There Goes Rhymin' Simon

The third solo album moves between styles, from gospel on Loves Me Like a Rock to Dixieland on Take Me to the Mardi Gras. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section co-produced five of the tracks, the Dixie Hummingbirds sing on two, Allen Toussaint wrote the horn arrangements for one and Quincy Jones the strings for another. Kodachrome was named for the Kodak film, and Kodak required the album to note that the name is a trademark. In Britain BBC radio would not play it, so it appeared there as the B-side of Take Me to the Mardi Gras, which reached the Top 10.

It reached number two on the Billboard 200, behind George Harrison's Living in the Material World, and number four in Britain. Kodachrome and Loves Me Like a Rock both reached number two as singles and American Tune made the Top 40. The album received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male. Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it "firmly establishes him as one of our most valuable and accessible artists", while Noel Coppage of Stereo Review found it "deficient in spontaneity, excitement, strain". Rolling Stone ranked it 267 in 2003.