The trouble with anti-establishment comment from established artists is their commentaries are usually surface-level, self-serving brain rot. Such is the case for What’s It Gonna Take?, a Van Morrison record that hears the once psychedelic barnstormer turn his attention to the woeful world around us. Those with enough interest to listen to modern-day Morrison already know the pitfalls of the first world, and hearing an ageing star whose twenty-first century output has withered, is of no real use. Why listen to critique of politics from a man with questionable stances of his own? What’s It Gonna Take? is a litmus test of how much a listener can handle of their favourites. When the man who wrote Moondance is making slop for the simple minded, it does feel ironic to see a track called Fodder for the Masses. What’s It Gonna Take?, is, indeed, the garbled rage of an artist who no longer has anything of interest to say.
An hour and twenty minutes of Van, the formerly interesting man Morrison, calling out the real world and unfavourable politics, not that of tough decisions but a conspiracy against him and his worldview. Old man yells at cloud, the album. A tremendous shame too as Morrison still has a voice worth listening to, worth experiencing. His releases to follow did little to prove this and even less to suggest he would return to contemporary songwriting of worth, but it sounds as though he has learned from these anti-lockdown blows. Irrespective of the political divide, What’s It Gonna Take? Maintains such a dull adaptation of modern culture and the world’s effect on it. North By Northwest caricatures sprinting from the obvious hand of the government man. A political album is frequently filled with contradictions, but at least the artist in question, in most cases, is not as obviously docile as Morrison is here.
Borderline cruel adaptations of Hunter S Thompson’s ideals with Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas is to miss the point of the death of the American Dream entirely. What’s It Gonna Take? misses its mark on most occasions. From suggesting the truth in the hands of Morrison is threatening on opening snooze Dangerous to the harangue-like writing style. Ridiculous at the best of times, absurd at their worst. Morrison paints himself in an “I told you so” light yet finds himself in the wrong on most songs. A twee and charmless title track expands on the one-note rage of the first song, and the crucial failure for Morrison here is that he fails to expand the interest in his points. He may have just one point, but the lack of detail, the repetition of it, makes for a painful, obnoxious listen.
Crackpot music from a man who could have made good on the wise elder of music. What’s It Gonna Take? may call for a revolution but the one needed is not the one Morrison wants. Song after song of the same complaint. The government lies. That is no surprise. But Morrison feels it is a personal slight and wants to do everything and nothing about these shortcomings, as a song like Can’t Go On This Way finds. Enraged by the pandemic and making music to fit this anger only takes Morrison so far. Those instrumental mixtures are, in passing, fine enough. But his lyrical shortcomings are tough to listen to, the same miserably plain and pigeon-holed view of the world for over an hour. Morrison wants to lead with his anger, and he does that, but it gets him to no conclusion, just shaking rage and uneventful noise. Sometimes It’s Just Blah Blah Blah summarises What’s It Gonna Take? well enough. It is just blah, blah, blah from Morrison.
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