Though the album is best experienced as a single piece, some numbers do stand out. No wonder it failed in the commercial marketplace there was no ready category to stuff it into. It’s a real hybrid the bluesy twang of Morrison’s voice, the folk and classical underpinnings of the musical arrangements, the jazz cadences. This was the guy who, as lead singer of Them, had previously bawled his way through the likes of “Gloria” and “Baby Please Don’t Go,” then crashed the Top 10 with decidedly poppier “Brown Eyed Girl.” Astral Weeks pursues a different direction. This new expanded reissue adds four previously unreleased bonus tracks 1970’s His Band and the Street Choir, also being reissued, comes with five previously unreleased bonus tracks.Īstral Weeks opens with the lines “If I ventured in the slipstream/between the viaducts of your dream,” sung in Morrison’s distinctive languid tones. Time changed that initial judgment, and Astral Weeks is now regarded as a classic. To Morrison’s chagrin, while capturing a few good critical write-ups, the album failed to sell. In 1968, following a legal battle with his former producer’s widow, Van Morrison was at last free to create music again, and Astral Weeks was released in November of that year. Individual Ratings: Astral Weeks, 10 His Band and the Street Choir, 8.0
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