Stranger to Stranger

Background

Simon began writing new material shortly after releasing his twelfth studio album, So Beautiful or So What, in April 2011. Simon collaborates with the Italian electronic dance music artist Clap! Clap! on three songs—"The Werewolf", "Street Angel", and "Wristband". Simon was introduced to him by his son, Adrian, who was a fan of his work. The two met up in July 2011 when Simon was touring behind So Beautiful or So What in Milan, Italy. He and Clap! Clap! worked together via email over the course of making the album. Simon also worked with longtime friend Roy Halee, who is listed as co-producer on the album. Halee, who had retired years earlier, was mostly recruited to advise on how to create natural echo. He was unfamiliar with Pro Tools, so Simon helped him with it. "I always liked working with him more than anyone else," Simon noted.

Composition

Andy Greene of Rolling Stone dubbed Stranger to Stranger an "experimental album heavy on echo and rhythm that fuses electronic beats with African woodwind instruments, Peruvian drums, a gospel music quartet, horns and synthesizers." The album makes usage of custom-made instruments, such as the Cloud-Chamber Bowls and the Chromelodeon, which were created by music theorist Harry Partch in the mid-twentieth century. Simon briefly moved the sessions to Montclair State University, where the instruments are stored, in 2013 in order to employ them on the album. "Parch said there were 43 tones to an octave and not 12," Simon remarked in Rolling Stone. "He had a totally different approach to what music is and had to build his own instruments so he could compose on a microtonal scale. That microtonal thinking pervades this album."

"The Werewolf" centers around a werewolf, also an angel of death, who is looking for victims. The song's origins came from Simon and his band experimenting with slowing down the tempo of a recording they made of the Peruvian percussion instrument Cajón, the Indian instrument gopichand, and hand claps. "Wristband" creates a narrative around a rock musician unable to gain entry into his own concert because he lacks the wristband required. "The Riverbank" was inspired by a teacher that Simon personally knew who was slain in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. It also takes root in a visit Simon made to wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital. "Proof of Love" and "In the Garden of Edie", meanwhile, stand as tributes to Simon's wife, musician Edie Brickell. The album also has continuity, with characters reappearing in songs. "The idea of finishing one song and having the character appear in another song appeals to me. I don't see why characters shouldn't appear more than once," said Simon. The instrumentals "The Clock" and "In the Garden of Edie" function as interludes, designed to give listeners "space." The two tracks were originally composed for John Patrick Shanley's play Prodigal Son, but went unused.

Release

Stranger to Stranger was first announced when Simon announced his tour dates in February 2016. It was officially announced with the lead single "Wristband" premiering online on April 7, 2016. The cover art for the album taken from a portrait of Simon painted by artist Chuck Close.

Critical reception

Stranger to Stranger received widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 85, based on 25 reviews. In Rolling Stone, Will Hermes said it was "as inviting, immaculately produced, jokey and unsettled a record as any he has ever made", while The Guardian's Jon Dennis found the album "as rewarding as anything" Simon had recorded before, showcasing a "tenacious pursuit of new sounds". Jonathan Bernstein of Entertainment Weekly called Stranger to Stranger "one of his very boldest collections to date", an album "brimming with concepts and sounds that push Simon’s musical boundaries further than ever". Randy Lewis from the Los Angeles Times believed the record was "pop music at its most artful and relevant, a sentiment from a septuagenarian representative of rock’s old guard that's arguably as potent as anything from seemingly more streetwise artists one-third his age". The Independent's Andy Gill hailed it as Simon's "best in several years", and Steve Smith of The Boston Globe considered it his "richest, most instantly appealing collection since Graceland (1986)". Dan Weiss was somewhat less impressed in Spin, lamenting the music's "novelty electronics", which he said "make everything feel sillier than it is (not inherently a bad thing), but they also fail to get into a groove (which is)".

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, selling 19,218 copies in its first week. At the age of 74 years and eight months, Paul Simon is the oldest male solo artist to chart at number one in the UK. It is his first number-one studio album since The Rhythm of the Saints (1990). In the United States, Stranger to Stranger debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 68,000 units. The album was the overall best-selling album for the week based on pure album sales (67,000 copies). It is Simon's highest charting album in over 29 years, since Graceland (1986).

Track listing

All tracks written by Paul Simon.