Still on Top: The Greatest Hits

Van Morrison - Still on Top: The Greatest Hits

Still on Top: The Greatest Hits
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Van Morrison
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Limited Edition, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2008-03-04
Music Label: Polydor / Umgd
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)
  2. Dweller On The Threshold
  3. Whenever God Shines His Light - (with Cliff Richard)
  4. Moondance
  5. Bright Side Of The Road
  6. Brown Eyed Girl
  7. Wavelength
  8. Crazy Love
  9. Someone Like You
  10. When Will I Ever Learn
  11. To Live In God
  12. Tore Down A La Rimbaud
  13. Wild Night
  14. Gloria - (with Them)
  15. Real Real Gone
  16. Into The Mystic
  17. In The Garden
  18. Saint Dominic's Preview
  19. Stranded
Music CD 2
  1. Precious Time
  2. Domino
  3. Here Comes The Night - (with Them)
  4. Little Village
  5. And It Stoned Me
  6. Days Like This
  7. Have I Told You Lately?
  8. Cleaning Windows
  9. Baby Please Don't Go - (with Them)
  10. Back On Top
  11. Vanlose Stairway
  12. Celtic New Year
  13. Irish Heartbeat - (with The Chieftains)
  14. Healing Game, The - (alternate take)
  15. Full Force Gale
  16. Warm Love
  17. Did Ye Get Healed?
  18. Tupelo Honey
  19. Wonderful Remark
Music CD 3
  1. Hey Mr. DJ
  2. In The Forest
  3. Queen Of The Slipstream
  4. Rave On John Donne
  5. Hymns To The Silence
  6. Crazy Jane On God - (with Moving Hearts)
  7. Rough God Goes Riding
  8. Steal My Heart Away
  9. One Irish Rover
  10. Listen To The Lion
  11. Streets Of Arklow
  12. Beauty Of The Days Gone By, The
  13. Take It Where You Find It
  14. Coney Island

Free Music Notes for Still on Top: The Greatest Hits

Free Music Review: 'Great,' but hardly 'greatest hits'!
Hit: 5 Stars

A misnomer of a title if ever there was one. Van Morrison is one of those peculiar figures in that while he's undoubtedly a major artist he has actually had very few hits, and the majority of music lovers would probably be hard pressed to name more than half a dozen of his songs. Even Brown Eyed Girl, perhaps his best known - certainly most frequently played - song wasn't a hit in Britain. Van is also unusual in that he's perhaps the only major artist, or certainly long standing musician, who hasn't had either a box set or at least a multi disc best of collection. Of course this 3 disc release now remedies that. For the less committed there is also a 2 disc version. Of course Van's output has been that prolific it could easily run to another disc, or even 2 more! There have been the Best of and Best of Volume 2 and the only recenly released Best of Vol 3, which itself was a double disc, but this collection, whether you buy the 2 or 3 disc version will now supplant them as the premier Van Morrison compilation.
Having said this it is still far from perfect. Firstly,the annotation is extremely skimpy, nor do we get photos. Detailed notes and decent photos are what we have come to expect from proper box sets, and both are totally lacking here. The presentation is very similar to the 3 disc Elton John set that came out a few years ago, however that had much better annotation and more photos. Still On Top - The Greatest Hits (they have to add that, as Morrison already has an album called Back On Top, a similar title) isn't arranged chronologically either,jumping about all over the place without any obvious theme. This may not bother some people, but I find it irritating. I feel that a definitive compilation should trace an artist's career sensibly.
Now we come to the music, and I must be honest here, although I have quite a few Morrison albums I don't like all he's done and I actively dislike some of his output. His first 'proper' album Astral Weeks is not only regarded as his greatest, but one of the greatest rock albums period. I can see why, in that it's full of what were for the time original soundscapes, but it's not an easy listen; and the compilers seem to recognise that here as they haven't included one single track from that album - a 3 disc set and nothing from what is regarded as the artist's greatest release! This in itself is bizarre and shows how hard it is to compile Van Morrison. Astral Weeks is not the only album to have nothing from it here, quite a few others are similarly neglected, whilst other have up to 4 tracks taken from them, which means that the compilation isn't really a definitive overview. One of the most heavily represented with 4 tracks is his next album, Moondance, and I would suggest this is because it was the nearest Morrison came to making a truly great album. Despite the inclusion of the title track, Crazy Love, And It Stoned Me and the brilliant Into the Mystic (perhaps my favourite Morrison song) the compilers have still had to omit classics such as Caravan and These Dreams Of You.
I generally prefer Van's up temp r n b influenced songs rather than his long drawn out excursions into celtic mysticism or whatever it's called, consequently I lost interest in him after Hard Nose The Highway although I did reagain it more recently and bought his 3 relatively recent albums: Back On Top, Down The Road and Magic Time. Personally I think these are as good as anything he's done in his long career,as do the compilers here, taking 2 tracks each from Back On top and Magic Time and 3 from Down The Road. Another album heavily represented is Avalon Sunset with 4 tracks; this was a Morrison album I used to own, but sold.
Ultimately, despite the eccentricities of some of the selections here, this is as definitive complilation of Van Morrison as you're going to get. Because of the length of his career and vast output it would be difficult to like all he's done. Van also has the tendency sometimes to ruin a song with endless repetition or simply silly noises. See for example Georgia On My Mind, on the otherwise excellent Down The Road, thankfully not included here. He tends to do this on the longer songs, which in Morrison's ouvre are usually long, not because of any instrumental virtuosity but because of vocal self indulgence; consequently the 11 minute Listen to the Lion from St Dominic's Preview actually ceases to be a song after about 5 minutes and turns into a repetitive dirge - this happens to much of Astral Weeks, presumably this is why nothing has been included here. Instead of Listen To The Lion or one or two of the other long dirges, such as the irritating Rave On John Donne, I would have liked to have had more of the shorter r n b type tracks, such as Call Me Up In Dreamland from His Band and the Street Choir or the aforementioned These Dreams Of You from Moondance.
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Still on Top: The Greatest Hits Poster

STILL ON TOP: THE GREATEST HITS is a career-spanning anthology of hits by mercurial Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Starting with two key tracks by his Rolling Stones-like 1960s band, Them--"Gloria" and "Here Comes the Night"--the set passes over Morrison's legendary 1968 album, ASTRAL WEEKS, a jazzy mood piece that works best as a whole, but otherwise cherry-picks a ton of FM radio classics. "Wild Nights," "Domino," "Moondance," and "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" are among the many highlights, presented in remastered sound.

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