Van Morrison - What's Wrong With This Picture? (2003)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 419 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 146 Mb | Scans ~ 92 Mb
Label: Blue Note Records | # 7243 5 93651 2 1 | Time: 01:03:43
Jazz-Blues, Vocal Jazz, Blues, Blues-Rock, Celtic, Blue-Eyed Soul
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 419 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 146 Mb | Scans ~ 92 Mb
Label: Blue Note Records | # 7243 5 93651 2 1 | Time: 01:03:43
Jazz-Blues, Vocal Jazz, Blues, Blues-Rock, Celtic, Blue-Eyed Soul
While 2002's Down the Road was the best Van Morrison release in ages – with its autobiographical allusions, cultural critiques, and new band – it could not have prepared listeners for the jolt of this, his Blue Note Records debut What's Wrong With This Picture? While the album is hardly a straight jazz record, it does take the territory he explored on Down the Road another step further into the classic pop music of the 20th century filtered through his own Celtic swing, R&B, vocal jazz, and blue-eyed soul. The title track that opens the album is as close to an anthem as Morrison's ever written; he states with an easy, swinging, jazzy soul groove that he is not the same person he once was and wonders why that was so difficult for others to accept. There is no bitterness or bite in his assertions. If anything, the question is asked with warm humor and amusement as if it is indeed the listener's hangup if he/she can't accept Morrison "living in the present time." He asks, "Why don't we take it down and forget about it/'Cause that ain't me at all," as the song whispers to a close.