New York Voices: Sing the Songs of Paul Simon (RCA Victor 090926-68872-2).

New York Voices: Sing the Songs of Paul Simon (RCA Victor 090926-68872-2)

I have a love/hate relationship with this disc. I love the music of Paul Simon, and I love the way this vocal quartet puts so much energy into their interpretations; however, that same energy often drives their interpretations right over the top, the result being laughable. Indeed, my teenage daughters, also Paul Simon fans, several times broke into spontaneous laughter when they first listened to this recording. The New York Voices, two men and two women, just can't seem to help themselves -- they have a compulsion to show off every little vocal trick they know on nearly every song, and the result can be sometimes exhausting, sometimes exhilarating. If you like Paul Simon and enjoy the vocal style of the Manhattan Transfer, then you might want to give this CD a try. You will either love it or hate it. Sound quality is excellent, clean and dynamic. By the way, the liner bears the HDCD logo, but the disc would not cause the HDCD indicator on my CD player (a Dynaco CDV-Pro) to illuminate. Hmmmm. I inquired about this with a PR rep for Pacific Microsonics, who then did some inquiring of his own and reported back to me that as far as he could tell, the disc was originally mastered for HDCD but was then for some reason remastered and the HDCD subcode was bollixed up. But the sound still is pretty good for a studio job.-- KWN