Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adult jazz and pop music at it's finest !, July 2, 2000
By A Customer
When it comes to the music of Van Morrison and your a fan of his style, you almost can't go wrong. Alot of people just dont't dig Van's music and it's a shame. I think people don't like it because they are musically limited and frankly Van's style is just too darn urbane for alot of people. But enough of my preaching I don't agree with what alot of critics said about this 1987 release. They said that compared to "No Guru" from the previous year that this was a lackluster effort. Not neseccerily it just depends what style you like. This album has a smooth polished jazz and adult pop sound to it. Let us begin with "Spanish Steps" this saxophone instrumental is a quite dark and brooding opener for a Van album but it is relaxing like the other 2 instrumentals that follow."Next is The Mystery" that has a nice string arrangement it gives the song Van's special celtic touch. Following is Queen of the Slipstream, good song nice complex melody with nice harp and string arrangements. I forgot that love existed is a song that has a " radio friendly " sound to it the way the sax closes the song sounds cool I wish they would have played that part out longer. The only song I don't care for is "Motherless Child" it is just kind of brooding and too long. But Van really shows his talent on "Celtic Exscavation " a great sax instrumentatl" the ending is pretty moving you can even hear Van grunt at the end of it. I think "Someone like You" is my favorite song on the album (very emotional song) guys if this song doesn't turn a woman on I am not sure what music will. Allan Watts Blues is pretty cool it sounds like it also could have snagged some radio play. Give Me My Rapture is a simple but very enjoyable Gospel number that shows another side of the album. " Did Ye get healed " is really cool as well very enjoyable. The instrumental "Allow Me" closes the album and is very good. It either sounds like a slow dance song or a song you get drunk to like the " Leaving Las Vegas" soundtrack. It is so great I can like music even my parents enjoy and this album is an example of that. Definately worth taking a second look at!
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Heard Van, April 16, 2003
I was a wedding photographer for many years & always tried to keep in touch with the DJ's. If the wedding was with an evangelical couple, this CD was normally played during the reception. This is one of Van's more happier & lighter CD's with love songs galore. Comes right after the more profound "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher" which gives a more quasi-Buddhist/Christian direct mystic appeal. Van Morrison always had the singing voice though very emotional & spiritual, can at times be rather rough & therefore many don't care for his songs. But this CD would be a good starting place to get use to his singing voice & enjoy the many styles & subject matters. Van is in top form with this CD, playing his beloved sax at times with a light jazz feel. Other songs are either R&B or straight ballad music. Try the "Listen to Samples" section, each of the songs are very good, the most famous song from the CD "Someone Like You" is not programmed for you to listen to. I gave this CD a "5" because the whole CD is good all the way through. I like other Van Morison CD's better, but their number would be off the chart.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Born-again Experience, January 20, 2001
Having just read several reviews of Poetic Champions Compose, Van Morrison's glorious 1987 recording, I felt the rare compulsion to share my own thoughts and feelings about the album. This happens to be for me a very special record. It was, in fact, the very first Van Morrison album I ever heard. This may not sound terribly signifigant, but given my current status as a hugely devoted fan, I assure you it is. It happened one day some eight years ago while perusing the cassette rack at my local public library (fittingly enough), when I came across the album at hand. I can't tell you what made me decide to check it out, as I'd never even heard of the man, but upon listening to it later that evening, I was very glad I did. In fact, it made such an intense and immediate impact on me that I would soon be going out to get one Van album after another, each time amazed to find yet another uniquely great collection of songs. Van Morrison, for those of you not familiar, is a vocalist, musician, and songwriter of truly rare talent and substance. He is unmatched in the "pop" music world with regard to his fluency in a wide range of musical genres, his prolific output of almost an album a year for more than thirty years, and the passion and sincerity which he exudes through every song he writes. And to think that before I stumbled onto Van that fateful day, I thought I knew all there was to know about good music. Hardly. Listening to Poetic Champions Compose, and later the two dozen or so other albums in his catalog, showed me just how good music can be (perhaps, especially when we turn off the radio). Music of this kind is so non-mainstream that it is almost like a secret, as Van himself is something of a secret. To discover music of this caliber, to understand and appreciate it, was to embark on a musical journey which I am still on to this day. Now, you may have noticed that I haven't gone into a track-by-track dissertation of the record in an attempt to illustrate each of its beautiful elements and nuances, and I don't intend to. You see, that is the part of music reviews that I've always been a bit leery of. It's my belief that those things can't be expressed with words with any real effectiveness. Well, at least not by me. Even if I could describe to you, say, the graceful beauty of the piano in "Celtic Excavation", the tender lyrics of "Someone Like You", the inspiring religous overtones of "The Mystery", I wouldn't bother. After all, can I really expect you to fall in love with this album just as I did, or to fall in love with it at all? I don't think I can. All I can tell you for certain is, I did.
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by Van Morrison 
