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Van Morrison What’s it Gonna Take

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What does it sound like?:

Well I put my best foot forward, girded my loins, stiffened my resolve, and had a listen to this so you don’t have to.

I’m afraid it’s every bit as depressing as the album cover and song titles like ‘Fodder for the Masses’ and ‘Fighting Back is the New Normal’ might suggest. Yet more vague conspiracy theory winges. They are largely stimulated by Morrison’s objections to lockdown but with just a few minor changes most of these songs could equally be left wing protest songs about the likes of Johnson and Murdoch. Unfortunately that doesn’t make them any better; it’s actually part of the problem. Whatever it is he is protesting about, it is so unformed and uninformed that it is rendered meaningless.

But that isn’t the worst of it. The really depressing thing is how utterly lacking in inspiration this is musically. Mid tempo plodder after mid tempo plodder. Melodies ripped off from, but a shadow of, his own past material. Dull arrangements. Vocal performances which rarely rise above the perfunctory. He can do so much better than this and as recently as 2019 he did.

Two thirds of this record is wretched. But, this being Van, that isn’t quite all the story. In the final few tracks things become a little more Interesting. In ‘Absolutely Positively the Most’ Morrison channels Ray Charles in a song which offers joy and blessed relief from the ranting old man in a pub who everyone is trying to ignore.

And the final run of songs takes us back to a familiar Van trope, the horrors of being a celebrity and in the public eye. Of course the genre of rock star complaining about how hard it is to be a rock star justifiably produces derision and the worlds smallest violin. But at least he isn’t complaining about governments imposing lockdown. And it’s clear that he genuinely isn’t in a great place. On the one hand he knows nothing other than to get on stage or in the studio and perform, and it takes him away from everything else. On the other hand he hates being in the public eye (several songs here and on the last album reference his acrimonious divorce being contested in the public courts) and even hates what it takes to be on stage. Just listen to ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, probably the best track on the album. He delivers a monologue about trying to relax before showtime – massage, read a good book, meet Bill Medley, avoid his agent – anything to get rid of self loathing before he goes on stage. And then on the final track he is pretending – ‘Pretending my life is not in ruins ‘Pretending I’m not depressed/Pretending I left it all behind/Pretending most of the time’. He craves being on stage but he’s even pretending on there. It’s brutally honest and it’s Van Morrison laying himself open in a way that at his best he always does. For better or worse (and lately it’s mainly been worse) he has no filter.

What does it all *mean*?

The biggest problems with this and the last record are Morrison’s irredeemably self centred griping and the musical dullness of too much of this material. But the other problem is that there’s so damn much of it. In the last year he has released the equivalent in old money of five – five! – albums. He couldn’t have done that in his prime without a reduction in quality and he certainly can’t now. But if he’d only ditched most of it there’s actually a pretty decent album – maybe even, at a push, a double – to be found in ‘Last Record Project Vol 1’ and ‘What’s it Gonna Take’. At the age of 76 he’s still capable of writing and performing songs which are worthy of his astonishing body of work. He’s still out there, on stage and in the studio working hard, and paying his dues. It’s just that 80% of these songs are decidedly not worthy. But in the other 20% there are still glimmers of what has made him one of the most compelling artists of the last 50 years.

Goes well with…

A lot of tolerance

Release Date:

Out now

Might suit people who like…

Van Morrison, through thick and thin

7

Comments

  3. If even you, Bluemeister, are saying these sorts of things about his current music, it must be wretched indeed. It’ll be interesting to see how the various court cases (two, I think) with Robin Swann go. They won’t make him any happy. No Filter, No Audience, No Sympathy.

  4. This is the first Van Morrison album in many years I have not preordered and will probably be the first ever album of his that I don’t buy.

    Why play this moanin’ and groanin’ when there are at least a dozen true classics of The Man’s I can listen to.

      • It’s interesting how we get a different take on your review @Blue-Boy. I thought it was very nuanced and well written. It doesn’t persuade me to buy the album but in the other hand @Colin-H has decided there is no hope and that he is finished as an artist. DIfferent agendas for different folk I guess.
        I am seeing him at Black Deer in a couple of weeks -,I doubt he will play stuff from this album and I hope I get the transcendental Van that I know is still out there and not the Van by numbers.

        • Dunno about nuanced, Steve – it was very charitable.
          I’m sure he still has a few great gigs in him – but songwriting? That well ran dry decades ago. It happens. Some people – artists included – can’t bring themselves to admit it. He was great – none greater, and I value his best stuff (for me, the Warners years) as highly as any music. But this???? Had he – or anyone – started out this way, they’d be finished already.

