Astral Weeks is probably in my top five fave albums. In fact, I'm amazed I didn't stick it in here .
I first go into Van via Them, a band I discovered during my phase of investigating as much obscure 60s garage and rnb as possible! Them Again is a great album.
Astral Weeks was a revelation, full of awesome emotional power. As Lester Bands put it "Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend. It is a precious and terrible gift, born of a terrible truth, because what they see is both infinitely beautiful and terminally horrifying: the unlimited human ability to create or destroy, according to whim." (
After that a lot of his solo stuff seemed very weak. But now I'd say his best albums are, along with Weeks, Veeson Fleece and Moondance. St Dominic's Preview is worth it, if only for the genius that is "Jackie Wilson Said".
I also maintan that "Brown Eyed Girl" is one of the best pop songs ever written.
