{"id":40935,"date":"2008-06-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/keep-it-simple-2\/"},"modified":"2008-06-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T00:00:00","slug":"keep-it-simple-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/keep-it-simple-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep It Simple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I\u2019m no idiot. I recognize that Van Morrison is a great artist, even \u2013 horrors \u2013 an artiste <\/i>at times, but can someone please explain to me how he can get away with making basically the same album time after time?<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He\u2019s still mixing up country, R&B, blues, rock (though not so much anymore), and folk into that burgoo he\u2019s been cooking since at least Avalon Sunset <\/i>in 1989 \u2013 nearly 20 years now \u2013 but really, it\u2019s been even longer than that. He still sounds much like a goat bleating (though not as bad as Dylan) and he still seems to be pretty much annoyed by the whole \u201cfame\u201d thing.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And yet.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And yet, his bazillionth disc, Keep It Simple<\/i>, is an entertaining piece of work. Oh, it\u2019s no Moondance <\/i>or Tupelo Honey<\/i> or even 1991\u2019s Hymns To The Silence<\/i>, his last great fairly recent disc, but it\u2019s a solid entry in his catalog.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a comfort in knowing what you\u2019re going to get from Van. There\u2019s no fear that you\u2019re going to pick up a Van disc and get \u201cstandards\u201d \u00e0 la <\/i>Rod Stewart or decade-themed albums \u00e0 <\/i>la <\/i>Barry Manilow or rock and roll retreads \u00e0 <\/i>la <\/i>Ann Wilson. Not that they\u2019re in his league, but still. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Morrison even makes fun of the fact he\u2019s aging with a Van-ized nod to \u201cDon\u2019t Get Around Much Anymore\u201d called \u201cDon\u2019t Go To Nightclubs Anymore\u201d where he drops names like \u201cmy old friend Mose\u201d and \u201cMr. Clive\u201d and mixes in lyrics like \u201cDon\u2019t get around much anymore \/ The smoke has driven me out the door \/ All night I used to walk the floor \/ Don\u2019t go to nightclubs anymore \u2026 I\u2019m such a bore.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And he can still craft an affecting love song, even if it is a love song for a lover who\u2019s left him: \u201cThe sound of the evening breeze \/ Is calling you back to me \/ The sun behind the clouds \/ Reminds me that you\u2019re not around \/ Lover come back to my arms\/Lover come back to my heart,\u201d he sings on \u201cLover Come Back;\u201d that\u2019s a sad, lonely man, and a narrator who sees no train in the distance before the song\u2019s end. He begins the song yearning, and contrary to popular \u201chappy ending\u201d wisdom, ends it the same way.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Van stays true to the disc\u2019s title, preferring simple musical constructions to putting on production sheen and glitz. This is not musical crack. There aren\u2019t many traditional hooks. But instead, if you\u2019re patient and you listen for the reward of the art, you get songs. Real ones. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Van may still be mining the same vein musically, but when you\u2019ve struck the motherlode, why dig a new line?<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":29365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6941],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40935","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-van-morrison","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40935"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}