Customer Reviews

Poetic Champions Compose

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

This is one of my favourite CD's and is a masterpiece right from the blues, almost jazz like, instrumentals of the opening and closing tracks through to the beautiful "Queen of the slipstream" and "Did ye get healed" with which you're probably already familiar. The whole album has a Sunday morning feel to it and is one that you will probably never tire of. My favourite track is the wonderful "Someone like You" which you may remember from such film soundtracks as Meg Ryan's "French Kiss" and John Candy's "Only the Lonely". Truly splendid stuff, if you only buy 1 CD this year, make it this one.

This cd has been in my sound system for ten years, on and off. It simply refuses to grow old. I get withdrawal symptoms when I haven't heard it for a length of time. Beautiful, haunting, romantic, melodic...I do not command the vocabulary to describe the power of this cd.

I have nearly 900 cds in my collection. This is in the top three. This is a Desert Island Disc, for those of you who know what that is.

Beyond description. Beyond compare.

This is a most serious work and presents Van Morrison at his introspective best. Album after album, with few exceptions, Van shows that he is one of the most intelligent and deep-thinking singer/songwriters in the business. Poetic Champions Compose is THE cd to pop in when you are in a reflective mood. There is not a weak song on the album. This is not lounge jazz or "soft" jazz. This is blues and jazz for thinking people. My favorites are The Mystery, I Forgot That Love Existed, Give Me My Rapture, and Did Ye Get Healed? The instrumentals are dreamy, the saxophones pouring forth an ethereal splendour. Van Morrison has made so many great albums its impossible to pick a favorite but this mid-period masterpiece surely ranks near the top.

Van Morrison discs will always retain a professionalism of musicianship and at least one great song. Poetic Champions is one of the latter day Van's best albums because a) he isn't resorting to synthesizers and other "flavor-of-the-week" produciton values that have dated much of his '80s work that would otherwaise be timeless, b) lyrically and musically, he doesn't shy away from sentimentality, but there is a distinct lack of Van's trademark cynicism, and c) it's one of the few examples post-Into theMusic, that Van really does seem to get let the music lead him, rather than the other way around.

The album kicks off with the mellow-jazz lounge instrumental (!) "Spanish Steps". It's followed by one of the BEST all-time devotional songs "The Mystery". Other compositions of romance and renewed faith abound: "Queen of the Slipstream", "I Forgot That Love Existed", "Someone Like You". These songs are all excellent and are unabashed love songs, both joyous and joyful. The other great track here is the cover of the traditional "Motherless Children". Van does a wonderful, inspired reading of this song that has been covered from everyone from Blind Willie Johnson to Eric Clapton.

Of Van's post-1980 work, this and Avalon Sunset are absolute must-owns (Hymns to the Silence and The Healing Game are damn good too).

The moment you start this journey, hearing Mr. Morrison blowing his alto sax, you KNOW this is no regular event. The mood is set - somber, deep and achingly beautiful. Be ready for the simple, honest lyrics set to true soul music from this small powerhouse of a man. He gets spiritual with THE MYSTERY, shares his longing on QUEEN OF THE SLIPSTREAM, bares his heart on I FORGOT THAT LOVE EXISTED, and on and on. But when he sings SOMEONE LIKE YOU, a tear should fall from anyone who's been in love's eye - man or woman. Van continues on a journey into the blues and then back to the spiritual. It doesn't have to end there if you hit repeat. Perfection!!

I'm an old VM fan and bought this album when it came out in 1987.
The uplifting message of believing in your feelings to achieve love and happiness in your life saw me through a sad divorce and gave me the vision to think about what I wanted in my next relationship. When I met my soul mate (now married 13 years) Van's words... "I began to realize there's magic in my life" "You get stronger when you get the feeling...when you got it down in your soul"......yes, I got the feeling and yes, I met the someone I had been looking for my whole life. Today Poetic Champions Compose still carries me to a place of reflection and belief in the power of love. It reminds me that we must have faith in ourselves and in a higer power and when we look for the positive we will find it. A soulful journey with Van, this album is a must for any VM fan and for those who want to discover the magic of his talent and the beauty within yourself.
Don't miss it. 14 years of listening and the music and the words are fresh and meaningful.

Although I had heard all of the songs on the radio: Brown Eyed Girl, Domino, Moondance, etc. I never truly listened to Van Morrison until I heard Poetic Champions Compose in the early 90's.

The revelation upon listening to this album was that Van Morrison is not just a collection of classic rock hits, but an accomplished and genius composer, lyricist and musician who is firmly planted in the traditions of blues, jazz, Irish folk, rock and in the case of this album and many of those that followed, gospel/spiritual.

This album is his most coherent and complete recording, in my opinion, since Astral Weeks. Like Astral Weeks, the album does not yield classic hits, but instead communicates a consistent mood and sentiment throughout. Poetic Champioins reveals a man beginning to see the light at the end of a spiritual search. His peace is fully realized in future albums such as Enlightenment, but in Poetic Champions you find an artist on the cusp of a tremendous discovery.

A beautiful record.