Moondance

Few albums define an era like Moondance. Van Morrison found his modern soul voice with this classic 1970 album, which features several career favorites, including the Sinatra-esque title track and the soothing soul ballad “Crazy Love,” fusing jazz, folk, R&B, and Irish mysticism. Remastered sound brings out the crisp horns, which add to the spiritual transcendence of “And It Stoned Me,” “Caravan,” and “Brand New Day,” where Morrison offers sweet praise to the healing properties, respectively, of water, radio, and nature. The fan favorite “Into the Mystic” features the expert vocal phrasing that Morrison fully captured on his jazz-folk masterpiece Astral Weeks and firmly established him as among the most accomplished singers of the modern era. Moondance—arguably his most accessible album—is definitely his most commercially successful studio release. In 2013, it was released in two additional packages, including a deluxe edition that features the album and 50(!) outtakes and an expanded edition that includes the album with 11 alternate highlights culled from the deluxe set.