BOOKENDS
| Simon & Garfunkel
BOOKENDS
Bookends is the fourth studio album by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel. Produced by Paul Simon, Roy Halee and Art Garfunkel, the album was released on April 3, 1968, in the United States by Columbia Records. The duo had risen to fame two years prior with the albums Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and the soundtrack album for the 1967 film The Graduate. Bookends is a concept album that explores a life journey from childhood to old age. Side one of the album marks successive stages in life, the theme serving as bookends to the life cycle. Side two largely consists of unused material for The Graduate soundtrack. Simon's lyrics concern youth, disillusionment, relationships, old age, and mortality. Much of the material was crafted alongside producer John Simon, who joined the recording when Paul Simon suffered from writer's block. The album was recorded gradually over the period of a year, with production speeding up around the later months of 1967. - WIKIPEDIA
Critic Reviews
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RollingStone
1968 - The music is, for me, questionable, but I’ve always found their music questionable.
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ALL MUSIC
In just over 29 minutes, Bookends is stunning in its vision of a bewildered America in search of itself.
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sputnik music
2005 - Bookends is fun, escapist folk/pop at it's best.
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NPR
2012 - Listening to Bookends was like reuniting with an old friend I didn't know that I had: only after hearing the album start to finish did I recognize that these songs have been around me all along.
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Medium
2017 - Almost every track here is a gem.
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Entertainment Focus
2018 - The sharp contrast between the two sides, played in stereo on 180g vinyl, make this the best way to enjoy a short but sweet classic album and an enduring slice of late 1960s popular culture.
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UCR
2018 - listen closely to 1968's Bookends and 1970's Bridge Over Troubled Water, their last two albums, and you'll hear one of the most adventurous studio groups of the era – one that was every bit as sonically explorative as any of their more lauded contemporaries in this field.
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Adrian Denning
Largely gone is the folk-rock trappings although the music still largely fits into the then contemporary music scene.
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Backseat Mafia
2018 - it’s not difficult to argue that Bookends is one of the finest albums of the era, and one of the finest pop albums of all time.
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Bookends
Ugh. Without a doubt, this one is way too mature. Take a look at the album cover. They're just standing there in dark sweaters with blank expressions on their faces, as if to say "No fun allowed!
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Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
Their best work, together or separately--the concept side shines with "Save The Life Of My Child" and "America"; the singles on side two are brilliant, with the exception of the silly but fun "At The Zoo."
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Amino
Some of their stuff which is on this album is extremely nice to listen to.
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APHORISTIC ALBUM REVIEWS
2017 - Their fourth album, Bookends, stands up as their most consistent work.
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Only Solitaire
Fifty percent unsurpassed vocal harmonies and fifty percent bland acoustic strumming.
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UNCUT
Bookends raises eyebrows even now with its synthesisers and sound collages, but the voluptuous directions taken by Simon’s lyrics (in “America”, particularly) can leave you gasping.
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Alan's Album Archives
'Bookends' is also an album that defies time, the epitome of timelessness as Simon and Garfunkel try on different ages and periods and life changes on for style to try to write an album that moves away from merely reflecting troubled teenagers all the time and instead tries to reflect the lives of everyone.
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Roland's Music Shelf
2018 - Bookends is the all-time-best-album-ever to come out between Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road.
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No Where Bros.
2013 - Bookends is a delightful offering of folk-pop, sure the vague concept in the album’s first half isn’t particularly well orchestrated, but the individual songs (not interview recordings) are still melodic, brilliantly composed and meticulously arranged.
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