22. Wavelength (1978)
Every '60s rock star who made it to the late '70s has one unfortunate synthesizer album to show for it (think Trans or In Through the Out Door), even the generally organic Morrison. There are some mighty, uproarious songs on Wavelength, particularly the title track and "Kingdom Hall," so at times you can ignore or forgive the off-putting buzzing of the machinery (played on some tracks by Garth Hudson of The Band, who really should have known better).

21. Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison (1996)
Morrison's other one-day recording for Verve consists of covers of jazz pianist/singer/songwriter Mose Allison (with Allison present). Again, he sets the bar low, but by the end of the disc, Morrison and friends make a convincing case that Allison is a man of talent and wit. I'm pretty sure "Benediction," covered here, is a tribute to masturbation. ("There's just one thing baby / That comes from above / When push comes to shove / Thank God for self love.")

20. What's Wrong With This Picture? (2003)
Morrison got as throwbacky as he's ever gotten on What's Wrong With This Picture? On songs like "Evening in June" and "Once in a Blue Moon," he shows great ease with a format that doesn't veer far from classic vocal jazz, and proves he totally could have ruled a old-timey nightclub, even if the songs don't have much of his unique stamp on them.

19. His Band and the Street Choir (1970)
His Band and the Street Choir features the same warm alchemy of R&B, jazz, and folk as Moondance, but having delivered Moondance just nine months prior, Morrison evidently didn't have much left in the can. The opening "Domino" is an energetic soul romp, and the closing "Street Choir" recaptures Moondance's sweet full-band liveliness. Everything in between sounds exasperated.

18. Magic Time (2005)
Still working with a lite-jazz backing that makes an hour-long album a bit of a test in patience, Morrison nonetheless shows he's still in the game as a songwriter on Magic Time. His odes to isolation, "Stranded" and "Just like Greta," are some of his strongest compositions of the '00s. Also, he finds a spirit animal on "The Lion This Time."

17. Keep It Simple (2008)
Much about Magic Time also applies to its successor, Keep It Simple. The tempo rarely speeds up much, but if you're patient, you can hear Morrison get mean with the world at large on "School of Hard Knocks," and give his manifesto on the power of music on "That's Entrainment."

16. Enlightenment (1990)
Even if the title track was named in irony ("enlightenment, don't know what it is"), Morrison does find a deep sense of reflective calm on Enlightenment. But it's a calm with spirit, embodied in the way he jumps all over himself to sing the lines "so quiet in here, so peaceful in here" on one track.

15. Days Like This (1995)
On Days Like This, lyrics seem secondary. (Did he really just say "Call me rain check" in the chorus of one song? What does that even mean?) But the title track is his most catchy single since "Jackie Wilson Said," and though there isn't much to it but a strong melody and some optimistic lyrics, it became an anthem for the Northern Ireland peace process.

14. Pay the Devil (2006)
Having mined jazz, blues, early rock and roll, pre-rock pop, Irish folk, and some of his own greatest hits to keep up his nearly album-a-year schedule, Morrison turned to vintage country. Everything about Pay the Devil is lovingly familiar, from the songs of Hank Williams and Bill Anderson to the replication of the classic Nashville sound to a voice that hasn't changed in forty years. But Morrison moving out of his usual range of genres was enough to make things more interesting than usual.

13. Too Long in Exile (1993)
Morrison hates overdubs or any form of self-editing. This is especially noticeable on Too Long in Exile, a messy seventy-seven-minute effort on which Georgie Fame's Hammond organ simmers long and slow through every track. It features everything from a Yeats poem set to music to a rerecording of "Gloria" with John Lee Hooker. It's good, but some self-control could have made it great.