Keep It Simple

I am a major Van Morrison fan. I have many CD's by this great man. Moondance, Astral Weeks, Common One, Tupelo Honey, Too Long in Exile, and Hymns to the Silence for starters. I would love to collect all the albums he's ever done. I decided to buy this one because my intuition said "get it now". So I bought it a week or so after it came out. It's one of my top five Van Morrison CD's.

I knew I would like this album, but I just don't like it, I REALLY love this album. I think it's one of Van's best albums ever. It's immensely soulful, gentle, moving, spiritual, and quite uplifting. It's also spare (for a Van album). In other words, Van is keeping it simple (though not simplistic). There are a few songs when Van complains about the machinations of the music business (School of Hard Knocks, for example), but the lyrics of this song and others don't detract from the overall beauty of the album. This album contains two of my favorite Van songs ever in That's Entrainment and Behind the Ritual. They're both so simple in their instrumentation, yet work so beautiful in their own unique ways. As for Van's "blah blah blah" chorus on Ritual (which some reviewers have complained about), it doesn't bother me. Van repeats phrases like that for effect his whole career, and it works wonderfully here.

The instrumentation is wonderful. Van plays a beautiful saxophone here. On many past albums, his playing was off in the background with other sax players. On this album, he's the only saxophone player. The organ playing is superlative as usual (by John Allair). And Van's voice sounds as deep and as majestic as it did on Astral Weeks a mere 40 years ago. This album shoots through you like a gentle, forgiving breeze. This is one of Van's most beautiful albums ever.

I eagerly awaited delivery of the new Van Morrison CD, "Keep it Simple," only to be disappointed from the first listen. The second and third listens were no different. From the reviews I had read in popular magazines, I was sure this CD would be as good as his last "off the beaten track" group of songs. However, it seemed to me that he did this one for the almighty dollar. Too bad.

If you are a Van Morrisom fan you will enjoy this new CD. VM's ability to master a universe of musical genres is one of the things that makes his music both fresh and enduring.

I've been a Van fan for many years and was excited that he was coming out with a new CD of new material. The material is new, but the themes are (unfortunately) recycled, warmed over, re-runs. The material may be new but it is far from fresh. I would have guessed/hoped that The Man would have been far beyond the (School of Hard Knocks) self-pity and "crucification" of years gone by, but he is evidently stuck there forevermore I suppose. Get over it Van.

His voice is still as good as ever and the tunes are easy listening, but best suited as background music. Listening to the lyrics is painful. He takes the "Keep it Simple" theme to an extreme. Lyrics like "You take my breath away...even on a cloudy day" and "alcohol was too big a price, that's why I said 'no dice'."

There are few bright spots on this CD. I don't recommend it if you are a Van fan.

True to the title, Van has kept the sound and production simple and come up with an absolute cracker of an album. It's uncomplicated, melodic sound perfectly highlights one of the great voices of our time and the man just doesn't know how to write a bad song.

A must for any serious Van fan!