pub.

Baby Please Don't Go by Them repeatedly for a week and then tell me it isn't one of the best records ever made.

Saint Dominic's Preview - expands on Moondance and out into two long meditative tracks
Tupelo Honey- sublime title track and generally introduces country idyll, although image of Van in hot pants not for faint hearted
Beautiful Vision - Celitic overtones galore, sets a tone endlessly repeated with largely diminishing returns ever since
Into The Music - it has pop and soul and electric violin
It's Too late To Stop Now - THE definitive live album by anyone.
The Best of Van Morrison Vol.1* - catch all round up

Then, and only then, Astral Weeks

* (contains Baby Please Don't Go and will facilitate a prompt response to P. Crowther)

The Best of Van Morrison Vol.1 & Vol. 2 and then branched out from there into his 70s and early 80s stuff. Can't agree more about It's Too late To Stop Now - a terrific live album. I also have a soft spot for Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast which has a great version of Rave On, John Donne on it (also available on Best Of Vol. 2).

Start here, why put off the inevitable...

I'd recommend taking it with a very hot summer day. Sitting on your own in the garden (or preferably the South of France)with a glass of something cold, a pair of good headphones and eyes shut...

Repeat until it becomes the most wondrous thing you've ever heard (this might take some time, but it will happen).

Too long in Exile and Hymns to the silence are both terrific but sadly it is difficult to get hold of Hymns - I know because I waited patiently for the remastered programme release only for it to be stopped when Hymns was next for reissue.
Irish heartbeat is also very good particularly as the Van/Chieftains version of Carrickfergus is worth the admission price on its own.

Is a good later album. I have a particular fondness for the 3 eighties albums, Sense of Wonder, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher and Poetic Champions Compose.

Just plunge straight into Astral Weeks. It is simply wonderful.

Then do the same with It's Too Late to Stop Now which is the best live album ever made

Tupelo Honey; Hard Nose the Highway; A Sense of Wonder; No Guru, No Method, No teacher; Poetic Champions Compose are my personal favourites.

As is the somewhat forgotten Wavelength and his collaboration with The Chieftains Irish Heartbeat

I probably have more music by him than almost anyone else. Then again he's been more prolific than most.

For all the image and/or reality of his meanness, his orneriness, his cussedness - for me his music has a genuinely spiritual quality which I'm not sure I've found anywhere else in the Pop/Rock field.

And for someone who resembles a permanently disappointed old Pug, he's wriiten some of the finest love songs ever.

This is an old favourite of mine. From Wavelength, "Hungry For Your Love"

His bag of harmonicas.

I agree with you Sheev - there are few that come near when he is on form. Only seen him live once - he didn't mutter a word to the crowd but he didn't need to. The music was luminous which is not a word normally used to describe music but perfectly fits what I heard that night.

Them. Them. Them. And Them.
Them are 'the' British R&B group.
The answer to this question is Them.

The Deram 2-CD set from 1997 is still available for less than a tenner and has (pretty much.....I think it's missing one German-only cut) everything.

Them.
Open and shut case.

how to

Gotta be Veedon Fleece, not many folks favourite but I find it incredibly beautiful.
Once you can seperate the falsetto from the fat grumpy latter day Van then it's very rewarding.

Linden Arden Stole The Highlights is my favourite VM moment ever.

Yes, yes and thrice yes. And then go for Common One.

Coney Island. Wouldn't it be great if it was always like this?

I must have played that track hundreds of times. It is close to perfection.

I'm still quite partial to this one.

I got all Vanned out in the mid 1990s. A few too many 'Van by Numbers' albums and some really average live gigs meant that I realised that the best days were definitely gone.

I'd still recommend 'St Dominic's Preview', 'Too Late To Stop Now', 'Common One'. Have never liked 'Astral Weeks'.

Ola, part of the craic with Van is taking pot luck because there are few albums with nothing of any merit. He writes three crackers per album - mind I stopped buying them at the turn of the century.
I have to say that the critically lauded period 'Wavelength' etc isn't my favourite, while the critically hated one in the mid-to-late 80s is actually pretty good, as Black Type says above. Enlightenment and Avalon Sunset are pretty good, especially the former. No Guru is never given enough credit and Live at the Opera House is amazing.
I think Steven C also hits it on the head above (and I have said it here before), while you never know what you are going to get, when he nails one live, even now, it is a genuinely transcendent experience, unlike almost any other. It's almost worth playing £25 bingo and taking your chance. My experience that 1/3 is an extraordinary show.
Steven's seen him 40 times, me, a paltry 17. But one of the last ones in Liverpool was a grown men running up the street punching the air occasion - with a spell binding Vanlose Stairway no less.

