Album Reviews

Van Morrison just released his new LP What's It Gonna Take?, his 43rd studio album and the follow-up to last year's Latest Record Project Volume 1. That album was 28 songs and over two hours of grouching about computer-assisted modern music, expensive divorce proceedings, being "a targeted individual," Saturday nights ruined by lockdowns, the debunked theory of white men supposedly being oppressed, the mainstream fake news media controlling people's thoughts, how Facebook users need to get a life, and how you, dear listener, should get up off your ass and actually do something about all of this. Yet somehow, What's It Gonna Take? is even worse, and it's shocking to think that it's by the same artist who made Astral Weeks, Saint Dominic's Preview, Veedon Fleece, or, hell, even the Bang Contractual Obligation Session.

For as lyrically awful and musically generic as Latest Record Project was, it at least had a few listenable, maybe even slightly redeemable, moments. "Love Should Come With A Warning" could've been decent if it didn't sound so bitter, and "Thank God For The Blues" might've been fine if it was two minutes shorter and in a different context. As recently as 2019, Van Morrison made thoroughly listenable—if often sleep-inducing—records; just listen to Three Chords And The Truth, which while far from spectacular is a respectable enough late-career effort.

What's It Gonna Take?, however, lacks a single redeemable quality. It looked awful from the start—the singles were more glorified Facebook rants set to bland blues backing tracks, and the song titles include "Sometimes It's Just Blah Blah Blah," "Fighting Back Is The New Normal," "Fodder For The Masses," and "I'm Not A Celebrity." The full 79-minute album is a grueling, insufferable experience, and you might wonder if Morrison is simply trolling us. But if that was the case, you'd think he'd stop before a public health official sues him for defamation.

Which is exactly what he whines about on the opening track, "Dangerous." For nearly eight minutes, Morrison alludes to his ongoing conflict with Robin Swann, the Northern Ireland Minister of Health. In fall 2020, Swann expressed disappointment with Morrison's anti-lockdown stance, to which Morrison responded by calling Swann "very dangerous" and a "fraud." Swann is now suing Morrison, who on this song asserts that he's "getting close to the truth" and "was just looking for the evidence." The title track, "Fighting Back Is The New Normal," and "Can't Go On This Way" find him asking listeners to fight against taxes and lockdown measures and "realize this is fake," "Fodder For The Masses" complains about how the media "[lies] to you continuously" and only serves to "fill you up with fake news for their masters," and "Money From America" revisits his "there's no such thing as free money" grievance (the last record's "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" already mentioned how "there's no such thing as a free lunch"). Of course, Morrison takes great pains to emphasize the "freedom" of his "thinking," such as on the self-explanatory, six and a half-minute "Not Seeking Approval." "I'm having a nervous breakdown/I'm having some kind of breakthrough," he sings on the lead single "Nervous Breakdown." No, he is not having "some kind of breakthrough;" he is simply losing his mind, as further confirmed by his further diatribes about mind control, government overreach, and everything otherwise being "blah blah blah blah."

Van Morrison's political and societal views might be objectionable, but that's not what makes What's It Gonna Take? a steaming pile of shit; rather, it's his inability to express those views in an interesting, artistically thoughtful manner. All he does is whine and complain nonstop for the length of an entire CD, because he thinks his insights will encourage listeners to fight against this system that he so often yet so vaguely refers to. For an artist whose last record has a five-minute song called "Stop Bitching, Do Something," Morrison certainly can't take his own advice. Some listeners argue that if you can get over the political stuff, Latest Record Project has some value. Yet, I don't enjoy even my favorite artists listing every last personal annoyance, nor do I like politically-minded works that I find artistically mediocre, even if I agree with the message. Separate an artist and their politics from the art, sure, except when the politics becomes the "art" itself and said "art" is a grumpy old man berating you nonstop (at least Latest Record Project gave you a break every now and then) for 79 minutes, it's a failure in every way, and a depressing one at that.

The sound quality on the 96/24 Apple Music stream is fine, if a bit sterile and compressed, but none of that really matters here. Please, do not buy this record. Spare your wallet and your ears from this utter crap, which becomes musically blander and lyrically even more pathetic when you revisit Morrison's poetically written, beautifully arranged classics (which at this point might as well include songs like "The Big Royalty Check" and all the out-of-tune one-minute improvisations about some idiot named George, because Sir George Ivan Morrison is now that "Dum Dum George"). 79 minutes of recorded farts and burps pressed on vomit-scented vinyl would be eons better than the painful What's It Gonna Take. That's how unbearably awful this is.

(Malachi Lui is an AnalogPlanet contributing editor, music obsessive, avid record collector, and art enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.)