There is an exchange between Jack Black and a fellow vinyl devotee somewhere near the midpoint of High Fidelity, in which Black's surly record store clerk says "Dude, I can't believe you don't own this F***ing album!"
That's somewhat akin to how i feel when snooping through someone's record collection (given the opportunity i will always check out people's CD stack, it helps with the snap judgements) and i don't find a copy of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.
Ultimately more uplifting than a bucket of Paxil, this album nevertheless goes to all the scary places of the human psyche. Maybe it's the fact that it explores those places (the major themes here include obsession, addiction and death) while maintaining a shimmering beauty that make it so powerful.
We do know that it was a happy accident, Morrison did little, to no communicating with the talented jazz musicians (Richard Davis is unbelievable) assigned to his session. Despite (because of?) this, Morrison would never approach this level of genius again, and has in fact spent most of his time disowning it. Ours is not to disown, but to own.It's going to be OK.
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