The much talked about Van Morrison playlist. I’m doing this in installments, with the 60s and 70s stuff shared first. This is partly because he’s done so many albums that waiting till I’ve gone through the lot would mean delaying for ages, but its also because I suspect the end of the 70s is probably where the diminishing returns start to set in (there are some highlights after that but they start to really spread out). As such, this is probably the true classics from his back-catalog.
As I’ve said before, I think the run of albums from Astral Weeks is pretty fantastic. However, his first post-Them album is actually not that great IMO. That said, it would be hard to maintain the standard that ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ sets so that may be a bit harsh. From Astral Weeks onwards though, its golden. He does that folksy, lilting thing very well but there’s also some stompers in here too. He even covers Kermit The Frog’s “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” (probably the last time Van made any kind of joke, the miserable old f**ker).
As I work through the 80s stuff and - shiver - the 90s and 2000s albums, I’ll add any good tracks on to this playlist. Just don’t expect it to double in size!
Update: the playlist is now complete.
