Usually, our first impressions are accurate. You rarely see an unattractive girl and think she’s hot six months later. You don’t usually think a movie is boring tripe and find it to be outstanding on a second viewing. And, most of the time, when you hear a song or an album, you can generally be assured that the musician’s other work is no different.
But this time, I was shocked. When you think of Van Morrison, you think of “Brown Eyed Girl” and that’s about it. And it’s a cool, jangly little song and all, but why would you think Van Morrison’s all that much different from, say, Jackson Browne? Well, you’d think that because you’re uneducated, and I can thankfully report that I got religion yesterday. Many have praised Astral Weeks as a particularly strong effort, and many have called it one of the finest pop albums ever made. I was very skeptical of this evaluation prior to listening, as I just didn’t hear the brilliance in the stuff I’d heard before.
Well, I heard it here. I don’t think a track by track review would really do justice to the creative work I heard here: there was no filler and the transcendent beauty of the album becomes clear before the first track ends. I was actually sad when the album ended, and that’s how you know it’s great. What a terrific effort. You need to listen if you haven’t yet.
