As foreshadowed by the lead single "Kodachrome" (which reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts, behind Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round in Circles"), There Goes Rhymin' Simon was a bigger hit than its predecessor, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart (behind George Harrison's Living in the Material World), and No. 1 on Cashbox for one week from June 30, 1973.[1] In the United Kingdom, the album peaked at No. 4. Subsequent singles were also the No. 2 single "Loves Me Like a Rock" (kept out of the top spot by Cher's "Half-Breed", but reaching No. 1 on Cashbox on September 29, 1973), and the Top 40 hit "American Tune". Also, "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" was released in the UK reaching the Top 10.
The song "Kodachrome" is named after the Kodakphotographic film of the same name. Kodak required the album to note that Kodachrome is a trademark. The song was not released as a single in Britain, where it could not be played on BBC radio due to its trademarked name.
Critics praised the album. The Denver Post's Jared Johnson called it "a brilliantly executed masterpiece, and surely the finest album in three years," citing such 1970 releases as Bridge Over Troubled Water and After the Gold Rush.[12]Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times said, "Combining a variety of musical textures (from a touch of gospel to an infectious trace of Jamaican rhythm to a hint of the old Simon and Garfunkel grandeur), Simon's new album firmly establishes him as one of our most valuable and accessible artists."[13]Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone praised the album as "a rich and moving song cycle, one in which each cut reflects on every other to create an ever-widening series of refractions."[14]
However, Stereo Review's Noel Coppage, while giving the album an "excellent" rating, nonetheless felt that it was "deficient in spontaneity, excitement, strain", calling its arrangements "clean and sensible" but "oddly predictable".[15]
↑ "Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin' Simon". Record Collector. London. p.97. There Goes Rhymin' Simon saw him turn his attentions to soul and New Orleans-tinged R&B, while casting and eye over a country battered by Vietnam and Watergate...
↑ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1sted.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p.263. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
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