TopTenREVIEWS presents the music career and reviews of Van Morrison
Van Morrison
CAREER SPAN:
Decade
Album Score
# Albums
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews for each album.
Overall Band Score:
3.1148
Van Morrison Album Rankings
1
He didn't use the phrase for a song title until a year later, but "Astral Weeks" was the album on which Van Morrison fully descended "into the mystic.
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2
Of all the albums released in 1970,Moondancehas to top the lists as one of the best. It also made the mainstream aware of a then-unknown artist named Van Morrison.
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3
While less thematically and sonically cohesive than Van Morrison's prior albums,Saint Dominic's Previewnonetheless hangs together on the strength of its songs, an intriguingly diverse collection which
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4
Into the Musicmay not seem like a great Van Morrison record, one of his very best, upon first listen, especially if you're trying to compare it to such masterpieces asAstral WeeksandMoondance, or even
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5
Admittedly, I don't know a lot about Van Morrison. Unlike many other artists in the Pierce Archive, there is damned little of Morrison's music lining the walls.
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6
Van Morrison scored one of his biggest commercial successes withAvalon Sunset, a record highlighted by the gorgeous "Have I Told You Lately," one of his most heartfelt love songs and a major radio hit
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7
While Van Morrison is, to be kind, an erratic and temperamental live performer, he's in stellar form throughout the double albumIt's Too Late to Stop Now, a superb concert set that neatly summarizes h
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8
'Veedon Fleece' isn't as well known outside of the Van Morrison fanbase as 'Moondance' or 'Astral Weeks' perhaps are. Such things happen.
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9
During the period between his departure fromThemand his masterpieceAstral Weeks, Van Morrison tenured withBert Berns' Bang label, notching his biggest solo hit with the classic single "Brown Eyed Girl
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10
Like Bob Dylan, perhaps the only living rock songwriter who has matched the breadth of his vision and his impact, Van Morrison set an early standard that led followers to anticipate each new project w
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11
Overlaid on the song titles on the back of this live double CD are the wordsballads, blues, soulandfunk & jazz.Conspicuously absent arerock & roll.
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12
Tupelo Honeyis typical of Van Morrison's early-'70s work in both sound and structure; after dispensing with the requisite hit -- here, the buoyant, R&B-inflected "Wild Night" -- he truly gets down to
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13
He has rarely sounded more engaging
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14
It would be fanciful, not to mention disrespectful, to say that Morrison has waited his whole career to make this album.
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15
Last winter at the Great American Music Hall, Van Morrison shushed his band to a whisper and let the Bay Are a faithful in on a secret: "Listen to the quiet ...
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16
For an artist who's doggedly album-oriented, plus a songwriter who revels in subtlety, Van Morrison doesn't seem like a logical candidate for a successful greatest-hits compilation.
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17
More than just an album title, "inarticulate speech of the heart" is an evocative, breathtaking description of the humble act of prayer.
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18
For those who think late-period Van is all the same, consider if you will "Golden Autumn Day," wherein the bard imagines taking a pair of would-be muggers out into "Blake's green and pl
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19
Wavelengthessentially picks up whereA Period of Transitionleft off, offering a focused, full-bodied alternative to that record's warmly fuzzy lack of direction.
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20
Clark Collis Clark Collis is a senior writer for EW The title track shows that time has little withered Van Morrison's voice. He could sing ''blah-blah-blah'' and it would be pretty great.
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21
The danger of making a reflective or retrospective album is that an artist will come across as living in the past to the point of negating his own future.
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22
The guy who sang 'Brown Eyed Girl'? That guy who sang with Cliff Richard back in the eighties? The lead singer for The Doors?? Van Morrison has never had a terribly impressive profile with the general
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23
Six albums in six years, quite a spell of creativity, all told. The second song here is called 'Warm Love', it's an apt song title and a decent song, to boot.
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24
Well, the opening R&B heavy 'Domino' is a cracking little thing! It swings, it moves, Van sounds full of beans and suchforth. Ah, great tune.
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25
Morrison was working through one of his greatest -- yet least appreciated -- creative periods when he made this album, one that burrows deeply into an introspective jazz-rooted spiritual groove.
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26
Great idea on paper -- invite rock's Van Morrison, his then-organ/vocal-sidekickGeorgie Fame, singer/pianist/producerBen Sidran, andMose Allisonhimself to compile a celebration of one of the most deli
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27
There are 21 cuts on this Hip-O collection of Van Morrison's Greatest Hits.
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28
Van Morrison stopped having hits long before the release of the second volume of The Best of Van Morrison in 1993, so it's not practical to assume that it's double-disc successor --
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29
On the title track ofWhat's Wrong With This Picture?, an ode to his ever-changing self, Van Morrison proclaims with uncharacteristic giggle, "It don't mean a thing/if it ain't got that swing.
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31
Morrison's unique blending of philosophy, religion and life was never more apparent here, another disc that--instrumentally at least--sounds in the Astral Weeks / Veedon Fleece mode.
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32
Essentially the same album as Avalon Sunset, Enlightenment is an immaculately produced collection of spiritually infused R&B and mid-tempo singer/songwriter fare.
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33
Bonding like long-lost brothers, Van Morrison and John Lee Hooker emote fiercely on Morrison's Them-era anthem "Gloria" and on the new "Wasted Years" and for these epiphanies alone, the Irish s
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34
Although it doesn't soar as unexpectedly high as last year'sNo Guru, No Method, No Teacher, Van Morrison'sPoetic Champions Composeis another worthy installment in his series of soulful, meditative exp
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35
Just past the halfway point of his 25th album as a solo artist, Van Morrison offers a Vegas-like soft shoe called "Songwriter.
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36
Van Morrison is the living embodiment of an old cliché: His voice is so good, you could listen to him singing the phone book.
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37
'A Sense Of Wonder' is a plateau for Van Morrison: his first record for his new label, it draws upon and summarizes the last four albums he made for Warner Bros.
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42
Although Van Morrison's first solo album is remembered for containing the immortal pop hit "Brown Eyed Girl," Blowin' Your Mind! is actually a dry run for his masterpiece, Astral Weeks.
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51
Brown Eyed Beginnings is a horribly retitled repackaging of the material that comprises Charly's double-disc set, Payin' Dues.
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