Concluding a countdown of my favorite albums of 1986…

#1 – Graceland – Paul Simon

Like The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead, Paul Simon’s Graceland is one of my all-time favorite albums, and it’s pretty damn high on that list.

My love for Simon’s best-selling and most-lauded album is due to its impeccable music content, of course, but it’s also rooted in nostalgia. This is the one album on my 1986 list that I listened to the year it came out. It was a staple of my childhood, an album my family learned and loved together.

That youthful appreciation matured as I grew up and became a bigger music fan, and by the time Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints came out four years later I had absorbed his whole discography. And even knowing all the classics on his resume, Graceland remained the pinnacle.

It stands out for its mashup of genres — not just the afropop and worldbeat flavors, but zydeco and roots rock. Those rich sounds blend perfectly with Simon’s warm vocals. Lyrically, he has always been a master, and Graceland features some of his most memorable wordplay.

Whether it’s “the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart,” the rich girl with “diamonds on the soles of her shoes,” or “the cinematographer’s party,” Simon keeps serving up delicious turns of phrase that simultaneously tickle the mind and the tongue.

I think what ultimately makes Graceland one of the all-time greats is the perfect blend of sublime music and lyrics. I can’t read the lines “And she said losing love is like a window in your heart / Everybody sees you’re blown apart / Everybody sees the wind blow” without hearing them, and the wistful way Simon sings them over the gentle thrum of the album’s title song.

I could give a dozen other examples off the top of my head, but instead I think I’ll go listen to this masterpiece again.