Perhaps one’s life on a thread is coming to an end when another poster quotes something I already wrote that I was going to refer back to. Jesus Christ, am I that predictable?
Indeed
@Black&White&BlueMoon Town already quoted my comments about Bruce Springsteen that I was going to echo here:
“I can tell you specifically why I’ve never really gotten into Springsteen, nor Dylan, nor Van Morrison, nor countless other artists. It’s because a lot of the work by these artists sublimates the music to the vocalist/lyricist. In other words, it’s poetry of varying quality set to music, not music with a singer accompanying it.”
Astral Weeks is kind of the poster child for this comment.
But I’ve also said something else often: “There are two kinds of music: music you sit and listen to and music you get up and move to.”
I greatly prefer the latter. And on its surface, Astral Weeks is hands down the former.
But . . . . . I wasn’t listening to this while in a hot tub with a spliff, or lying prone on a bed, or while sleepily reading the Sunday papers. I was listening to it while driving through the City, watching pedestrians and cars and birds and scenery pass by.
And to my eternal horror I realiz(s)ed I was actually ENJOYING (bits of) it.
And then I realiz(s)ed I’d missed a category – this is music you LISTEN to while watching OTHER people move.
That led me to thinking what an interesting movie soundtrack Astral Weeks might have made, underscoring some plot to do with star-crossed lovers in an urban wasteland, something like that. And then I remembered – didn’t he have a few songs on that soundtrack we listened to? He did. Ah. It’s all coming together.
Anyhow, in that context, I found pleasure and value in (some of) Astral Weeks, despite the fact that everything about its construction should have inherently annoyed me – the vocals mixed way too high, the lack of melody or song structure, the insipid swelling strings (which by the way VM once said “ruined” the record), and the hippie jazzy improvisational meanderings of some of the instrumentation (especially the flautists).
Even though this is a “sound not songs” record where the breaks between tunes are mere resting places, I found “Sweet Thing” quite appealing. It’s more up-tempo and is the song least down in the dumps. As noted, the strings don’t add, they subtract (or detract) but overall it's a stroke. I also very much liked “Madame George”; the couplets work nicely (and they actually rhyme). I did like the fiddle bits on “Cyprus Avenue” too. Otherwise, not much got through the haze of ambient jazz folk VM has woven – especially “Beside You”, which was a real struggle.
But I can absolutely see how this is a record that would suck you in very gradually over time. I can see how one could hate this at first and eventually grow to love it. I can count the number of times that’s happened to me on exactly zero hands – if I hate something at the outset, the chances that my mind will change is pretty low. I am very keen on and attuned to hooks which grab you right away, and other than “Sweet Thing” and maybe simple harpsichord (?) thing on “Cyprus Avenue”, this record is a hook desert.
Still, the reality is I DIDN’T hate it like I thought I would, and some of it really DID grow on me as I listened through multiple plays. And that’s something.
So in the end while this wouldn’t ever be something I’d cherish, I can see why others might. As for me, VM never has done anything I like more than “Wavelength”, but I’ve newfound respect for his atmospherics and experimentation. 5/10 feels churlish but I’m going to stick with it as other than “Sweet Thing”, I won’t play it again, probably, but chalk this up as a win because I was sharpening my keyboard for a 2 or a 3 before putting it on. This week I learned something new about music – always a good thing.
