Beautiful Vision - Reception

Reception

In 1982, in his review for Rolling Stone, John Milward had a mixed response to the album saying, "Beautiful Vision is so emphatically half-great that if you dumped the four bad tunes, put the borderline case on hold and didn't judge the instrumental, the LP's sequential and thematic integrity would be strengthened." Contradicting the lukewarm review, the album received a four out of five star rating by Rolling Stone. In 2007, Rolling Stone ranked Beautiful Vision as Morrison's worst album, by listing it as #4 on "Rolling Stone's "15 worst albums by Great Bands".

Robert Christgau gave the album an A- rating and noted that "After a period of transition, Van has finally achieved the eternal Kansas City—this music is purely gorgeous (or at times lovely), its pleasure all formal grace and aptness of invention."

Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine believes that "Beautiful Vision shares much sonically with its predecessor, Common One, being heavy on long, winding song-poems, moderate tempos, dense lyricism, and dated production. Still, this winds up being a stronger articulation of what Morrison was attempting to do on Common One", but goes on to say that "the record reveals such charming moments as 'She Gives Me Religion', 'Beautiful Vision', and 'Cleaning Windows'".

Biographer Johnny Rogan believes the album was "Well structured and arranged ... which offered depth and listenability. It also underlined the extent to which Morrison had moved away from the R&B stylings which had made him such a hit on American FM radio."

In an article published in The Guardian in 2011, Laura Barton writes that, "There are Morrison albums I like better, but Beautiful Vision has never struck me as dull; on the contrary, its particular strangeness has always proved appealing – an exploration of Celtic heritage, distance, reminiscence, spirituality and the writings of Alice Bailey."