How to explain Van Morrison?

[Enrique]

I mean, wtf?

Some peoiple don't like him, I have come to understand this over the last 30 years or so, but still the question remains, how does someone like Van Morrison exist and his music get produced?

[pipi_k]

1. I guess for the same reasons

someone like Sade was sort of popular during the 80s (I did like her).

And Norah Jones and Sheryl Crow sell records these days (I don't like them).

Van Morrison was one of those singers I sort of liked depending on the song.

I think a disturbing number of Americans are tone deaf, actually. How else to explain the people who flock to American Idol auditions convinced they can sing because they and their friends think they can...when the reality is they suck big time.

PS...my liking Sade doesn't mean I'm tone deaf, exactly. I mean, I know her voice is a bit off-key, but I did find it interesting.

[Enrique]

2. American Idol

I saw that as a positive develpment, the idea being that people would watch and judge what they heard/daw.

Of course as always it wouldn't live up to the ideal, the producers would inevitably corrupt the process, but still, the ideal is there...

[Scuba]

3. Easy...

[Lucinda]

6. Yup.

[OriginalGeek]

15. Marvelously yup.

and this too

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. if you have to explain it, you will never understand it. just one of those things.

[noel711]

5. Van Morrison is an institution...

He cracked thru the record industry when I was in high school...
(back in the days of vinyl LPs, and tv broadcasts of American Bandstand,
Soul Train and Hootenanny).

Like all of that generation, MOrrison had his substance abuse issues,
but he's got that old Irish soul going for him,
and many of us who were marinated in that culture love him..
mostly for being a survivor. Most of his tunes bring me to tears....

As an institution, he pretty much can call the shots.

[cliffordu]

7. THE WORST FUCKING CONCERT I EVER ATTENDED.

Smug, off key, late, short set (mercifully)

To be fair, however, his roadies DID buy all the drugs I had to sell that night.

[Enrique]

10. me too

Van might have well have not shown up. Katie Kissoon on the other hand was worth the price of admission.

[Mopar151]

8. He managed to catch lightning in a bottle more than once

To so perfectly capture a thought or feeling, that it can resonate across generations, ain't so easy as it looks - and Van did it several times about perfectly, and has a body of work to back that up.

Don't make him a nice guy, necessarily, or a good husband, or any sort of deity.

[undeterred]

9. He has created some awesome, original words and music.

Nobody else like quite him. What's to explain??

[pink-o]

12. He was the leader of "Them" in the 60s

You may not know the band, but everyone over a certain age remembers "G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria!" Them also had hits with "Mystic Eyes" and "Baby, Please Don't Go (Down to New Orleans)"

Them eventually became "Him" when Van had a hit with "Brown-Eyed Girl" in the late 60s. Then he embraced AOR (Album-Oriented Rock) and we listened to him on the FM underground with all the other cool artists who rarely released singles. He had some great tracks, but the definitive is, and always will be, the album "Moondance"

That LP will NEVER get old! His Irish roots are all over it, and it's fabulous from the first strains of "Stoned Me". Albeit, this is the song that sweeps me up and carries me into....well, you get it, right?

[Curmudgeoness]

13. It was a different time.

He came at a time when people were listening to both rock and folk, metal and acoustic. I don't think that his type of music would get produced today.

[Ron Green]

14. Check out his segment in "The Last Waltz" and get back to me.

He stole the show from the top people in rock music that night.