{"id":136535,"date":"2025-10-21T18:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/136535\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T18:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:01:15","slug":"van-morrisons-best-albums-ranked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/136535\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Morrison\u2019s Best Albums Ranked"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heart of all this might be the night of April 27, 1966, when Van Morrison, then 22-year-old frontman of riotous Belfast R&B outfit Them, met a 19-year-old Bay Area model called Janet Rigsbee. The meeting, at a roller rink in San Leandro, California, was, in the words of Rigsbee, \u201can alchemical whammo\u201d. It was also fleeting. Morrison\u2019s band were on tour and, following a series of financial disputes, were about to be abandoned by their manager, their visas not renewed. Morrison found himself back in his parents\u2019 house in Belfast, broke, forlorn, and writing songs about his new love on a recently purchased reel-to-reel tape recorder.\u00a0Mixing memory and desire, the songs Morrison was creating were extended blues improvisations, ephemeral romantic sketches that incorporated his yearning for Rigsbee with a longing for a vanished east Belfast, a city he no longer felt a part of.<\/p>\n

Just as the American writer Rebecca Solnit equates the blue of distant hills with solitude and desire, the music of\u00a0Astral Weeks\u00a0evokes something that is always very far away or out of reach, a place you can never visit. In the 57 years since it was recorded,\u00a0Astral Weeks\u00a0has itself become a part of Morrison\u2019s vanished past, something very far away we can never return to. Yet all the albums we’ve selected here as his essential releases fit into that extended Morrison mythos. They are all attempts to capture that blue of distance, the expanse that extends beyond the self that you can never fully comprehend. They are the sound of thought and shadow, remembering and forgetting, heard in Morrison\u2019s rich, earthy growl of strange reverence, but also in his discursive, evocative lyrics of questing and reminiscence, and music that, at its best, has a unique meditative power that briefly captures the ineffable and the euphoric. These 10 albums do that better than all his others, but it should be stressed that in a 60-year career, Van Morrison has made far more than 10 great records, and this is just the beginning…<\/p>\n

10.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remembering Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

EXILE\/VIRGIN, 2025<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to think of another recording artist whose forty-seventh album would be up there with their best, but this epic double LP is both Morrison\u2019s strongest collection of songs since 1991\u2019s\u00a0Hymns To The Silence\u00a0but also an album completely in tune with the themes of rebirth, memory and romanticism that run through all his best works. MOJO reviewed this record back in June 2025 and it\u2019s seemingly grown in beauty since, especially the final six songs which, from the romantic optimism of Once In A Lifetime Feelings to the sweetly aching Stomping Ground and the rhapsodic eight-minute epic, Stretching Out, ripple with a hypnotic intimacy that\u2019s a wonder to experience.<\/p>\n

9.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison & The Chieftains<\/strong><\/p>\n

Irish Heartbeat<\/strong><\/p>\n

MERCURY, 1988<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although its cover screams \u201cWill this do?\u201d, this collaboration between Morrison and the revered Irish folk ensemble is an undoubted masterpiece. Recorded in Belfast at a time when the 42-year-old was searching for his roots and mourning his father,\u00a0Irish Heartbeat\u00a0has both celebration and grief. Purists criticised his candenza-heavy readings of such traditional Irish songs as My Lagan Love and She Moved Through The Fair, and sometimes you hear the band struggling to stay in time, but overall Morrison and crew tune into a melancholic, inscrutable groove that is eerily powerful.<\/p>\n

8.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Common One<\/strong><\/p>\n

MERCURY, 1980<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Van Morrison had a remarkable 1980s creating a run of albums that inhabit a sublime, existential Otherworld. The first in that run is a set of exquisitely arranged introspective ballads, disquisitions on spirit, fortitude and independence. Speaking to this writer in 2022 about his love of Miles Davis\u2019s\u00a0In A Silent Way, Morrison singled out \u201cthe meditative aspect of it\u2026 Miles said whatever he had to say without a lot of notes. I liked that.\u201d Well,\u00a0Common One\u00a0is Morrison\u2019s\u00a0In A Silent Way, a record of spacious, melancholy intimacy that in the 15-minute epics Summertime In England and When Heart Is Open can place you in a state of trance-like bliss.<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher<\/strong><\/p>\n

MERCURY, 1986<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Recorded in the wake of a disastrous Australian tour, this remarkable album is a curious mixture of moods. Reunited with \u201970s arranger and pianist Jef Labes, and utilising an acoustic tapestry of oboe, cello, harp, violin, organ and vibes, Morrison moves from score-settling bitterness (Thanks For The Information; A Town Called Paradise; Ivory Tower), to euphoric reminiscence (Got To Go Back; Oh The Warm Feeling) and spiritual questing (In The Garden; Tir Na Nog), forever caught between the past and the present in his quest for the transcendent. He achieves it unequivocally on In The Garden, capturing a metaphysical wonder you sense he has been seeking all his career.<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Into The Music<\/p>\n

