VAN MORRISON : WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE?

VAN MORRISON : WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE?

Dangerous
What's It Gonna Take?
Fighting Back Is The New Normal
Fodder From The Masses
Can't Go On This Way
Sometimes It's Just Blah Blah Blah
Money From America
Not Seeking Approval
Damage And Recovery
Nervous Breakdown
Absolutely Positively The Most
I Ain't No Celebrity
Stage Name
Fear And Self-Loathing In Las Vegas
Pretending

Label : Exile Productions

Release Date : May 20, 2022

Length : 79:13

Review (AllMusic) : Arriving hot on the heels of Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, the 2021 double album where Van Morrison unleashed all of his frustrations at being locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic, What's It Gonna Take? finds the singer doubling down on all of his gripes. The shift in intensity is apparent from the artwork depicting a couple being controlled by the hand of an unseen puppet master, an image that crystallizes Morrison's belief that the government and other shadowy forces are conspiring to take away free will from the common man. Van believes himself to be among these little folks: as he sings on one of the record's less politically charged songs, "I Ain't No Celebrity," he's merely a working musician. The fact that he was not able to work during the early months of the pandemic stoked Morrison's anger, and it shines brightly throughout What's It Gonna Take?, seeming even more vivid because his vitriolic lyrics are married to jaunty R&B rhythms or slow, soulful grooves delivered with precision and enshrined in a clean production. There's no ignoring Morrison's repeated references to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, fake news, and mind control or his huffy denials that he's a conspiracy theorist as they're pushed right to the forefront. Plus, where he seemed merely cranky on Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, Morrison is filled with bile here, letting it bubble to the surface even on slow-burners like "Can't Go On This Way." By the end of the album, he points some of this anger inward, resulting in the relatively nuanced "Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Pretending," but that doesn't change the general tenor of What's It Gonna Take? The blend of anodyne R&B and anger makes for one of the odder albums in Van Morrison's body of work.

Review (Humo) : 'Somebody said I was dangerous', zingt Van the Man in de eerste minuut van zijn zoveelste nieuwe cd, 'I must be getting close to the truth'. Geen van beide statements is waar. Gevaarlijk is Van niet, integendeel: hij is, nu meer dan ooit, het prototype van de artiest die appelleert aan gesettelde bourgeois van middelbare leeftijd en ouder. En als je 'waarheid' interpreteert als de essentie van briljante popmuziek, klopt dat ook niet. Deze vierde plaat in amper vijf jaar tijd bevat vijftien songs. Je voelt dat hij, tegenover de wereld maar misschien nog meer tegenover zichzelf, wil bewijzen dat hij nog niet is ingedommeld. Maar iemand moet Van durven te vertellen dat kwantiteit iets anders is dan kwaliteit. Hij zweert bij de simpele oer-rhythm-and-blues en basic rock-'n-roll uit zijn jeugd: geen spoor van de grandeur en de verfijning van 'No Guru, No Method, No Teacher' of 'Poetic Champions Compose'. Opvallend is de maatschappijkritiek die Morrison de laatste jaren ventileert: hij schimpt op reality-tv, sociale media, leeghoofdige celebrity's, corrupte politici, het koningshuis en de concurrentie (Sting, Cliff Richard, Tom Jones en zelfs acteur Michael Caine in 'Stage Name'). Terecht, maar het zijn makkelijke doelwitten en de muziek beklijft zelden.

