Posted on 05/08/2021 11:17:11 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
Van Morrison
225K subscribers
The Official Audio for Why Are You On Facebook?
by Van Morrison. The new double album Latest Record Project Volume 1 is out now
By Calum Slingerland
Published Mar 03, 2021
Last year, Van Morrison used his songwriting to rail against lockdowns, but the time indoors couldn’t have been that bad, as he has now returned with news of a double album.
Morrison will release Latest Record Project: Volume 1 on May 7 through Exile/BMG, and while the double album is billed as “a 28-track delve into Van’s ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul,” its song titles could certainly paint a different picture.
For example, how are listeners supposed to interpret a title like “They Run the Media” after a year of Morrison making headlines with his anti-lockdown, “pseudo-science” stances last year?
Other song titles like “Why Are You on Facebook?,” “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?,” “Stop Bitching, Do Something,” “Psychoanalysts’ Ball” and “Big Lie” fall into the similarly concerning, if not outright cringeworthy, vein.
However, a press release notes that the only album track concerning lockdown is “Deadbeat Saturday Night,” as the previously shared “Stand and Deliver” and “No More Lockdown” do not appear in the tracklist.
On the album’s title track, which you can hear below, Morrison would rather listeners look past the beloved hits to discover more of what his catalogue offers: “Have you got my latest songs I’m singing? / You got my latest songs I’m singing? / Not something from so long ago / Not something that you might want to know / But something I can relate to in the present.”
“I’m getting away from the perceived same songs, same albums all the time,” Morrison added in a statement. “This guy’s done 500 songs, maybe more, so hello? Why do you keep promoting the same 10? I’m trying to get out of the box.”
Just thinking about Mr. Morrison back in Northern Ireland composing “Here Comes The Night” . . . certainly different from the days of today, and no concept of anything like a “Facebook” with the most advanced computers being powered by transistors and memory consisting of big reels of magnetic tape and/or punch cards . . .
As crazy as it seems, Van’s voice hasn’t really changed much from Brown-Eyed Girl in 1967.
This tune ain’t of the same caliber as his best work of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but good for him for being willing to call out the absurdity of social media.
That’s excellent!
Great song ridiculing Facebook users.
I have always loved Van the Man. Now I love him even MORE! :-)
Facebook, Twitter, and Google are just the sock puppets being used by the real enemy: the Swamp. If somehow we knock these Corporations down the bad guys would just set up new ones. The REAL problem is power centralized in the District of Criminals. We need to take away their loot and control. That is what Article V was designed for . With the enemy no longer having to worry about elections the time we have left to use Article V is short.
Bfl
Thanks...just ordered the double CD.
I like it. It’s a funny tune. The lefties at Rolling Stone gave it a bad review due to Van singing about — “No More Lockdowns”
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Van Morrison’s ‘Latest Record Project’ Is a Delightfully Terrible Study in Casual Grievance
His repetition sounds less like the trance-like mysticism of a Caledonia poet and more like a furious customer demanding a refund.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/van-morrison-album-review-latest-record-project-1165693/
5 things to know about Latest Record Project Volume 1 by Van Morrison
On his latest release, Van Morrison assumes the guise of the cranky old crackpot of classic rock.
Author Stuart Derdeyn
Publishing date: May 07, 2021
Of all the musicians to come out of the British Invasion, few have had careers as consistently praised as Northern Irish soul singer Van Morrison.
Where so many of his peers have been running on empty or recycling past glories, Morrison has been incredibly prolific. But when you are cranking out albums as solid as 2019s Three Chords and the Truth, there is nothing wrong with releasing one record after the next. That the singer is notoriously cranky was balanced out by his considerable talents. Until now, that is.
With Latest Record Project Volume 1, Morrison has managed to come up with what could become a whole new genre: Classic Curmudgeon Rock.
Latest Record Project Volume I isn’t horrible. It’s hilarious.
The 28 song double album kicks off with the title track which appears to be a thinly veiled attack at Van’s Boomer fans who insist on loving old material rather than listening to “to the present moment.” It’s a downright silly song, complete with killer organ, tight backing vocals and a message that is as much a plea to buy the album as anything else. From there, he’s off to the races with his collection of anti-lockdown songs and assorted whining odds and sods.
1. Psychoanalyst’s Ball: Can you think for yourself/Get a book on self-help/At the psychoanalyst’s ball. Clearly, the whole self-help movement that came up in the ’70s wasn’t one of Morrison’s favourite social shifts as he goes after New Agers and seeking answers from psychoanalytic voyeurs. As the backing musicians lock into a beautiful groove, complete with some cool vibraphone breaks, he sounds like someone who could benefit from some, y’know, counselling.
2. Deadbeat Saturday Night: With Eric Clapton on board, Van is swinging hard on a cranky boogie about no gigs, no work, no way out in sight and the “hicks from the sticks/who don’t know what makes them tick.” This track was one of the first four anti-lockdown tunes he released as he began a campaign of opposing the COVID-19 lockdown measures imposed in Northern Ireland as the pandemic broke out. One can assume the hicks are also the “pricks” referenced in the tune, which appears targeted directly at the government officials handling pandemic measures.
3. Duper’s Delight: A slow-burning song about someone who “hides behind the media” wearing a smile known as the “Duper’s Delight.” Whoever this evil woman of the song happens to be, she is good enough to operate so smoothly that you won’t notice how you are being manipulated. Fortunately, Van is there to get you all woke. At over six minutes long, this one is plodding painfully at the two-minute mark.
4. Stop Bitching, Do Something: Over a Bo Diddley beat, complete with shakers and call-and-response chorus, this is the one song on the session that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a past album. He is certainly onto something when he’s telling the subject of the song to “Put up/Or shut up/And stop bitching right now.” Killer sax solo, too.
5. Why Are You on Facebook? In which the listener is asked about whether their life is so empty and sad that they need to be on Facebook. Raging about everything from missing your 15 minutes of fame to looking for a scapegoat to blame, Morrison sounds like the rock ‘n’ roll answer to Archie Bunker. Not that there isn’t a point to be made about why anyone should care about who is trending. After all the other finger-pointing in the 26 songs that come before this tune, the track isn’t controversial as much as it is crappy.
This should be our FR anthem..................
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