№ 48 of 100
Graceland
Graceland by Paul Simon (1986), № 48 in The Lead-In’s 100 greatest albums. Paul Simon broke the UN cultural boycott to record with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The argument has never settled and the record has never lost.
Paul Simon's seventh solo album. Recorded with South African musicians during apartheid-era cultural boycott. Released August 25, 1986.
- Released
- August 25, 1986
- Label
- Warner Bros.
- Producer(s)
- Paul Simon
- Runtime
- 43:23 (11 tracks)
- Chart peak (US)
- #3 (Billboard 200)
- Chart peak (UK)
- #1 (Record Retailer, 5 weeks)
- Certifications
- 5× Platinum (RIAA); 16M units globally
- Awards & honours
- Grammy Album of the Year (1987); Library of Congress National Recording Registry (2007); ranked #79 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums (2020)
Paul Simon's collaboration with South African musicians (Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Bakithi Kumalo, Ray Phiri, Forere Motloheloa) recorded in Johannesburg during the cultural boycott. The album that won Grammy Album of the Year and made world music a major-label commercial form.
By 1986, Paul Simon's commercial trajectory had been declining since the 1970s peak. He had been listening to a bootleg cassette of South African mbube and mbaqanga music and decided to record with the musicians directly. He traveled to Johannesburg in February 1985, during the South African cultural boycott against apartheid, and recorded with local musicians.
The recordings sparked controversy. Many anti-apartheid activists criticized Simon for violating the boycott; he argued that he was paying the musicians directly and giving them credit. The South African musicians themselves largely supported the project; many subsequently toured internationally with Simon.
The album's eleven tracks blend Simon's New York songwriter sensibility with South African instrumentation and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's choral arrangements.
Graceland belongs at number forty-eight because it is the album that opened world music as a major-label commercial form.
Pressing guide — the one to own
The 1986 US first pressing is on Warner Bros., catalog 25447-1 (shown as 1-25447 on the labels), in an embossed single sleeve with a printed inner carrying lyrics and credits. It was DMM-cut at Sterling Sound, New York, with 'STERLING DMM' etched in the runouts. First-year copies were pressed at multiple plants — the Allied pressing shows an embossed 'A' in the label ring, while the Specialty (SRC) pressing shows 'E A S T' embossed near the spindle hole.
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