Van is big on repetition, so here's a post on this pressing issue from a couple of years back:

For all his reputation for grumpiness, anger at the record business, and for getting lost in gardens misty wet with rain, wet with rain, no one writes a joyous, love-of-life song like Van: there's a whole album of them, songs that make you feel good to be alive they're so sunny: Brown Eyed Girl, Real Real Gone, Bright Side of the Road, Full Force Gale, Jackie Wilson, Days Like This, etc.
In 1989 I was in Britain with some time on my hands. I'd seen Van for the first time earlier that year, in the US: a dreadful concert where he filled in for someone at the last minute at New Orleans Jazzfest. The band didn't seem prepared, and I'm sure the photographer with the telephoto lens of 12" diameter crouched in front of him didn't put the man in the best of moods.
By September, Van had put out a terrific album, a 'return to form' so to speak: "Avalon Sunset". Strong songs that didn't meander, didn't repeat earlier glories, seemed to touch real life, and Georgie Fame along to keep him on message. He was touring Britain, so I tried out this new caper - credit card booking - and booked for Sheffield, Manchester and the Albert Hall, and hopped on the train.
In a narrow street in Sheffield the afternoon of the gig, I saw a man walking in front of me, as wide as he was tall, and he wasn't tall. The stacked, Chelsea boots beloved of 1960s UK R&B musicians were the giveaway: Van, just a few feet away ...
He stopped by a public phone, one of those open kiosks, and (feeling like Mark David Chapman) I paused to watch. Phonecards were new then and this one wasn't working for Van. He pushed it in, and the machine slid it back out ... he pushed it in, the machine slid it out... you move in, you move out ... I thought I saw steam coming out his ears. It was taking all his willpower to stop himself from pounding the phone into submission with the handpiece. This wasn't the moment to tap him on the shoulder and say, you're my biggest fan.
So, to business: a beginner's guide to Van Morrison. First, watch him in "The Last Waltz" to witness him in his prime.
Then, to the gramophone with 1972's St Dominic's Preview: all strong and the perfect mix of original R&B, jazz, singer-songwriter numbers and the introspective journeys lasting 11 mins ..
Then the big one, Astral Weeks. "Sweet Thing" is the way in, then 'Madame George' and 'Cyprus Avenue'. Only one clunker: 'The way Young Lovers Do'.
Moondance for a solid set of easily accessible Van, one of his greatest songs - 'Into the Mystic' - and his most burnt out song, which I never want to hear again, the title track.
The live album, It's Too Late to Stop Now, covers all the bases and is compelling.
Veedon Fleece, for recapturing a hint of Astral Weeks and set back in Ireland.
Tupelo Honey, for white country-soul, influenced by the Band.
Into the Music: side one all upbeat, side two an erotic coming-of-age suite.
Common One - for the glorious, 15 minute 'Summertime in England'.
Avalon Sunset - back to Ireland, a happy, nostalgic reverie.
Enlightenment has two great songs worth downloading: Real Real Gone and In the Days Before Rock'n'roll'.
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart is more moving than you'd expect, much of it being 80s synth instrumentals, with one classic, "Irish Heartbeat" - a contemporary standard, recorded to better effect on the Chieftains/Van collaboration of that name.
For me he went off the boil with 1985's "Sense of Wonder", with just the occasional, ahem, 'return to form' since, like the mid-90s song 'Days Like This,' which the citizens of Belfast sang in the street together, not long after its release, while waiting for Clinton to emerge with news of the peace accord.
Oh, I forgot to mention about the gigs. All excellent, with the Albert Hall being the cracker. Watching him glower at the audience, standing stock still, while this glorious sound seemed to float out of his mouth I was reminded of the episode in 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' where Dennis sees Oz singing Merle 'aggard in a pub, and he says:
"Ow does summat so beautiful come outta summat so oogly?"
For Van reading, just two pieces in the one place: Lester Bangs classic essay on Astral Weeks, and, just as good, M Mark on It's Too Late to Stop Now (and the whole career) in the 1979 desert-island-album book "Stranded". [Update: the recent Greil Marcus book, while a good read, doesn't eclipse these two essays, which he edited, or his own in the original 'Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock'n'Roll']
That'll be enough for now. There'll be a test in the morning.

http://open.spotify.com/user/discostu/playlist/0nYPeDDFLuI7NI60YebE1j

that maybe he was round your place being a bit of a nuisance and you needed some assistance in removing him.Oh well.

of albums before I bothered with anything else. Try St Dominics Preview and Tupelo Honey first, as they're closest to Moondance. Then get Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece, his two best albums (the first and last in the classic run). Also get It's too late to Stop Now, of course.

Bar the odd track, I've never clicked with anything he's done since then. A lot of people rate Into the Music, but the spark had well and truly gone by this point. I find his 80s albums dire.