Review (The Arts Desk) : The mystifying chasm between Van Morrison's personality and music became total with last year's Latest Record Project Volume 1, as masterfully sung, textbook R&B rolled under biliously paranoid words. This 28-song more than double-album was loaded with the likes of "The Long Con", which found Van "targeting individuals" who are "pulling the strings" and "trying to erase me", as he came out fighting mad at lockdown, and the pandemic's temerity in keeping him offstage. Despite singing "Why Are You On Facebook?", Van seemed to have swallowed the social media Kool Aid. Now, here are 15 more songs, several not much shorter than "Madame George", but misplacing its choleric grandeur and humane ache. What's It Gonna Take?'s cover - Cold War-era sheeple manipulated on a hidden puppet-master's strings - is Van's equivalent to Born Again Dylan's Saved, in which God's hand pointed down in blazing judgement, demolishing any possible doubt as to where he's at. Near eight-minute opener "Dangerous" finds Van quietly satisfied at his last opus's savage reviews - clearly, he's doing something right, "too close to the truth.calling them on all their lies". "Somebody said it was about the da-ta," he says, ironically spitting and snapping the last word, before asking for "proof" which will never satisfy. The Hammond-heavy music and Van's singing are meanwhile buoyant and wholly at ease, stretching out as if at a gig. Though this album is on the planet's biggest major label, he's making records with a liberty matched only by Neil Young. Anyone still pining for the Sixties generation to re-engage, for Jagger to write another "Sympathy for the Devil" or McCartney a "She's Leaving Home" - well, Van is absolutely plugged into the nightly news, furiously taking notes. "No more Economic Forum," he declares on the brooding, Ray Charles-like "Money from America", which finds "Prince Charles.at the burning Gates". "Gates is playing God/Government keeps lying," "Can't Go On This Way" says, ramming the conspiracy home. "Don't know what to do about the common cold in the head." It's easy to pick button-pushing lines, as the album's monomania sinks in. On "Fighting Back Is the New Normal", he's "gonna stop sitting on the fence.take a tip from the French", also quoting from James Brown's Nixon-era "I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)", as he imagines himself on the barricades with the gilets jaunes' Civil Rights frauds. "If you don't accept the drip, gonna call you a conspiracy theorist." "Fodder for the Masses" advises. "Fill you up with fake news for their masters"; "Damage and Recovery" castigates "snowflakes hiding in their houses". Messianic conviction that only he and his fellow travellers can see clearly, and contempt for the "masses"' blind ignorance, permeates every line. And yet, the oppressive cloud lifts as this album heads home. "Absolutely Positively the Most", with its Latin Hammond groove and gospel harmonies, preaches that "love is the law", and "we're all part of the same whole", and the country swing of "I Ain't No Celebrity" returns to the relative comfort of abiding Van gripes. Then, with the staccato stream of consciousness of "Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas", we're abruptly in the emotional heart of things. Thin Hammond stabs and tense beats stalk Van as he awaits showtime in the Nevada night, trying to "learn how to love myself" and taping new songs just to "pretend everything's alright", a lugubrious sax solo bringing the steamy atmosphere of Mob-era showbiz, before a crystalline haze of piano conjures true R&B beauty. "Pretending" is still more nakedly personal, a confessional of depression and professional displacement, vaguely blaming a woman, but really stewing in introspection at a life "in ruins": "pretending I'm in the present tense/I'm really miles away in a trance"; "pretending I'm sleeping at night". The music's rolling grace brews up into Too Late To Stop Now-style brass. Avalon Sunset or Enlightenment at their best also come to mind, as Van lets go of his prosaic rage, and is transported. Listen back to earlier lyrics here - "You can't go out dancing/Can't find any joy" on "Can't Go on This Way", or "Nervous Breakdown", where "breakdown" and "breakthrough" blur, and Van is saying that being prevented from performing has literally made him ill. After being denied live music's healing for so long, millions would sympathise. His song avalanche's response is typically egocentric, pernicious, and already outdated, as his current US tour continues unimpeded. Hope also remains for his art, despite its current, bizarre terminus.

Review (Buzz Magazine) : After falling into the inevitable elder statesman's trap of recording jazz and American songbook songs at the end of the last decade, Van Morrison broke through the COVID column inches with his trio of headline-grabbing anti-lockdown songs. Following last year's 28-track Latest Recording Project, Volume 1, Van the Man carries on in a similar anti-establishment vein with another collection of original songs on What's It Gonna Take? with titles like Fodder For The Masses and Fighting Back Is The New World Normal. After the fantastic opener Dangerous, which pokes fun at Morrison's status as the pot-stirring, sneering cynic, the rest of the album's lyrics are obsessed with lying politicians and a brainwashed nation. All good points to discuss, but most of it is just too on the nose, with the joyless hook from Sometimes It's Just Blah Blah Blah preceded by lines like "how did you overcome the restrictions?" A shame, as the arrangements and playing on What's It Gonna Take? are tasteful in the extreme and Van Morrison's voice sounds as good as any time over the last couple of decades.