Simon & Garfunkel

"Greatest Hits"

  1. "Mrs. Robinson" (3:52)
  2. "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her"--live (2:24)
  3. "The Boxer" (5:10)
  4. "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"--live (1:50)
  5. "The Sound of Silence" (3:06)
  6. "I Am a Rock" (2:52)
  7. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" (3:09)
  8. "Homeward Bound"--live (2:42)
  9. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (4:52)
  10. "America" (3:33)
  11. "Kathy's Song"--live (3:23)
  12. "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" (3:07)
  13. "Bookends" (1:20)
  14. "Cecilia" (2:53)

Okay, this one TOTALLY pisses me off. First of all, Simon & Garfunkel is one of those tricky bands that have just a bit too many good songs to justify downloading on mp3 without paying for them, but not quite enough to make them worth buying on CD. Finally, on impulse, I chose to end the dilemma by picking out this compilation from the used bins. Now...four of the live tracks are live versions, NOT studio, but of course they don't mention that ANYWHERE on the outside case! (In fact, the time lengths as listed exactly match the studio lengths, in case you did a side-by-side comparison; the times listed above are the true lengths.)

But most unforgivable of all -- for some Godforsaken reason, they let the cheering in the live tracks BLEED INTO THE STUDIO TRACKS!!! Which means, if you cue it up to play "Sound of Silence" or "Bridge over Trouble Water" (the two main reasons I bothered to spend money in the first place) you get an ULTRA-LOUD burst of cheering that fades into the intro, which, in each case, is pretty damn quiet to begin with. WHO THE FUCK CAME UP WITH *THAT* IDEA???!? Now I have to download the mp3s anyway, just to have clean versions (or buy the original albums, but NO FUCKING WAY am I doing that now, you greedy RIAA bastards!!)

(I'm almost too pissed to even mention the cover versions: "The Sound of Silence" by Nevermore and Heir Apparent, "Scarborough Fair" by Queensryche, and "America" by Yes.)

Previous Band Back to Index Next Band