Van Morrison - Best 10s Album Poll!!

whats the best Van Morrison album from the 10s.

Come back tomorrow for Best Of Lou Reed 70s albums Poll!

 

This poll was (for me) the easiest one to answer. Keep Me Singing.

 

Keep Me Singing for me. Van has had a prolific run beginning with Singing up through the more jazz and blues based records to follow ( Punches, Versatile, Crazy and Prophet ) and then back to something more akin to Singing with the new one, Three Chords & TheTruth which in itself is a great album. All in four years time! Amazing.

 

I’m drawing a blank at this list. The one I know is the latest, Three Chords, so that’ll get my vote.

 

I haven't got any of these. As mentioned in the previous decade's poll, I found the albums were becoming less distinctive. As Van has become more prolific lately, I'm hoping for recommendations here about which albums to pick up!

 

Three Chords for me.

 

I like several of these albums, Keep me singing, prophet and three chords stand out to me

 

You're Driving Me Crazy - a joyful outing with Hammond organist Joey DeFrancesco

 

Born to Sing is one of his finest albums ever, and Versatile is excellent too. Most of the rest are good; I listen to Duets and Prophet Speaks the most.

You're Driving Me Crazy and Three Chords are notably weak, however.

 

Born To Sing is the easy winner here (disclaimer: I have not heard Three Chords yet, but given his other recent work I’d be shocked if I preferred it). On Born To Sing, Van actually sounds like he has something to say for the first time since The Healing Game. There is mood and atmosphere. It is a genuinely good album.

The rest of these are completely interchangeable jazzy/R&B/standards outings with very few interesting compositions from Van (the title track to The Prophet Speaks being a notable exception). To add insult to injury he insists on covering himself on most of these records as if to remind you that he used to write compelling material when he cared. And I really don’t care to hear Van covering stuff like “Makin’ Whoopee”

Edit: Forgot to mention that I actually quite enjoy the Duets album. I was sure I was going to hate it lol

 

Another interesting decade for Van. After a while his releases become product. At times quality is sacrificed for quantity. That's not to say these albums are weak. It's hard to tell them apart. I'm happy he's still around and productive.

 

The usual suspects, lol.

 

KMS, BTS and Three Chords are all good albums. I picked the later. Duets has its moments but I suppose it comes down to the partner, George Benson/Higher Than The World and Clare Teal/Carrying A Torch spring to mind as lovely versions. The large number in the middle could have done with someone telling Van to slow down and actually produce one record rather than 4.

 

Did you ever get to Three Chords?

 

Not yet. . . (I haven’t purchased a single new album since the pandemic began. Been working on a backlog of records I want to needledrop.)

 

Definitely worth it.

 

other than 'duets' the other 7 albums are interchangeable for me.

 

This was tough. Born to Sing, Keep Me Singing and Roll with the Punches are all great. Punches had the least original material so in the end Singing edged out Born by a nose.

 

These polls are really getting out of hand. You can also vote on the same albums here:

Poll: Van Morrison’s Best Albums Since 1990

Maybe there should be a special polls section?