I don't get Astral Weeks

Hey, I think Van Morrison is great. I have Moondance and his first hits cd. But today while painting in the basement (the never ending music room project), the local classic rock station played all of side 1 of Astral Weeks. It sounded meandering....dull....and his vocal gymnastics were getting on my nerves. Am I alone? I hadn't really heard this one before, believe it or not.

 

It takes awhile for many to appreciate - some never do.

Astral Weeks is soulful, but not in the typical Van way - more jazz influenced soul. IMO, Sweet Thing is one of his best songs ever, but many will never agree and that's OK.

 

This is one situation where the deeper content of the recording has a hard time getting through Redbook. The is an abyss between the sound of Astral Weeks on CD and on the LP. The earlier copies (Solid Olive Green with the W7 logo) are the best sounding copies I have encountered. There's a haunted quality to Astral Weeks that the Dried-Out sound of the CD has trouble conveying. I think, like the Beatles CDs, there's only one---early---mastering on CD. Compared to the richly colorful sound of the LP, it's Gray on Gray.

 

I tried it, and I just couldn't make it all the way through. I played it for my wife who tends to appreciate things I dismiss; she didn't like it either. I guess that's how it goes.

 

It's a deeper Van personality than what you may expect. It's flowing and as someone else described, haunting. Your mind has to be open to the experience.

 

I think its one of the great albums of all time. Side two is even better than side one.
How could anyone not like Ballerina?

 

Don't feel bad: Van Morrison himself didn't think much of ASTRAL WEEKS. He thought the production was too uniform, whereas MOONDANCE in his estimation was more properly varied in its presentation. And at least one esteemed critic, Robert Christgau, didn't have much use for ASTRAL WEEKS, either.

I don't know if you can talk someone into loving a masterpiece as idiosyncratic as ASTRAL WEEKS. I was hooked immediately by Richard Davis's bass and the strings, which seemed to play off each other and the singer and his guitar, rather than all working in unison, as is the standard in rock. For me, it seemed like a swirling, hallucinatory song cycle about something heartbreaking I couldn't quite decipher -- lost love, death, homesickness? -- and the effect was mesmerizing.

(Of course, you could say the same thing about a lot of music I dislike, from Tori Amos to Prog Rock -- that they're also "passionately delivered songs of obscure meaning and private symbolism couched in intentionally incongruent musical styles" -- but for me, ASTRAL WEEKS seems organic rather than lazy, pretentious or affected.)

For a masterpiece, ASTRAL WEEKS had a confused birth. The "band" in ASTRAL WEEKS was added after the fact by the producer, who was faced with the daunting prospect of making something out of the long, rambling acoustic tracks Morrison had recorded. The jazz musicians tapped for the task gave the record a loose and, well, jazzy feel that hadn't really been heard before, and while never a commercial hit, ASTRAL WEEKS became a favorite among influential FM free-form DJs. Its closest cousins would probably be records from Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell.

 

I never liked it on LP, either. This is just one chunk of music I don't get, either; and I too loved Van's next six or seven LPs, and played them like mad.

 

Back in 1988, I finally discovered this album for myself. I was ripe for it on an intuitive level. It hit me in a big way. Sometimes a person has to just let music hit them rather than think that they have to have some kind of literal understanding of a work in order to appreciate it. My discovery of Astral Weeks and Cowboy Junkies-The Trinity Session came at a much needed time in my life simultaneously. I'm very grateful to both works.

 

I think this album is really not meant for background music. It's really a more deep experience than that. I liked it at first listen, but it was at a time when I would listen to LP's with the doors closed and lying on the floor looking at the ceiling. If you want to give it another chance it's best to start with the more accessible songs: Slim Slow Slider, The Way Young Lovers Do, and Sweet Thing. They all have more similarities to Van's later work.

 

I've always been surprised that rock critics -- who are generally suspicious of anything that isn't straight rock and roll -- were so enamoured of Astral Weeks. Van's vocals aside it's a rather effete record.

 

I found it off putting at first. It took a number of listens before I got the sense of flow that I feel is integral to these songs. It not the usual listening experience. It was, I believe #5 in Rolling Stones top 100 issue in '88 for the previous 20 years. I'd never heard of it but I liked VM's music. Like I said, at first, I could not figure out what made this a top ten album. Over the years with repeated listening, I have come to really enjoy it the same way I really enjoy Nick Drake, who I had the same reaction to when I first heard Five Leaves Left.

 

a couple years ago, some Irish bartenders moved into the apartment next to mine. a wall separated the bedrooms. Tjey would come home at 3 am every night (along with 1/2 the bar) and BLARE this album over & over.....torture. If I NEVER hear this again, it will be too soon.

 

"Sweet Thing" and "Cyprus Avenue" rank with Van's all-time best, IMO. I can see where the album as a whole would be an acquired taste, but I like it.

 

I think that Moondance is an all-time classic, and the first solo album that contained Brown Eyed Girl has some terrrific stuff as well. As to Astral Weeks, as the Fred Willard character in A Mighty Wind would ask, "Hey Van- wha' happened?" I never got it, and, believe me, I have tried, in analog and digital!

 

I somehow managed to get the full measure of Astral Weeks from a low-bias cassette until I bought my own copy. Whether or not you acquire the "proper" version, either the music reaches you or it doesn't. All its charms are fully present and accounted for on the CD.

 

Definitely not an album to paint to!

Try it late at night with the lights out, and give it time.
A truly magnificent album.

 

I had this on cassette in the 80s. I love it and I associate it with going to school in NYC and my memory of walking up 5th ave one winter, the city covered in snow, "The Way Young Lovers Do" on the headphones and the cold wind blowing in my face. I remember thinking despite all, the world is indeed a beautiful place.

 

It's been nearly 40 years. If it were going to grow on me, I think it would have happened maybe, oh, 30 years ago.

REVOLVER is another one I don't get. I don't *not* like it, but it's not my favorite Beatles album at all (Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, Rubber Soul, Beatles for Sale), let alone the best album of all time (original Smile, Pet Sounds).

 

To me, Astral Weeks is one of Van's peak recordings.....one of his best, if not the best of his works. I just love this recording. I just wish Steve could get his hands on the masters as I think there is a lot of potential for re-mastering this one.

 

It would make a good surround album, though maybe there aren't enough discrete tracks to do it.

 

Whew, I thought I'd be hogtied.....I guess I am not alone. Not saying it's bad......i just couldn't get what the bid deal is. I LOVE Moondance to death though!

Yeah, maybe painting is not the right way to hear it!

 

Funny, cuz Revolver is MY fave of all time!

 

I wouldn't feel too bad about this, jay. I am a HUUUUGE Van fan...I have all his albums on CD and ASTRAL WEEKS just doesn't do that much for me either. I own it mainly for "Sweet Thing" and "Madame George" but frankly I hold onto it mostly because I'm a completist when it comes to Van. To me it sounds like a very young man trying to figure out what to do with his muse. A bold experiment but his singing is hard on the ears at times and as much as I admire the players involved I find the music kind of sterile or too respectful.

But boy oh boy did Van uncork after WEEKS!! A couple of missteps along the way (PERIOD OF TRANSITION for example) but after 40 years he continues to move and amaze me. The spirit (and the intended feeling) of ASTRAL WEEKS permeates his best work all along the way: VEEDON FLEECE, the second side of INTO THE MUSIC, COMMON ONE (gawd I love that one), HEALING GAME etc etc etc.

 

What Peter said. I never listen to this during the day, and never as background music.