Amazon.sg:Customer reviews: The Essential Van Morrison

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Kda

Great cd if you want a nice selection of his music.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 February 2023

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Great cd but download would not work . It was not an easy exercise but eventually managed to get it to work.

Carol Ann

Wonderful CD

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 5 March 2023

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My husband truck was stolen and so many wonderful CDs were in it. I've managed to find several replacement and this Van Morrison was one. It's a terrific CD! Thank you so much!

Randrew109

Neither essential, nor representative

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 11 February 2023

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I've been a Morrison fan since his early days, but his is a disappointing 2-disc set from Van the Man. It is neither essential nor representative of several decades of great music. Disc 1 ventures back into the TB Sheets days with Them, grabs a couple from Astral Weeks (but outside of the title song ignores the best from that album), and then hits a good stride with Moon Dance, Stoned Me, Into the Mystic, Domino, and Wild Night. Tupelo Honey and Jackie Wilson said are good, but not great. The disc ends with Caravan from the Last Waltz, but one really needs to see the live performance from that film to appreciate the song's context (it's kind of flat otherwise). Same with Cleaning Windows, which was the ending of the live set from Belfast Opera House. It just seems out of place here; better to have chosen others from the Beautiful Vision album, such as Vanlose Stairway, Aryan Mist, Beautiful Vision, Dweller on the Threshold).

Disc 2, with a couple of exceptions, is really a clunker. The first few cuts are good (Bright side of the Road, Tore Down Rimbaud, and Irish Heartbeat--with the Chieftains, which itself is a great CD). The remainder of the cuts are forgettable, and one could think of a dozen other cuts from other albums that would be more essential and surely much more enjoyable. The only cut from the Georgie Fame albums is "That's Life" which from Van sounds like his frequent complaining about how the music business has treated him in the past. Missing are any cuts from the excellent Veedon Fleece album or the longer cuts from Saint Dominic's Preview, e,g, Listen to The Lion or Independence Day. Anyway, I'm sorry I bought this CD set and I don't recommend it to either seasoned Morrison fans or newbies to his output. There are much better Morrison CDs out there.

One person found this helpful

ManouGero~74

Bon cd

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on 5 January 2023

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J'ai enfin pu re-découvrir l'univers de ce chanteur-poète Irlandais, dont la voix et ses mélodies ne laissent pas indifférent.

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edward dubrey

excellent product and service

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 13 February 2023

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excellent

2nd cd disc will not play

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 6 March 2023

Verified Purchase

I only listen in the car and have listened to the first disk 2 or 3 times. I just put in the second cd disk and it says error, no matter how many times I try, it will not play.

D. Trelford

Low quality sound

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 19 January 2023

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Don’t know how this was produced but it has a very tinny or thin sound. Doesn’t sound like any other CD’s that I own except for one which I wrote a review about and got removed for something that wasn’t even in my review.

Mike Davey

Superb selection of great tracks from the great man

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 28 November 2015

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If you have no Van Morrison and want to get into this unbeatable music - buy this 2 disc album.. Still On Top, also 2 discs is for me a slightly better selection but I am recommending this because it is in chronological order and side 1 presents arguably the best side of songs and performances from any Best Of I have ever encountered. It also has tracks from Astral Weeks, one of the greatest pieces of music ever committed to disc.

2 Them tracks start things off - which I find better than being shoehorned in as they are on SOT. The young Van in superb forthright voice. At school ( I can't believe it is so long ago) we wondered who on earth this was - he seemed that good already. Then early solo tracks Spanish Rose and the sublime Brown Eyed Girl from Blowin' Your Mind. Then 2 tracks (at last) from Astral Weeks (had to get the expanded new version of this), 4 killer tracks from Moondance and still only as far as track 10.

Then Domino, 2 from Tupelo Honey and as uplifting a track as I know - Jackie Wilson Said, with one of the great vocals and Warm Love from Hard Nose The Highway (not rated very highly by some but one of my favourites) and Fair Play, a track from Veedon Fleece, one of the greatest VM albums IMHO.

Now to a bit of extra inspired programming - a live version of Caravan from The Band's famous recorded last gig, with Van on effortless form and the side ending with Hungry For Your Love from Wavelength and a live Cleaning Windows from Belfast.