1. Nearly everything from 1968 (Astral Weeks) to 1982 (Beautiful Vision) = Genius

2. Nearly everything from 1983 (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart) to 1991 (Hymns to the Silence) = Good

3. Nearly everything since 1992 = toilet

Despite being totally rubbished in the latest Word, there are two good books on Van just out, the one by the venerable Greil Marcus is okay but the other one by Peter Mills, 'Hymns To the Silence', is really good, and shines a light on the whole catalogue, and I'm revisiting the more obscure stuff on his recommendations. So have a look at that and see.

"Big ups" to all the sageness in this thread. I'd add "Hard Nose The Highway", which seems an odd choice, being critically kicked at every opportunity, but it's an album I've returned to over the years with increasing pleasure. There's the foulness of The Great Deception to hold your nose through, but other than that there's some waywardly rewarding stuff happening here. Snow In San Anselmo is crazily beautiful, and shouldn't work at all, what with the ethereal choir colliding with the uptempo jazz bit, but it's gorgeous, and I'll deck any bugger who disagrees. And then there's a song from the Muppets, and - no, really, it's bonkers. But if there was an underlauded and overlooked album in the Van canon, it's this one. There's also a very inneresting bootleg, presenting the album as the double it was "originally intended" to be.

well, of course Astral Weeks is always the starting point,and as everyone has pointed out there are other great classics, Into The Music,St Doms, Too Late to Stop Now etc

Good to see a few references for Common On as well, i do like that one, great sunday morning album

What id like to offer though is although Too Late to Stop Now is the definitive ( how many times have i put back the needle at that climax moment at the end "its turned on already") but i can highly recommend A Night In San Francisco, its like an old style Revue show and hits many bases and their are some great versions on there, check it out

... loads of times - but just to emphasise it again - "It's Too Late To Stop Now" is one of the greatest live albums ever made.

are as one on this, I see. Hard Nose the Highway was the one that turned me from a Someone Who Can Appreciate the Talent of Van Morrison but Doesn't Actually Much Care for Listening to His Music All That Much into simply a Someone Who Likes Van Morrison.

Even the cover - which looks like something David Icke might use to illustrate one of his revelations - is so wrong it's right.

with most of the comments here. The classic Van albums are his early ones up to Into The Music IMO. Hard Nose is indeed much underrated, Moondance and St Dominic's Preview are classics. Some great 80s albums too, Enlightenment, No Guru, Avalon Sunset, Beautiful Vision. Later albums are not of this quality in spite of some good songs.

Nobody hs mentioned the brilliant collaboration with Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber, The Skiffle Sessions.

My own favourites after Moondance & Astral Weeks are:

Irish Heartbeat
Into The Music
Beautiful Vision
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
Avalon Sunset
Enlightenment
St Dominic's Preview
Too Long In Exile

Best of Vo.2. includes the magnificent Wonderful Remark.

Van was so formative for me. I remember in the late '70s, messing about, exploring beyond the charts , there was a list book called Critic's Choice : The Top 200 Albums, curated by The Great Gambo. An early exception of its kind (unless the Massive tell me differently). Too expensive for a 15-year old to lash out on, I regularly inspected it in my trips into the big city. This turned me on to no end of stuff.

Astral Weeks made No. 4, between Highway 61 Revisited and Rubber Soul. Pete Frame had it number one, and Kid Jensen too. Greil Marcus had it as his own Number 4, but at the back, in his piece explaining his choices, claimed it as the best bass playing in rock (along with James Jamerson in Motown....another story for another day).

So my blood was up, and I sought it out from my friendly municipal record library. And I didn't get on with it. At all.

But I got it out again, and again, and gradually it bent me to its will, to the level of idolatry. This taught me a lot, that with some records you need to invest a little bit, and rewards will come. After this I was more eager to risk a bit, and would not have grappled of shedloads of jazz if it had not been for this record.

Everything from (especially) Moondance through (especially ) St. Dominic's Preview to (especially) Veedon Fleece is worth your attention. Except Hardnose The Highway which is a right curate's egg. I don't share the love for Common One, though I do for Beautiful Vision, No Guru, Avalon Sunset and Inarticulate Speech, for all its oddness. Then I wobble. Hymns To The Silence put me off him for some years. Irish Heartbeat has particular joys which might be a bit niche.

More recently he has been more of a live experience, and still pretty chewy, so I have some records to catch up with. Still, when Bob Dylan talked of how with some music you have to lean forward a little bit, he could have been talking about Van Morrison.

So, just go for Astral Weeks. Maybe it is young man's music, and hearing it for the first time after the first flush of youth it might not connect. But you must hear it.

... 'No Guru, No Method, No Chips Please Love.'

More info here:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Van_Morrison

Wow I love Veedon Fleece but it seems to get such derision....I would try that...and obviously Astral Weeks.