          • Like McCartney, Simon, Dylan and pretty much all his contemporaries I don’t think the well has run dry, so much as seen the water table fall. Sure the overall quality doesn’t come close to his peak period but there’s still great stuff there if you look hard enough.

            I think part of the pleasure in the late works of any of these guys comes from what’s gone before and what it means to you. A song like, say, In Tiburon, is a decent track well recorded but it gains its real value as being part of the body of work of a great artist who means a lot to me. Same with, say, Key West (Philosopher Pirate). No one’s going to claim it’s Visions of Johanna, but to find this great artist still producing something like that late in his life is a huge pleasure, and it gains heft from the body of work of which it is part.

          • If you’re going to see hm at a Festival, he will do a few new ones and the greatest hits. If you’re very, very lucky, he might actually perform rather than phone it in as he very often does at such events

        • No agenda, Steve. I’ve seen Van maybe five times over many years, I like a handful of his songs, ‘Common One’ is my favourite album… but I’ve never thought he was a genius. It doesn’t bother me at all if he keeps releasing albums of diminishing artistic merit. He’s entirely free to do so. And I’m entirely free to poke fun at him. 🙂

  5. I thought there was one vinyl album’s worth of good material on the last one (about a third of it). Haven’t listened to this one yet, expectations will be low but thanks for pointing out he is still capable of a great song now and again. I really don’t expect any more at his age especially after a fairly underwhelming last 20 years or so

  7. Gave up buying everything V used to release unheard after What’s Wrong in about 2001. Later abandoned my policy of buying the “return to form” albums after lazy noodling like Plan B/Magic Time or Hear Me Sing – can’t remember which as they are all much of a muchness – one track of killer and nine tracks of fillers

    As Mrs J has never seen VTM and it’s our 20th anniversary, got TX to see him at St John’s Castle in Limerick in about three weeks time. Hopefully the vibe there will inspire the sort of inspired set I saw him deliver at the Olympia on the Lit Up Inside book tour in Dec 14. Please God he doesn’t do a repeat of the “how much longer before we can hit the bar?” at Cork Marquee the following summer.

    Interesting to see how many of the fans who rushed to the barricades to defend LRP Vol 1 have rowed back hard from their earlier praise.

    To paraphrase Bogey’s Rick Blaine in Casablanca “we’ll always have Veedon Fleece”

  8. The last one I bought was the one with the birds on the cover…. or was it the wrestler. Anyway they were played maybe twice and like the rest of the collection are now in storage.

    Can someone do a playlist of the recent albums so I don’t have to wade through the dross

    “Wading through the dross”. Potential new Van album title.

  9. I must admit I would like to hear these “protest” albums by Van M, and if i saw them in a chazza for £1, I’d take a punt. Couldn’t be arsed otherwise. Like many acts of his era, he’s swelled and spent, and has no idea what to do otherwise, as a lifetime’s showbiz adrenaline is the hardest drug to kick.

    • Loughton, Essex… home of TOWIE – so you’ll be able to make a day of it if you visit.

      Seriously, every single Van CD of the last 30 years (especially the “limited” editions – in fact, they are all the “limited” editions) could have been bought for less than a pound several times over.

      Maybe, Van is the go-to Chrissy pressie that the TOWIE characters buy their family, which the family routinely “chazzer” by January 2nd?

  11. I did Vinyl Santa on Twitter last Christmas. Whoever picked my selection clearly didn’t do any research and sent me The Prophet Speaks. I’m never going to play it. Anyone want it?

  12. As with most…all?…artists of this vintage, their greatest work is clearly behind them. Yes they sometimes produce work of great interest, but it never eclipses their imperial phase and most of the later stuff is diminishing returns. I have quite a lot of VTM, but if I fancy listening to him I tend to gravitate to the great albums, and so it is with Dylan, Bowie, the Stones and so on, and it takes an effort of will to do otherwise. The exception is probably the fabs, but they didn’t go on long enough to make a bad LP. There is only a finite amount of listening time available!

  16. Noticed it was reduced today in HMV to £8.99 and the tax dodgers have done the same.
    Another couple of months and it’ll be under a fiver, as they have an abundance left in stock.

  17. I had a listen again the other day and actually found myself thinking it didn’t sound too bad. However I was only half listening, not paying any attention to the lyrics, and I am on holiday so in a generous and forgiving mood.

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