Like, A Bridge Too Farfunkel

Hot on the heels of the hotly anticipated new album from Yusuf Islam, who will bill himself as “the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens” (or some variation thereof) comes an equally irrelevant project. Yes, kids, get ready for an album of standards from Art Garfunkel:

Some Enchanted Evening features Garfunkel’s covers of show tune classics by some of the greatest 20th century songwriters, including Rodgers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Antonio Carlos Jobim and George Gershwin. Garfunkel says, “I’ve been loving this stuff all my life. In this nervous world, I want to soothe. It’s a great time for moderation, for thoughtfulness, for dialogue, for the great Exhale, for humor. A great time for a sweet sound, a visceral, charming, prayerful sound.” The album will be released on January 30.

OK, first of all, that’s way too many adjectives. Secondly, when you’re releasing an album, “prayerful” should never be one of the adjectives you use. Like ever. Third, how did the person who apparently interviewed you for this soundbite know that you put a capital E on “Exhale”? I’m just positive it isn’t because you sent a press release to a bunch of lazy journalists who just cut and pasted from it, stuck in an intro, decided you probably weren’t worth an interview, and released it as “news”.

Look, you can call me cynical for carving up all these old toasters that want to put out new records. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more cynical than reheating old pop standards and claiming that you’re only doing it because you feel some deep need to soothe a “nervous” world.

Hacking on the artistic impulse — even that of people who, at their high point, stoop so low as to torture us with “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water” — is never something I feel entirely comfortable with. I really do have deep sympathy for that impulse. I know that musicians feel a need to create stuff long past their sell-by date. And really, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But there’s also nothing wrong with admitting that you miss the public spotlight, or you have bills to pay. So Art, a word of advice: think more like Kiss or Aerosmith and just give’r. At this point, the less said about your need to “soothe” us, the better. Just have fun and see if, thirty years on, you can still move a few units. (Might I suggest Starbucks as a retailing partner?)

If you only take one piece of advice from me, though, let it be this: Art, for the love of God, tell your publicist to tone it down a bit. Seriously, that “visceral, charming, prayerful” business was just gross. I felt unclean.

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