Artist: Van Morrison Album: Keep It Smile Released: 2008 Source: Exile Genre: Blues Format: eac/ape.298mb
Quote
Keep It Simple is a mantra for Van Morrison, as he stripped his music
down to the bare basics years ago and then comfortably rode that
groove, comprised in equal parts of blues, soul, jazz, and country. Van
has been riding this groove so long that it's hard to pinpoint exactly
when he settled into it, but looking back, things started to shift in
the mid-'90s, as understated R&B rhythms took precedence and he
started to punctuate them with country songs (or in the case of Pay the
Devil, an entire LP of country tunes). Despite his new label Lost
Highway's insistence that the fact this is his first album of
all-original material since 1999's Back on Top, Keep It Simple doesn't
feel all that different than the records since 1999, either in its feel
or in structure, nor does it help that Van's songs play with older
tunes, both in their lyrics and their very titles ("That's
Entrainment," of course, but "Don't Go to Nightclubs" is a winning spin
on "Don't Get Around Much Anymore"). Familiarity can breed contempt --
and there's no denying that there is no figure as stubborn in popular
music than Van Morrison, so it'd be easy for the cynical to assume that
his refusal to change is a mere spiteful act, just as it would be easy
for some listeners to think all his albums sound the same, because they
kind of do -- but familiarity can also deepen the music, which is the
case with Morrison. This is lived-in, soulful music, the kind that can
only be made after years of playing the classics, and if that doesn't
quite make for a compelling album, it does make for a comforting one.
It's as easy to slip into this album as it is a warm bath, as Van's
cantankerous rumblings only surface (quite slyly) on the closing
"Behind the Ritual," where he scats "blah blah blah" on the corner,
suggesting that whatever he's singing doesn't really matter -- and, in
a way, he may be right, as the lyrics, the songs even, don't matter as
much as the overall sound on Keep It Simple, which is as pure a groove
album as he's ever made. There are no surprises, but when you do
something this well, there doesn't need to be.
01. How Can a Poor Boy [0:05:44.08] 02. School of Hard Knocks [0:03:44.10] 03. That's Entrainment [0:04:31.51] 04. Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore [0:04:30.57] 05. Lover Come Back [0:05:15.35] 06. Keep It Simple [0:03:33.62] 07. End of the Land [0:03:16.04] 08. Song of Home [0:04:12.43] 09. No Thing [0:04:31.30] 10. Soul [0:03:36.47] 11. Behind the Ritual [0:06:58.39]
Code
Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 31. December 2008, 18:19
Van Morrison / Keep It Smile
Used drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A Adapter: 3 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure Utilize accurate stream : Yes Defeat audio cache : Yes Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 48 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format : Internal WAV Routines Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo