Creativity Quote by Paul Simon

Paul Simon’s little line reads like a shrug, but it’s doing careful image work. “I rate each album as better than the last one” is a provocation in the age of legacy acts, where fans often want the comfort of a frozen “classic era” and critics treat late-period records as footnotes. Simon refuses that bargain. He’s not auditioning for nostalgia; he’s asserting a forward-moving career narrative, one where the point of making music is still discovery, not reenactment.

The phrasing matters. “I rate” frames the claim as a personal metric, not an objective decree. That softens the arrogance while keeping the spine: he’s telling you he trusts his present taste over your retrospective canon. Then comes the kicker: “That’s how I see it.” It’s a preemptive disarm, a reminder that artistic value isn’t a courtroom verdict. You can disagree, but you can’t cross-examine his own sense of progress.

Culturally, it lands as both stubborn and strategic. Simon has spent decades shedding skins - folk storyteller, studio maximalist, world-music collaborator, elegiac minimalist. Saying the new work is “better” isn’t just bragging; it’s a defense of evolution as a principle, and a refusal to be managed by the audience’s sentimental timeline. Beneath the simplicity is a quiet demand: meet the work where it is, not where you first fell in love with it.