities of the time and place the album was recorded.

 

I'm well aware of the political complexities of the time. I was commenting on those that claim that Simon is guilty of cultural appropriation. Since you know so much about it, how about speaking in detail as to what I'm supposedly confused about?

 

If that’s true then you also know that that it was very different than “hiring a bunch of American musicians”.

 

Wow, condescending much? As I already said, I'm speaking purely to the so-called "musical theft", not the political implications of disobeying the Apartheid ban. I don't believe that any culture owns music. You can disagree with someone without implying that they are confused. Cheers.

 

Cultural appropriation is a total myth.

The Graceland album however is a gift to all mankind.

 

There were hints and allegations.

Gracelands isn’t my cup of tea, but I won’t deny that it’s a great pop album.

 

I probably play this album once a month minimum. It is constantly in my car rotation.

 

Again, that obviously isn’t the case when you talk of “confusion” at its “cultural aspect”.

 

Not in the least. You may not wish to acknowledge it, and not every person may ascribe a necessarily exploitative motive to it in every case, but it does exist.

 

Paul indeed seems to have kinda short-changed Los Lobos here, but then again I think it's just a matter of a couple of songs, wasn't it? Simon came from (literally) the Brill-Building style, where songwriting was a job in which you wrote down lyrics and notes and made demos for other artists. He's a craftsman, and a painstaking one, in his songwriting. He probably doesn't consider jamming to be songwriting. I'm not excusing what he did, but I'm saying while it might be clear-cut to Los Lobos, it might be a matter of difference of perspective to Simon.

As to your "not the first time he did that, either", are you referring to 'Scarborough Fair' and Martin Carthy? In that case, Simon didn't realize Carthy hadn't been paid, and once he found out, years later, he paid a large sum of cash to Carthy. They also played live together in 2000.

 

In my view, Simon did nothing wrong whatsoever in terms of cultural appropriation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 'pop' (white, American, in this case) person bringing an otherwise little known faraway musical genre to a mainstream audience, provided he does it transparently and doesn't rip-off the musicians involved. Simon didn't rip-off anybody, and in fact brought a great deal of attention and career opportunities to the musicians he featured on his album and tour.

The only reason he got some flack for it is because he didn't wait for approval from (as I recall) the Africa National Congress, which Harry Belafonte was a representative of. Simon asked Belafonte if he thought there was anything wrong with his recording with South African musicians, and, after explaining his intent, Belafonte responded that he thought it was all perfectly fine, but that he suggested Simon wait a week or something (can't recall) for him to get back to him with official advice on how to proceed, from the ANC. Simon was in a hurry, however, and he rather impetuously went straight to Johannesburg before receiving any advice or tacit permission from the ANC. It's not like they would have told him not to go, but I think they were a bit put out that he jumped the gun without waiting for their response.

 

Musical cultural appropriation, as a concept, is very dangerous in my opinion. First of all, it implies that a culture, ie. a population you are born into or choose to follow traditions of, can somehow own or morally copyright a style of music. That's ridiculous. Jamaican reggae influenced tons of musicians in the late 70s and we heard the effects of that throughout the 80s. If Paul Simon is guilty then so is The Police. How about The Beatles and The Stones, highly influenced by a style of music that didn't "belong to them"? It goes both ways too, the great jazz artists of the 50s were influenced by Ravel, Debussy and other white, European classical composers. Anyway, agree to disagree. I might be inclined to go along with cultural appropriation in say, fashion, to a small extent, but not in music. That doesn't mean that the influencers don't deserve credit.

 

I find it sad that some want to take this topic in a direction of self manufactured outrage.

If people give in to the idea of cultural appropriation it sends us all down a butthurt rabbit trail of blame that never ends.

 

Um, you may want to Google what happened to Los Lobos, who are credited for playing but not writing "The Myth of Fingerprints" from the very same album . . . Pretty horrid treatment, and they were a band on his label. I hope the other musicians were treated better.

 

It is a great album though I prefer Hearts and Bones. The blend with Ladysmith Black Mambazo works super well though it is still very much a Paul Simon album. If I'm honest I like some tracks much more than others. My faves:

The Boy in the Bubble
Graceland
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes
You can call me Al
Homeless

The other 6 tracks I could live without.

So for me it is not the most consistent album, but the good bits are so good that I overlook the rest

Tim

 

I did mention that in a previous post. I agree that if their side of the story is correct, then it’s awful. However, we only really have their side. Simon has said that he already had the verses written during the jam and was shocked when the complaint came out as no one said anything until 6 months after the release when the album really took off. Who knows? But I see lots of credit given to other artists on the album.

 

It doesn’t have the same impact for me now but it was groundbreaking at the time of its release - for musical and other reasons. Still a lovely album though and I think still Paul Simon’s best.

 

In order:

Still Crazy After All These Years
There Goes Rhymin' Simon
Paul Simon
Graceland


.......and then everything else

 

Rockin' Dopsie , who also plays on the album also felt slighted by not receiving composer credit and compensation. I think he initiated some legal action but it was dismissed.
As for Los Lobo, I believe there was a flurry of letters between the artist"s attorneys about the credit issue but Los Lobos abandoned any further legal action.

 

There’s no such thing as “giving in” to a fact. Cultural appropriation exists, whether or not you acknowledge it. It’s not a matter of opinion.

Where opinion enters into is, as I said before, is how exploitative or inappropriate one considers it to be when it happens.

The only “butthurt” “self manufactured outrage” going on here is from those pretending an obviously real thing doesn’t exist.