![]() ![]() As the initial introduction (“Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you Astral Weeks“) makes way for the early notes of the title track and Morrison’s plangent voice intones the first verse, it becomes clear this is no blatant cash-grab. Whether it is pure coincidence or conscious design, Morrison has summoned his masterpiece in a transient global environment dominated by economic insecurity. Surfacing 40 years after that album’s birth is another incarnation of Astral Weeks: a live recital of the entire classic, with Morrison regaling an appreciative audience at the Hollywood Bowl. In his critique in Stranded, Bangs posits the music against the tumultuous socio-political landscape of the late ’60s”: “It did come out at a time when a lot of things that a lot of people cared about passionately were beginning to disintegrate, and when the self destructive undertow that had always accompanied the great sixties party had an awful lot of ankles firmly in its maw and was pulling straight down.” Ten years later Lester Bangs wrote a fervent appraisal of its enduring power. ![]() In 1968 Van Morrison released Astral Weeks to great critical acclaim. ![]()
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