Side 2 has a good selection of tracks - probably subject to intense argument as to content because there is a large body of work to choose from. From Bright Side of the Road, another supremely uplifting song,Tore Down a la Rimbaud, Real Real Gone, Precious Time – all memorable - to a live version of Sweet Thing from Astral Weeks Live, another inspired programmme move. For me this shows no falling off in artistic quality and these are memorable songs by any standard.

I think it is a good selection overall although I would have liked to have seen included Dweller On The Threshold and Celtic New Year. But hats off for this superb selection - and even better in chronological order.

So highly recommended and then treat yourself to the newly expanded Astral Weeks

20 people found this helpful

Andy Arbeit

Ein gelungener Querschitt durch alle Schaffensperioden

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 20 January 2017

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Muss über Van Morrison noch irgendetwas gesagt werden? Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert prägt dieser musikalische, mittlerweile 72-jährige, Allrounder die internationale Musikscene und setzte im vergangenem Jahr mit „Keep me singing“ ein weiteres tolles Ausrufezeichen.
In meinem Platten- und CD-Regal dürfte so ziemlich alles von Morrison stehen. Dabei sind seine „Beautiful Vision“- aus dem Jahr 1982 und „Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast“ (1984)-Aufnahmen zweifellos immer noch meine persönlichen Lieblingsscheiben dieses großartigen Künstlers.
Darüber hinaus gibt es wirklich viele fantastische Kompilationen, mal mehr mal weniger gelungen zusammengestellt. „Still on top“ ist einfach phänomenal. Warum also auch noch dieses Doppelalbum.
Für mich persönlich sprachen drei Argumente dafür. Ich bin dabei, mir die Serie „The Essential“ in Gänze zuzulegen. Da darf ein Van Morrison auf gar keinen Fall fehlen. Als zweiter Grund sprach der Preis dafür. Für dieses recht kleine Geld 37 Van Morrison Songs zu bekommen, da kann man einfach nicht wiederstehen. Der dritte Grund ist allerdings der Wichtigste und der, der auch für andere Musikinteressierte von Interesse sein könnte. Die ganz frühe Schaffensphase von der eigentlich gar nicht existierenden LP „Blowin' your mind“ ist schnell abgehakt. An „Astral weeks“ und „His Band and the street choir“ gibt es natürlich kein Vorbeikommen, doch spätestens danach wir es richtig interessant. Vier Songs vom 1970-ziger Album „Moondance“ und „Jackie Wilson“ von „Saint Dominic's Preview“. Bis 1973 „Hard Noise the Highway“ bleibt es fast chronologisch, dann folgen kleinere Sprünge und zum Abschluss der ersten CD ist die Liveaufnahme von „Cleaning windows“ von dem zu Beginn erwähnten Livealbum zu finden. Die zweite CD beginnt mit zwei Aufnahmen von einer, wie ich finde, total unterschätzten LP „Into the music“ und deckt danach die Zeitspanne bis 2009 in etwas größeren Sprüngen ab.
Als kleinen, besonderen Schmankerl empfinde ich „Caravan“, welche der Live-Aufnahme „The Last Waltz“ entnommen wurde.
Diese Doppel-CD beinhaltet einen herrlichen Querschnitt durch alle Schaffensperioden eines Van Morrison. Der Hörgenuss wird für mich auch nicht dadurch geschmälert, weil ich ein oder zwei Aufnahmen von „Beautiful Vison“ schmerzlich vermisse. So ist das nun mal bei Kompilationen.
Okay, wer das Dreierpaket „Still on top“ im Regal stehen hat, kann evtl. auf „The Essential“ verzichten, doch ein Blick auf den aktuellen Anschaffungspreis beider Kompilationen trägt mit dazu bei, dass sogar das etwas eigenwillige Coverfoto von „The Essential“ zu gefallen beginnt.
Als Fazit bleibt festzuhalten, dass es schwer ist, das Schaffen eines solchen Künstlers auf zwei CDs festzuhalten. Hier ist es gelungen!

13 people found this helpful

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John D.

Like it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 7 November 2022

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One Of my favorite

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