Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
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Free Music Notes for Astral Weeks
Free Music Review: whisperin' in the hall, and pointin' the finger at me
Hit: 5 Stars
Alright, let's get this out of the way first: multitudes of undeserving albums receive five-star reviews here on Amazon.com. What Van has done here, however, defies description, stands tall as perhaps the finest work in pop music history, and deserves oh so much more than five stars. If you enjoy "Moondance" or "Greatest Hits," give this a try - you may find that it rapidly becomes ALL you listen to!
1. "Astral Weeks:" 100/100 - A brilliant opener.
2. "Beside You:" 85/100
3. "Sweet Thing:" 87.5/100 - The only "Astral Weeks" track to make it into Van's inferior "Greatest Hits" compilation, this tune provides a more accessible sampling of the greatness contained within the rest of the album.
4. "Cyprus Avenue:" 150/100 - Unreal!! Van sings powerfully about unrequited love while a harpsichord jangles loosely along
in the background.
5. "Way Young Lovers Do:" 72.5/100 - A jazzy number featuring a nice trombone solo that provides an interesting change of pace. A good song, but one that pales in comparison to the rest of the material.
6. "Madame George:" 200/100 - The single greatest piece of pop music ever written. Peerless in its lyrical and musical beauty.
7. "Ballerina:" 110/100 - Another exceptional track.
8. "Slim Slow Slider: 75/100 - A subdued closer that quietly drifts away.
This is more than an album - it's a microcosm of all the gut-wrenching, tear-welling, bitter-sweet emotions that we all feel. Popular music will never again so perfectly capture the essence of love, anger, heartbreak, nostalgia, uncertainty and change that defines the human condition. Van and company didn't just make an album, they took the setting sun behind the house you grew up in, the touch of that special someone's hand, the stinging sweetness of the memory of a lost loved one, and the surreality of a long overdue homecoming and compressed it all into one 50 minute masterpiece.
Free Music Review: essential! life defining album.
Hit: 5 Stars
Do yourself a favour and buy this. Do yourself a bigger favour and reserve judgement on it until you've played it at least 10 times. This is the most beautiful album ever made.Free Music Review: Most beautiful, and unique album in the rock n roll era
Hit: 5 Stars
What is there to be said about this phenomenal piece of art that has not been said hundreds of times before. This is an album of such beauty, such heartbreak, and such quiet desperation, that you don't know how it's making you feel, although you come out feeling quite melancholy. This is not an album chocked full of hits. Don't be expecting anything like Moondance, Tupelo Honey, And It Stoned Me, and especially not Brown Eyed GIrl on this album. This really isn't even a rock n roll album. It's more of a folk/jazz piece of work. It is not an album that you change the tracks on, but more like an extraordinary novel, that chapters cannot be skipped, and words cannot be over looked. This album is both spiritual release and spiritual adventure, always finding something new along the way, feeling like you're experiencing the album for the first time every time you listen to it. From what I have heard, Van watched his girlfriend die, i don't know exactly what from, but it shows, both in the lyrics, and in the overall tone of the album, especially Slim Slow Slider(I know you're dying baby, and I know, You know it too). One thing i have started to notice is that this album plays like a year, each song a certain point of the season, Astral Weeks and Beside You both being the joy and renewal of love and hope in the Spring time, although Beside You is a bit more somber in tone then Astral Week, but it is still a joyous time of life. Summer brings us both Sweet Thing and Cyrpus Avenue, seeming reminiscent of the warmth, and seemingly invincible tranquility you feel during this time of year, where nothing can go wrong for you, and it is all but an adventure. Then along come the Fall with the jazz like The Way Young Lovers Do and Madame George. Things are getting to be a little more uneasy, and a bit more melancholy, sort of like a crumbling relationship, when it reaches a stage of crisis, and doubt. You don't feel quite as invincible, and strong as you did in the Summer now. By the time the Winter has arrived, the relationship has crumbled, your hope, joy, and love has all been crumpled up, and thrown out the door. Ballerina is the sound of the love, and joy walking away, and closing that door you left open, so that the goodness of life will come to you, but you now know it won't be that way again. Slim Slow Slider is the sound of sorrow, the REAL sound of silence, and the sound of heartbreak. "You've gone for something, and I know, you won't be back" Van sings in his beautifully raspy voice, but in a hushed tone, which makes it seem as if he was feeling full of sorrow while recording the song. This album is pure emotion put on to tape. Astral Weeks is the reason we love music so much, and if you do not enjoy this album, you just don't quite understand the feeling of music. It's just too bad this was Van's second album, and he's never been able to come anywhere close to it sense. Free Music Review: The Most Personal Album Ever Made
Hit: 5 Stars
This is an especially rare type of album, that not only fits in perfectly with the autumn season (it virtually embodies it) but it also has all of the timeless autumnal themes: recollection, regret, remembrance. This album conjures a timeless nostalgia within me (inspiring my own vague childhood memories) with its remarkable musical complexity (an achingly beautiful melding of folk, jazz, classical, and Van the Man's bluesy vocals which were at a supernatural height here and never reached this level again). The greatest singer/songwriter album, eclipsing even Dylan...Van Morrison's trip down memory lane is filled with deeply emotional improvisational lyrics, impressionistic and mystical imagery, and pure soul. Accompanying the greatest vocals to grace any album in the history of popular music are one of the greatest jazz rhythm sections and a string quartet. The most personal album ever made.Free Music Review: Ever wonder why they call this guy a genius?
Hit: 5 Stars
To be honest, I"ve never been more of a fan of Van Morrison than any other casual listener of the oldies station. Then I heard the brilliant Sweet Thing at a bar, and was determined to find the album from whence it came. I couldn't have been less disappointed in what I stumbled upon.
This album has a similar somber, jazzy appeal as Nico's amazing Chelsea Girl. The difference is that where Nico was pretty much a contract player for a very well produced collection of songs, Astral Weeks is the highly personal work of a singular visionary. The tracks here aren't really songs in the traditional sense, as much as they are movements of a big, gorgeous, drunken symphony.
Only Morrison was able to take classic American styles (Blues, Jazz, R & B) and make them as painfully Irish as he does here. Although it's true that Van's upbringing predates the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the album seems so mournful of simpler times that it's hard not to feel a dark undercurrent somehow related to the violence that was erupting in Belfast in the 60's. It's a kind of revolutionary passion that I wish existed in music today, but sort of died off in the 1980's.
Morrison reminds me of Maria Callas in the way that his voice defines the difference between prettiness and beauty. He's a completely instinctual, animalistic singer, somtimes incoherent and ugly, but more expressive than almost any rock singer who ever lived.