Stellar Van Morrison offering tops best album list

The Irish Times - Saturday, December 19, 2009

RONAN McGREEVYVAN MORRISON’S 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks remains the choice of some of Ireland’s top musicians as the best Irish album.

U2’s The Edge, Shane MacGowan, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Glen Hansard, composer Bill Whelan, Sharon Corr, Gavin Friday and Laura Izibor as well as members of The Sawdoctors, The Blizzards, The Coronas, Republic of Loose and dozens more bands and musicians all participated in the poll for the 250 greatest Irish albums for Hot Press magazine.

The poll, published in the magazine yesterday, was last carried out in 2004.

The enduring appeal of Astral Weeks is no surprise.

Last year Morrison celebrated the 40th anniversary of the album’s release by playing it in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

The album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl and a DVD of the same name were released earlier this year.

In a rare interview, Morrison said he decided to play the songs live because the album had received no promotion on its release from Warner Brothers.

Morrison said the album was “timeless and unchanging”.

U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby at number two is chosen ahead of The Joshua Tree (number 5), which has often featured on the top of best Irish albums polls. The albums are usually reversed in best-of polls.

Thin Lizzy’s classic Live and Dangerous , which was voted the best live album of all time by Classic Rock magazine, comes in at number three, while the choice of The Irish Times music critics of greatest Irish album, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless , is at number four.

Whipping Boy’s little known 1995 album Heartworm is at number six, The Undertones’ self-titled debut, with its single Teenage Kicks , is at number seven and The Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is at number eight.

The only new entries in the top 10 from the last poll are Ash’s album 1977 and Damien Rice’s O .

Morrison’s 1970 album Moondance is at number 11. He has 11 entries in the top 250, U2 have nine and Rory Gallagher has seven.

Cathy Davey’s Tales of Silversleeve is the highest new entry outside the top 10 at number 19, followed by Fionn Regan’s The End of History at number 20.

Other prominent new entrants are two albums from last year – Jape’s Ritual at number 28 and Lisa Hannigan’s Sea Sew at number 29. Damien Dempsey’s Seize the Day is at number 30.

Julie Feeney’s album Pages , which was released earlier this year, made it to number 55.

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