Van Morrison - Back on Top
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Van MorrisonEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-03-09
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Soundtracks:
- Goin' Down Geneva
- Philosophers Stone
- In The Midnight
- Back On Top
- When The Leaves Come Falling Down
- High Summer
- Reminds Me Of You
- New Biography
- Precious Time
- Golden Autumn Day
Free Music Notes for Back on Top
Free Music Review: Solid though a bit generic
Hit: 4 Stars
Okay, maybe not quite on top, but this is still a solid blues-based set. Since it's the only Van album I've heard between 1989's Avalon Sunset and 2005's Magic Time, I can't say if it's a return to form or not. But who cares about technicalities, anyway? Good music is good music, and that's what you get here. Lots of harmonica, horns, organ, and soulful vocals. I mean, it's not Astral Weeks or Veedon Fleece, but does that matter? Of course not. Entertaining music: the uptempo R&B tracks (title song; "Goin' Down Geneva"; "High Summer"; "Precious Time") display more enthusiasm and energy than anything since... god, I don't know, maybe even Tupelo Honey. And the ballads, while not desperate, are nicely melodic and mellow ("Reminds Me of You"; "In the Midnight"). Not all of it works out - for instance, "New Biography" is an annoying combination of pedal steel, organ, and acoustic guitars aplenty, and I don't know why Van thought he had enough ideas to make "Golden Autumn Day" six and a half minutes long, but he didn't. Plus it's irritatingly formulaic - every track falls either under "blues stomp" or "blues ballad", except for the jazzy fun of "Philosopher's Stone". On the other hand, it's a very enjoyable album, predictable as it is.
Back on Top Poster
Back on Top kicks off on an unpromising note with a generic blues shuffle, "Goin' Down Geneva," that belies the album's cocky title. Van Morrison quickly redeems himself, however, with a set otherwise closer in its balance of rave-up and reverie to his beloved early-'70s classics than much of his '90s output. "Philosophers Stone" is yet another position paper on the Belfast bard's art ("My job is turning lead into gold"), but it's welcome for its relative absence of complaint. Elsewhere, he revisits familiar themes of survival ("Back on Top"), celebrity's price ("New Biography"), and mortality ("Precious Time") in midtempo anthems laudable for deceptively buoyant tempos and crisp ensemble work. Vocally, his signature mix of rasp and croon proves as ripe as ever. --Sam SutherlandCountry Music CDs
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