New Van Morrison Reissue Everybody!

Okay, so it looks a lot like St. Dominic's Preview. It's actually culled from those very same sessions. Except in this batch of transcendental Irish r&b melodies, Van waxes poetic using a particularly unorthodox instrument. Something called a "pickle." Hmmm.



In real life, Van really did have a wife named Janet Planet. How amazing is that? I've been listening to his music for nearly two decades, and not once have I ever wanted to know what Janet Planet's real name is. She doesn't need one. She just needs to be beautiful and mystical and a big, fat hippy.

Speaking of hippies, I've been listening to Astral Weeks a lot lately. It's so consistently perfect, it may very well be my #1 desert island album pick. It's just got such a good mix of styles that I love: folk, jazz, manic rambling romanticism. There's also a good amount of classical Bach sounds and structures in it, not to mention a fiercely swinging "The Way Young Lovers Do" that more people seem to know about via Jeff Buckley than from the original. Whatever. Astral Weeks is crazy cuz it has everything in it but rock 'n' roll. And yet it still stands as one of the best albums from a time period dominated by the best rock 'n' roll ever made. Nobody listens to Van Morrison to hear rock, anyway. That's what my other desert island picks from that period are for: the Stooges' Funhouse, White Light/White Heat and everything by Jimmy Hendrix. Now, I hate to use the word "timeless," but damnit, if Astral Weeks doesn't sound like it could have been produced in some Renaissance recording studio that had a time machine in it specifically designed to transport late-period hard bop jazz musicians there, I don't know what does.

Anyway, I think you'll agree that Plays A Pickle For Janet Planet is a much better album cover than this one...