Putting aside the bonus DVD’s and the confusion generated by earlier the 1994 re-issue, which is virtually the same, minus the two bonus tracks. Released in 1969, the same week as another gospel tinged classic, “Let It Be”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was the final and greatest of Simon and Garfunkel’s (the latter perhaps better known these days for a cameo playing himself in Flight of the Conchords) five studio recordings. The title track is a creature of intimacy and grandeur, ascending to the most dramatic climax in the history of pop music. Another pivotal track “The Boxer” (sampled by many for its ‘Die de di” chorus) was painstakingly recorded over six months, going through a similar aural journey to the Beach Boys masterpiece, “Good Vibrations”. Abandoning stylistic notions of traditional acoustic folk, the duo’s innovation saw them building songs around the sounds of car horns, percussive hand claps, pedal steel guitars, trumpets and traditional Peruvian music (“El Condor Pasa”). Sadly, the album was recorded in tense circumstances and a feud ensued that would see the duo not speak to one another for upwards of a decade. Simon would spend his whole career regretting allowing his partner to sing lead vocals on his best and most famous song. Yet, it is the songs where Garfunkel takes the lead, such as the underrated “So Long Frank Lloyd Wright”, that form a blueprint for the work of the modern indie era.
