"They Ruined It. They Added Strings."

More has been written about Astral Weeks than any other album. Don't take my word for it - count the words on the internet yourself. I'll be here when you get back. You're not going to find anything new here on False Memory Foam©, where Old is the new New. My own opinion would only be lost in the well-deserved praise heaped on it. There's also a lot of wordage describing its inception, and that's where today's Small Package Of Value comes in. Up until recently, these recordings were mythic, believed lost if they ever existed. It's The Boy himself, immediately prior to going into the recording studio, performing material from the upcoming album live in Boston. This "hateful little guy", the sullen sulky drunk that nobody could work with, somehow managed to pull something of eternal beauty out of the wreckage. There are intimations of it here - it's like the run-up to the album, the Artist feeling his way blindly into it, not knowing where he's going, just knowing he's on the way.

I put in a lot of work - at least thirty minutes, that's a day for me - on the cover. It uses an actual photograph of the actual artist actually playing at the actual club in these actual recordings! Hoo boy! I sanded down the background so we can focus on that extraordinary blouse The Boy is wearing, and did a kind of Astral Weeksy frame for it. If you already have the recordings, dress 'em up nice with this, anyway.

The quote in the heading? Sometimes the Artist is not the best judge of his Art.