Most of the albums I heard for the first time over the weekend, in order of "most to le...

Van Morrison: Tupelo Honey
The Homosexuals: The Homosexuals' Record
Duke Ellington: The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse: A Suite in Eight Parts
Van Morrison: It's Too Late to Stop Now (live)
Van Morrison: Moondance
Van Morrison: Hard Nose the Highway
Van Dyke Parks: Jump!
Thurston Moore: Please Just Leave Me (my Paul Desmond)
Further: Griptape L.P.
Van Morrison: His Band and the Street Choir
Van Morrison: A Period of Transition
Van Morrison: Inarticulate Speech of the Heart
Freshlyground: Ma' Cheri

Freshlyground are supposedly one of South Africa's most popular contemporary bands. They have a multi-racial lineup and are all pop message-y, i.e. be yourself, have a great time, don't worry about being overweight, etc. and so forth. The first and last songs are some hi-fi township, and not so bad at all; the rest of the album is pretty extraordinarily mainstream-bland, lame, feel-good, touchy-feely live band stuff. Has this stuff replaced the Boyoyo Boys and the Mahotella Queens on the charts, or is there still a pure township jive mainstream audience over there? (I'm asking, if anyone knows.)

I almost wanted to put 1983's Inarticulate Speech of the Heart higher because it is nothing if not fascinating, especially after you've listened to all his classic albums (which I've just about done). It's like being in Van Morrison's coma. A couple of the songs in the first half (like the one I've tagged) are so wishy-washy, it's almost more like the experience of thinking about Van Morrison's music than actually listening to it. A lot of his '70s records are variously uneven, I'm finding, but my spin on Tupelo Honey earlier today was kind of a wild success. I loved most of the songs; "Moonshine Whiskey" knocked me out!

Finally, I like seeing that Van Dyke Parks and that Thurston Moore album both next to each other like that, because they are both a sort of extreme music. Thurston Moore, there, is a guy with a guitar and amp making mess-around noises with it for a half hour. Van Dyke Parks, there, is a guy with a television orchestra making multi-anachronistic songs about Uncle Remus stories. Both are probably essentially unlistenable to many people, with a decent amount of overlap, I would also guess.