Unlike pleasant-sounding artists that are more interested in soothing than serving, Asa writes and records songs such as "Jailer," with alert lyrics like "Am in chains, you're in chains too," and that attitude moves righteously into her socially-conscious "360" that says, "We live in yesterday, many today waste away, but nevertheless, it's never late." The song also addresses the concept of change, one this country is just now getting familiar with. With what sounds like a gathering of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff reggae, Erika Badu phrasings, Joan Armatrading and Suzanne Vega acoustic guitar strumming, and Tracy Chapman lyrical sensibilities, the album Asa immediately grabs you and respectfully requests you pay attention. However, Morrison remains the master of his transcendental craft to this day, using it most effectively during his live performances. Springsteen took a fraction of this approach and applied it to his first two albums, amazing us in the process. Characters, subject matter, lovers, and landscapes migrated throughout the work, often, at the most random of moments, in order to prove an emotional, not intellectual point. Regardless of the original LP's side splits as "In The Beginning" and "Afterwards" (probably the result of vinyl's timing issues), it otherwise ignored symmetry and any intentional travel from points "a" to "z" as its musical journeys and stream of consciousness lyrics rejected normal structure. As far as it having been one of the great "concept" albums, Astral Weeks was considered one, though it really shouldn't have been stereotyped as merely that. He revealed how the album's "poetry and mythical musings" sprung from his imagination in a unique way, saying, "The songs were somewhat channeled works.that is why I called it ' Astral Weeks,'"-its title an obvious shoutout to the astral plane. In one of his 2008 interviews, the artist recalled that Astral Weeks' material was "from another sort of place" (fyi, his first take on "Madame George" was included on T.B. Lots of musical freedom was encouraged during the sessions that, basically, were well-mapped jams. But historically, the LP was released at just the right time since, like the substances that supposedly were expanding the minds of a generation, this album did the same.Īpparently, expansion was on Morrison's mind during the landmark album's creative process that reached beyond mundane arrangements and traditional recording routines. Even though the LP's most "commercial" recording, "Sweet Thing," initially was perceived as its focus track, Astral Weeks featured no hit singles, sales were not impressive (it finally having turned "gold" by 2001), and to new listeners raised on pop radio, it was a challenging amalgam of folky-blues, jazz, northern soul, and singer-songwriter-styled lyrics. Records, and his second solo album post his tenure with the rock group Them (his first being T.B. Named Rolling Stone's nineteenth best album of all time in 2003, it was Morrison's first long player for Warner Bros. sounded like unintended tributes to the Celtic rocker. It influenced future cultural icons such as Bono and especially, Bruce Springsteen, whose "Incident on 57th Street," "New York City Serenade," and virtually all of Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. When Van Morrison's essential work, Astral Weeks, hit the stores in 1968, it instantly was revered by critics and musicians around the world.
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