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Van Morrison

matt j

pfm Member
Good review here of his latest, sounds like he has gone ham with the tin foil.

"It’s MI5 this and mind-control that, secret “meetings in the forest”, mainstream media lies and Kool Aid being drunk by the gallon. On Western Man, there’s some troubling alt-right-y stuff about how the west’s “rewards” have been “stolen” by foreigners unknown and we should be “prepared to fight”. And he’s convinced that the shadowy forces of the establishment are engaged in efforts to silence him: “You have to be careful of everything you say”, “I’m a targeted individual”.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/06/van-morrison-new-record-project-volume-one-review
 
"It’s a genuinely depressing listen, but at least there’s a kind of purpose here, even if it isn’t the purpose its creator intends. The album opens with the title track, which demands to know why people are more interested in Morrison’s work “from long ago” than what he’s doing now. Should anyone be wondering the same thing, Latest Record Project then answers said question in the most exhaustive detail imaginable."

OUCH!!
 
Imagine if audio equipment reviews were even half as scathing. Wouldn't that be fun?
 
"It seems a miracle there aren’t songs called These New Speed Bumps Outside the Primary School Are a Disgrace, The People I Got In to Do My Patio Were a Couple of Bloody Cowboys, and Have You Seen The Repair Shop? It’s the Only Thing Worth Watching These Days.":D
I like the top comment: "Masks and Lockdown. What a hill to choose to die on.
Particularly when he had absolutely nothing to say on Vietnam, Watergate, the troubles, Thatcherism, Iraq, Trump, Brexit or indeed any of the great traumas of our time.
Masks and Lockdown.
What a pranny."

"Probably as none of the above impacted his pocket".

Some choice album/song skits as well:
AstraZenenca Weeks
Loondance
etc
 
I like the top comment: "Masks and Lockdown. What a hill to choose to die on.
Particularly when he had absolutely nothing to say on Vietnam, Watergate, the troubles, Thatcherism, Iraq, Trump, Brexit or indeed any of the great traumas of our time.
Masks and Lockdown.
What a pranny."
That's the thing. Not taking a stand on political issues doesn't take away from the music. Taking an idiotic stand does. I'll continue to appreciate his non-political works, but I won't be buying anything from him again.
 
At least it helps you understand why so many of his earlier lyrics were verging on the incomprehensible :)
 
I'd pay good money to watch Van in a no-holds-barred fight with Lucinda Williams. It would break all previous box-office and pay-per-view records hands down.
 
Text book example of why your opinion on an artist’s music and their personal/political beliefs should never merge. I haven’t bothered with anything after Hymns To The Silence but he’s always been an irascible old misanthrope. No matter how much an arsehole is Van the Man as opposed to Van the Artist, nothing will, for me, ever diminish the greatness of St. Dominic’s Preview or Moondance (well, unless he goes full-on Morrissey).
 
A sad, mad old man. Imagine being that successful and wealthy, doing something you presumably love for all your adult life, and ending up miserable, angry and embittered.
 
..he’s always been an irascible old misanthrope.
Quite. And yet, as you allude to, capable in his younger days of things like this:
Joyful. Not so strange then Marchbanks.;)

He'd have been pushing mid-forties when this came out of him in 1989:
Sadly he's not like that "all the time" or anytime it seems no more.
 
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