I don't get Astral Weeks

Astral Weeks blew me away upon first listen. For some reason it didn't take me any time to "get it" -- I just "got it" right away. It is indeed an amazing album to listen to.

 

Caviar
Oysters
Sushi
Habanero Chili's.

Acquired taste, just like Astral Weeks

If you don't like any of the above - no biggie.

 

dave64, thanks for starting the thread... I hadn't heard AW in months, maybe a couple years.

Well, it ain't classic Van, that's for sure... I like it, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than a Van fan... however, hindsight affords a view of the artist struggling to become Van Morrison with that album... and it didn't take long -- he nailed it with Moondance... he became 'Van Morrison', went on to create several hit albums, and settled into the iconoclastic poet / bluesman / jazz guy / Irish folkie that many of us enjoy to this day.

But he couldn't have gotten there without AW... if you're familiar with pre-AW Van -- i.e., Them -- it becomes a little easier to appreciate AW (and the TB Sheets material) as a transitional piece... Van figuring out how to be himself after AM radio success with a band.

Yup, parts of it meander... but there are a couple gems on there that fit nicely on any VM compilation... Cyprus Avenue is very Van.

Oh, by the way... Revolver rules all!

 

Lovely anecdote!

You should have tried huffing some paint thinner .

Out of curiosity, have you heard 'His Band And Street Choir'? It's the only other Van album I have so far besides 'Moondance', and while I really, really like Moondance, this one's got me seriously hooked. It took a bit longer to grow on me, but now I can't put it down.

 

Give it a little more time and don't be so impatient.

 

In retrospect, I'd take 20 Periods of Transition in place of a lot of the material that followed.

(CM where are you?! )

 

It may be harder for those going back through Van Morrison's work to grok "Astral Weeks". For those who recall when it came out, if you got into it then, what followed was more focussed and commercial as he found is "voice" and a bit of a formula.

But there is nothing second rate on "Astral Weeks". Totally inspired and soulful - on one level, an emotional outpouring; but on a higher plane, a spiritual journey. One of the finest albums ever made.

 

The album didn't do much for me either, upon first listen. Then one afternoon, I was kind of tired, drifting in and out of sleep and "Cyprus Avenue" and "Madame George" struck me. As posted above, not an album to paint to or socialize with. Best enjoyed alone at "quiet time." Overall, it's become one of my all-time faves, though I still don't much care for "Beside You" and am indifferent to "Slim Slow Slider."

 

Astral Weeks is one of the most beautiful albums I ever heard. It's best listened to at night, lights off, eyes closed.

I discovered this record when I was about 20 or so - I was stunned, just like I was with Moondance, Street Choir, and Tupelo Honey. Those last three may be more accessable but Astral Weeks just sends me off in to the stratosphere. "Ballerina" is second only to "Purple Heather" on my favorite Van song list.

I'm glad the album wasn't a "hit" at the time, or else Van would have to live up to it for the rest of his career. Warners would have wanted "Astral Weeks 2" and you can't force something like that. That album was one flash of improvisational genius that could never be duplicated. Fortunately for us, Van brought himself back to earth and gave us another masterpiece - Moondance.

 

I have never found closing my eyes or being in a dark room to have any effect on whether I like a piece of music. If anything, they might mean I'd miss it, as I'd fall asleep before the music ends.

 

That's too bad Jay. This is certainly an album to relax and reflect visually using the imagination. People who have not / cannot enjoy this energy are missing out.

I agree; It's an album that's very much on the same plane as Nick Drake and such...

 

I don't usually but I make an exception in this case.

 

Well, that explains it: Nick Drake is another guy I don't get. I've had two of his CDs, and they turned and turned and turned, but the music just sat there. Is it just me, or is the SACD a lousy recording/mastering?

 

There is one song from 'Astral Weeks' performed live on the 'It's Too Late To Stop Now' album, 'Cyprus Avenue', that you should give a listen to. Even if the studio album version of that song didn't do it for you, if you don't love the live version there's something wrong with you.

 

That live version of Cyprus Avenue is so different than the studio version. I love 'em both

Van also did "Sweet Thing" and "The Way Young Lovers Do" on that same 1973 tour but, alas, they never made it out on official release. Van needs to start an archival live show release series. Van's Picks!

 

Several others have invoked thoughts and phrases so similar to what I planned to post that I can only echo them.

Not background music
Late at night with the lights out
One-of-a-kind moment in time, best not repeated or strived for again

I guess what I agree with most is you can't TRY too hard to like this album, nor can you probe too deeply for any literal meaning within it. You have to just let it sort of wash over you, and either you get it or you don't (though it is worth it, I think, to give it more than just one chance).

For me, as much as I recognize what a great artist Van is and how much he's given over the course of his career, Astral Weeks is the one album of his that I care deeply about, to the exclusion of all others.

I never tire of it...and unlike an earlier poster, I LOVE "Beside You." The pure emotion of it just runs right through me.

 

I hope this is not too much of a thread crap, Sckott. Not everyone uses their imagination to "reflect visually" - some don't see "pictures" during reflection or meditation. I've already said that this album is a trip.

