What a load of crap. First of all, for anyone who's not familiar with this magazine, it was started by Dave Eggers and his writer wife, along with the rest of the insular (and filthy rich) McSweeney's crew, all of whom slum it out in the posher sections of Brooklyn where they have the occasional be-in or thoughtful discussion about They Might Be Giants (a once-great '80s band who can now be heard in children's TV shows and the credits to third rate sitcoms; I think it's TMBG who should get off the stage, not Morrissey, and yet there Eggers is in the recent documentary about them, going on and on about how great "Birdhouse is Your Soul" is/was). Basically, the Believer is a journal which reviews books. However, it doesn't stop there; The Believer fervently "believes" in great writing (hence the title; clever, no? Bet you didn't see that coming), and it tries not to print bad reviews (thinking of bad reviews as something akin to bad vibes or bad karma, and no one wants that). See the following link for more info on this tasty rag: http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=7345. But it doesn't stop there; there's even a "snarkwatch" wherein The Believer and their cronies can monitor all the nasty and unfair things said about fellow authors (often their friends, since this whole gang has published a novel or two; hell, so have I). And yet they certainly didn't seem to mind kicking Morrissey all over the place (and why is she referencing "Panic" and "Ask"? Is Moz playing those shows these days, or is she more bonkers than I thought?). And this whole argument--this very, very long attack--seems so misguided. Why not go after someone who deserves it? Why not deride someone who tries to fleece their audience rather than clothe them? No, Morrissey is not perfect, but that's half his charm; if we all wanted some cookie-cutter popstar with an army of PR men and managers behind them, we'd all be into Josh Groban. This reminds me of the Vonnegut line about critics where he says something like, anyone who attacks a book with such effort is like someone putting on a suit of armor to eat a banana split. If she doesn't like Morrissey, then don't listen to him; it's as simple as that. Meanwhile, it turns out the waters of The Believer aren't so safe after all.

www.dontcallhome.com

Cheers, J. Gomez...

Meet J. Razor from San Francisco!

Thank you for your topic; it does seem a bit hypocritical for them to try and take Morrissey down, when they have a "snark watch" reputation; well, then, they've just tipped the karmic scales out of their favour, haven't they?

Re: your CD "All Summer Wrong" - great title! Also, what a clever way of advertising you books and CD! (You took courses in advertising; you *are* in advertising?!) I like 1 of the *vegetarian* friendly freezer section, had to do a double-take to catch your book nestled in there! I also like the shot of your book out in the snow.

Sorry, I never read your 'zine, but at time - 1994 - I was reading "Comet Bus" and "Dishwasher"; both were fairly popular, so you may know of them.

LOL, within your "Young Americans" comment: "Didn't sell well, but what do the British know? They never even gave The Who a number one record."

I'm probably the biggest/oldest fan of The Who on this site (from 1975!); many of the band's records deserved to have been #1 in my opinion! ;)

Nice website; I'll peruse it more later on!

You should get off the stage when you cease to be relevant. Clearly Morrissey is very much relevant to his fans and new groups emerging.

Morrissey the 23rd

"Most of the pathos, with, archness, poetry, politicized savvy and melodic brilliance was gone, and increasingly so with each album. There is no excuse whatsoever for so-called songs like 'Dagenham Dave' and 'Roy's Keane', and it's still bewildering to me to this day that he did not feel the same."
"At the time of writing this article, Morrissey's latest album, You Are the Quarry, had not yet been released."

A-ha! This is key. Clearly the interviewer didn't realize that it was not going to be on the lowly level of Southpaw Grammar. (Although I like some of the songs on Maladjusted, including "Roy's Keane" actually.)

And also, Morrissey clearly adores things that are smartly, self-consciously silly, and he is himself. He's not Steven Tyler. Give him a little more credit than that.

"the fanatical adoration surrounding Morrissey today is founded on nostalgia, specifically a yearning for the Morrissey of the 1980s — the superstar-outsider frontman of The Smiths."
This is also untrue. Although he's of course never worked with as brilliant a musician as Marr, Vauxhall's a beautiful record, Arsenal is excellent as well and I really dig parts of Viva Hate. Unfortunately, nearly all of Morrissey's gems since 1994 have been relegated to B-sides... for the most part they don't feel like album tracks but he wouldn't have such a shoddy musical reputation if he had done things like replace "He Cried" on Maladjusted with "Lost".

This is a very in-depth article about Morrissey's past. If the writer had paid attention to the new record, the B-sides and Morrissey's continued effect (which has much more to do with terriffic solo songs than nostalgia), it might have turned out different, than a very dull attack.

It was interesting to read the comments from the guy who stated that he knew for certain Morrissey checks his e-mails. Do you think this was true, or another fabrication?
By the way, anyone got his e-mail address. (Joke)

"Breakfast sausage?"

I thought the article was very fair, and very good. But GOD -- how old does THIS quote make you feel?:

It's not for nothing that, despite a short five year lifespan, the Smiths have had a much more profound influence on subsequent culture than Morrissey has had on his own over the entire 17 year history of his solo career.

"There is no excuse whatsoever for so-called songs like 'Dagenham Dave' and 'Roy's Keane', and it's still bewildering to me to this day that he did not feel the same."

So right. There really is NO excuse.

Like many 'in depth' articles of the last year, this one borrows heavily from Simpson's 'Saint Morrissey' (though unlike most, Veltman does at least more or less acknowledge this). Sadly, she hasn't borrowed Simpson's sense of humour - or sympathy. For her, as for Goddard and all the other Smiths-industry nostalgics (many of whom, bizarrely, post on morrissey-solo), Morrissey = The Smiths = her golden youth. Any deviation from this role she has assigned him is seen as a 'betrayal'. Even and especially his determination to remain true to HIMSELF.

"Ultimately, the central suffering or "Passion of the Morrissey" is that he is still very much alive. If, in some fantastical realization of a line from one of his most well-loved songs, a double-decker bus were to crash into him and kill him, it would make it much easier to worship the unsullied myth of without the tarnished reality of the fading icon threatening to interfere with the dream. In this respect, he'd achieve the same kind of unbarred iconic status as post car-crash Princess Diana, a modern-day icon whose relationship with culture was more complex and problematic while she was alive."

It's quite clear she has no respect for him as a human being. He is just useful to fulfill her fantasies. She's the type he was talking about when he said that if he was to die tomorrow he'd suddenly become the most important figure ever in popular music. I hate these type of hypocrites who love nothing more than a tragic death. The type that salivate over Kurt Cobain and Pete Doherty.

This is something Moz seems well aware of in Munich Air Disaster 1958, a song which sums up that sort of mentality in a few lines.