MERCURY, 1979<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mostly written whilst Morrison was staying in the Cotswolds with longtime Belfast friend Herbie Armstrong, and conceived in the wake of 1978\u2019s commercial misstep\u00a0Wavelength,\u00a0Into The Music\u00a0was the first album of many recorded with James Brown saxophonist and arranger Pee Wee Ellis. His small ensemble set-up allows Van to relax into the sound, resulting in one of his most graceful, subtle and assured albums. From the easeful joy of album opener Bright Side Of The Road to the free-rolling nostalgia of And The Healing Has Begun, Into The Music stands as a quiet evocative work of intangible beauty shot through with a pastoral innocence.<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moondance<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNER BROS, 1970<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Initially recorded with the same line-up as\u00a0Astral Weeks, then scrapped when Morrison saw\u00a0AW\u2019s sales figures and felt that \u201cI had to forget about the artist thing,\u201d\u00a0Moondance\u00a0is an unashamedly commercial album yet one produced, by Morrison, in a mood of spontaneity that moves through jazz, soul, R&B, blues and gospel. His most accessible LP, it\u2019s also a strong candidate for being the best introductory Van LP in this list. However, may we suggest that it\u2019s best experienced after\u00a0Astral Weeks, allowing you to hear how Morrison transformed the experimental sound of the late \u201960s into the FM rock of the \u201970s whilst keeping his soul, passion and mysticism intact.<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Too Late To Stop Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNER BROS, 1974<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A tribute to Morrison\u2019s 11-piece live outfit the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, this double LP ranks as one of the greatest concert recordings ever. Exquisitely sequenced, taped from May to July 1973 at the LA Troubadour, the Santa Monica Civic, and London\u2019s Rainbow, it captures Morrison in what he considered his \u201ctrue form\u201d. Centred around the string and horn arrangements of musical director Jef Labes, the band allow Van to extemporise, improvise and free associate, the singer leaving room for the band to follow, reflect and repeat. Best heard with the additional Volumes II-IV, released on CD in 2016.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saint Dominic\u2019s Preview<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNER BROS, 1972<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Inspired by a premonition about a mass for Belfast peace at Saint Dominic\u2019s Church in San Francisco, Saint Dominic\u2019s Preview stands as the perfect midpoint between the euphoric pop of Moondance and Astral Weeks\u2019 reverie. Highlights include R&B belters Jackie Wilson Said and Gypsy, but those are dwarfed by the title track\u2019s wandering San Francisco blues and two trance odysseys: Listen To The Lion\u2019s journey into the arcane and mythical and the gorgeous Almost Independence Day, where Morrison\u2019s repeated phrases and wordless echoes meet Bernie Krause\u2019s eerie Moog drone to evoke a cool night on SF harbour.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Veedon Fleece<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNER BROS, 1974<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Veedon Fleece\u00a0reconstructs the same conversational viaducts of abstract self-mythology as\u00a0Astral Weeks\u00a0around Morrison\u2019s Blakean vision of a fabled southern Ireland. \u201cAll the songs had the same transcendental tension [as]\u00a0Astral Weeks,\u201d said bassist David Hayes. \u201cThe music just feels\u2026 suspended.\u201d From the opening track Fair Play chronicling a saunter through south-west Ireland, hung up on thoughts of Poe, Oscar Wilde and Thoreau, Morrison sounds caught in a vanishing reverie, veering from San Francisco mobsters (Linden Arden Stole The Highlights; Who Was That Masked Man) to gestalt theory (You Don\u2019t Pull No Punches\u2026), buoyed by the folk melodies of Jeff Labes\u2019 exquisite string arrangements.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Astral Weeks<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNER BROS\/SEVEN ARTS, 1968<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although inspired by loneliness and longing while holed up in the UK and Northern Ireland, the semi-acoustic group sound of Astral Weeks was developed in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, before Morrison went into New York\u2019s Century Sound in September of 1968 with a jazz quartet line-up featuring guitarist Jay Berliner, double-bassist Richard Davis, percussionist Warren Smith and the MJQ\u2019s Connie Kay on drums. The sound of a new kind of artist being born, crafting a new language in the process, Astral Weeks is a blurred hallucinatory world of temporal shifts and transcendence, where meaning and effect are one. It is also the one Morrison album that allows you to understand the core of his musical and lyrical obsessions \u2013 longing for things out of reach; a vanished childhood; lost love; a\u00a0mythic past; the true unfettered self \u2013 and experience each subsequent album in a clearer light as a result.<\/p>\n

Photo by Elliott Landy\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heart of all this might be the night of April 27, 1966, when Van Morrison, then 22-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-136535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}