 

Me too. I have all of his cd's up until the mid 90's and I'm not a big fan of Astral Weeks. I think Veedon Fleece is much better.

 

As I get older I find myself almost going the other way..that is I'm getting more set in my ways about the rest of Vans catalogue..lots of nice things but it seems to me Astral Weeks is the thing that will last longest in his legacy. It opens some rather uncomfortable doors in the performers, and in many cases the listeners, psyche. Here is the first album of a young artists career dealing with death in a poetic yet not overtly melodramatic way. It is soaked in melancholy and loss, regret and yearning. If his voice is not yet fully able to convey all of the qualities the album seeks to describe there are some astounding things happening here. Far more of the jazz vernacular than rock or folk, the two closest stylistic templates. The rightly famous "Love the glove.." improvisation is an important moment in contemporary musics attempts to break out of verse/chorus vocal convention. How much Richard Davis has to do with this I don't know. The work that I have of his, the many albums he produced and played on for the Chess/Cadet labels, indicates to me that he was an incredibly open and playful musical director that was comfortable in both straight notation scenarios as well as the improvistory. It would seem that Vans impulsive 'feel' that he was searching for was well matched by such a director as Evans, as well as such rigourous side men as Connie Kay et al.
Morrison may never have attempted anything like this again because it was so emotionally challenging. Certainly there are other sometimes similar moments in his subsequent performances but nothing so committed, so truly searching. I think its a work of genius from a remarkable young artist, a really important collection of songs.

(EDIT: I think its also an important 'sides' set of songs. That is in the sense of an old vinyl album..I don't own the CD of this title, though I have heard it..it sounds somewhat hard and brittle in the digital domain. My old UK green label WB has a wonderful enveloping sound. But I don't think I've ever played sides 1&2 consecutively as you would hear on the cd. Both sides have a different appeal for certain listening modes.)

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned St. Dominics Preview as a favorite Van album. He mixed it up nicely on that one, putting some more commercial type songs (Jackie Wilson said, Gypsy, Redwood Tree) with the some long untraditional and interesting things like Listen to the Lion, Almost Independence Day and St. Dominics Preview. I always liked the way this album flowed. Very Soulful! As far as AS goes I won't listen to it as much as most of the others, but I can enjoy it from time to time. Ya gotta be in the mood, that's for sure.

 

Very definitely could be you. I'm nuts over "Astral Weeks", "Pink Moon", "Hijera", dark cloudy introspective singer-songwriter stuff. "Astral Weeks", for me, is the high point of the Van Morrison catalog and I've been following his stuff since "Gloria" and "Here Comes the Night" came out. I also listen to his new material as well, including "What's Wrong With This Picture" and the "Crazy Love" duet with Ray Charles on "Genius Loves Company".

I'm sticking to my guns. It's not impossible to absorb the sound and message of "Astral Weeks" from the CD, but it is easier to really soak up the rich sound and atmospheric production of the original recording off the LP than off the current CD master. If you really love "Astral Weeks" and only have heard the CD, you owe it to yourself to hear the LP. Of course a Steve Hoffman AF remaster wouldn't hurt either.

 

Love the cover of the LP. I've recorded Choirs at St. Dominic's---it's a church in San Francisco---and have to laugh when I see the rip in the rock star's jeans while sitting on the steps of the church. Yes, it's a great album and as daring in its way as "Astral Weeks". Van had an extraordinary string of records commencing with "Astral Weeks" and "St. Dominic's Preview" is the last great one in that series. "Preview" pretty much ends that first cycle of Van Morrison's. He was lucky to have "Moondance" and "Band & Street Choir" appear during Free-form radio's peak years.

 

I don't think it's a mastering issue, more that in matters of taste there's no argument...some like it, some don't. Both Astral Weeks and the Drake catalog come from some pretty dark space. To an extent, there's some transcendence into something brighter in the performances, but they're still shaded overall.

Astral Weeks is a full-immersion experience, definitely. Sweet Thing can almost be acceptable as a single when heard in the context of his best-of album, but even then it doesn't quite fit. It's repetitive in a way that isn't "typical" for what most people would consider classic Van Morrison, and the repetitiveness is very intentional throughout the album, as if to be very purposefully trance-inducing. And that could be where you're getting stuck, because that whole album tends to be very dream-like to people that enjoy it and baffling in its structures to people who don't.

It took me a while, too, for exactly those reasons. This isn't a standard feel-good Van Morrison album by any means, but is rewarding if you're in the mindset to take it in. Hearing it in the state just ahead of sleep did a lot in that regard. I had to be in a position where nothing else was distracting me, but where I wasn't indulging in other thoughts distract me, and my being slightly tired helped the album catch me off my guard. It's an album that almost has to be approached from a meditational place, as when Buddhists try not to attach to nonessential thoughts and just let things flow.

Having said that, though, "Cyprus Avenue" always hit me harder in the live version mentioned by others in this thread. It was more difficult to access the studio take for me, though I eventually grew to enjoy it in its original album context.

 

It's post like this that make me at the same time more and more intrigued about, and more and more afraid of the album (that's not an appreciation on your post, just a comment). I'm finding this thread most interesting.

 

This is known. Some people know what they like and stick to it.