Simon & Garfunkel: Bookends

Released two months after The Graduate soundtrack, this 1968 concept album further explores themes from that film, namely the search for one’s place in the world, aging, and alienation. It found Simon & Garfunkel evolving from their strict folk roots while feeling the influence of Revolver– and Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles. Producer Roy Halee’s folk-rock arrangements can be strident, but rock elements are tempered by mellow acoustic guitars, strings, and a glockenspiel. Thus, Bookends has an introspective undertone. Lyrically, “America” offers a journalistic view of two people on a cross-country road trip searching for identity in the elusive American Dream. The sentimental “Old Friends/Bookends” portrays two old men sitting on a park bench contemplating the passing of time. Other standouts include “Fakin’ It” and the anthropomorphic fantasia “At the Zoo.” This digitally remastered, limited-edition on super-quiet, high-clarity SuperVinyl (a translucent-black, proprietary compound designed by NeoTech and RTI to reduced the noise floor and enhance groove definition) was pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, a Southern California plant co-owned and operated by Jim Davis of Music Direct, former RTI plant manager Rick Hashimoto, and his son Edward.