Re-releases: Viva Hate and Suedehead

I remember 20 years ago one of the music weeklies reviewed the Our Frank single with the rather withering comparison that Morrissey solo singles are like London buses; they come often but leave you underwhelmed (or something) And now here we are. The most reissued artist in history reissues an album he has already reissued. Twice beforehand. No wonder he never songs "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" in concert.

20 years later the pointless revisionism of his art continues unabated. What is the f**king point in this re-issue? I realise some of you will defend Morrissey till his dying day but seriously "barrel out and scrape" should be the title of his next album. Or maybe even his autobiography which will reveal precisely nothing apart from his hatred of Mike Joyce and meat-eaters.

These vanity musical projects must cost more to release and promote than any royalties he can possibly generate from them. And as he meddles continually with his past, the present looks further away. (In Jakarta by the looks of things)

When we are reduced to saying oh it's a nice photo on the reissue it's just all rather tragic to watch someone who entranced you when you were younger turning into an irrelevance. He'll be doing those 80s tours before you can say Wham!
 
I remember 20 years ago one of the music weeklies reviewed the Our Frank single with the rather withering comparison that Morrissey solo singles are like London buses; they come often but leave you underwhelmed (or something) And now here we are. The most reissued artist in history reissues an album he has already reissued. Twice beforehand. No wonder he never songs "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" in concert.

20 years later the pointless revisionism of his art continues unabated. What is the f**king point in this re-issue? I realise some of you will defend Morrissey till his dying day but seriously "barrel out and scrape" should be the title of his next album. Or maybe even his autobiography which will reveal precisely nothing apart from his hatred of Mike Joyce and meat-eaters.

These vanity musical projects must cost more to release and promote than any royalties he can possibly generate from them. And as he meddles continually with his past, the present looks further away. (In Jakarta by the looks of things)

When we are reduced to saying oh it's a nice photo on the reissue it's just all rather tragic to watch someone who entranced you when you were younger turning into an irrelevance. He'll be doing those 80s tours before you can say Wham!

No, he won't.
 
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What is the f**king point in this re-issue?

I don't like the reissue, either. But I would imagine the truth of the matter looks something like this: the record company has the right to do what it wants, and Morrissey could either participate, and have some say in how it turned out, or not participate, and let them turn out a monstrosity worse than the one we're actually getting.

I don't think Morrissey has much control over his back catalog. Meanwhile, the record companies are re-releasing every album they can get their grubby little hands on as a way of cashing in on all the teenagers who bought "Viva Hate" the first time around and are now comfortable middle-class consumers with plenty of disposable cash to buy back bits and pieces of their youth.

Now, like I said, things like the font are inexcusable. But this project is so shoddy, I'm imagining conversations like this:

Reissue Guy: "We have to change the cover somehow, to let buyers know it's different".
Morrissey: "How about we use another shot from the Anton Corbijn photo session?"
Reissue Guy: "Sorry, Anton wants 80 Euros in licensing fees. That's 77 Euros over-budget. Just change the font."

Reissue Guy: "We need to include one more track".
Morrissey: "I haven't got one".
Reissue Guy: "What about this one? 'Treat Me Like A Human Being'"?
Morrissey: "That's barely a tune".
Reissue Guy: "Okay. We'll just go with this unreleased Vini Reilly demo that sounds like a drunk violinist playing over a f***ed dishwasher".
Morrissey: "Just...fine, use 'Treat Me'".
Reissue Guy: "Great. Now there's not enough space for the CD. Have to chop one. Shall I choose, or do you want to?"
Morrissey: *facepalm*

etc.
 
How can there not be enough space on the CD when the centenary edition had the full album plus five or six more tracks? Something to do with re-mastering, I assume? All this remastering is a lot of shit anyway. Unless you (a) have speakers the size of a fridge-freezer and immaculate hearing, or (b) have no life and spent hours analysing each song note by note, you don't really notice any difference. Unless of course you fall into the aptly named 'c' category and you don't notice any difference but will pretend you do to try to sound like some sort of music aficionado.

And please don't provide links to some geek on the Internet who has written a 10 million word essay on how great re-mastering is. I don't care that much really.

I'll be buying this, as I've bought the other reissues, for the artwork and for the sake of having a "complete" collection. It's only £15, if you don't want it don't buy it or continually bitch about it on here.
 
Well well well, mrsmithsdisco a nice little collection on there IR, I would have expected no less though.
 
I hate to be captain obvious but...GOD!! When I read this I just keep thinking about Paint a vulgar picture. I mean he could have said no,if he wanted to...right?
 
I beg to differ about the remastering issue. I don't usually care about alleged sound quality, but the remastering for the recent 'Bona Drag' and 'Very Best Of' were really good. If you have relatively good speakers, you can definitely tell the difference. And it's certainly not one of these half-arsed remasters, where the record companies just make the music louder. I can only assume that these remasters have been passionately treated by people who really know what they're doing.

I obviously have no evidence to back this up, but I also think it's quite naive to think that Morrissey was just going along with what the record company wanted. He seems like a man who sticks to his principals. And I think it's unlikely that he doesn't have anymore tracks that he could have used instead. I feel that Morrissey is probably doing what some novelists do, which is to release an "improved" version of the same novel they released years ago, "how it should have been" now that they have the benefit of hindsight.
 
I guess if you want unreleased demos, outtakes etc Morrissey is not very forthcoming. You'll have to track them down yourself. I love the idea of releasing a 10" picture disc as a single in these days of downloads, mp3s and USB sticks and what have you not though.
 
So not knowing a thing about the Liberty Records could this be a sign that there is some communication between Moz and EMI for a larger deal? Or would that be assuming too much...
 
So not knowing a thing about the Liberty Records could this be a sign that there is some communication between Moz and EMI for a larger deal? Or would that be assuming too much...

The only thing is though, I feel as though a bunch of us thought the same thing whenever the "Very Best Of" came out on Major Minor - that a compilation release would just be a contractual stipulation he'd have to fulfill in order for EMI to release a new album by him..But surely their can't be THIS many needless obligatory releases in the fine print..I can't imagine it's the most lucrative plan for EMI. I feel as though if publicized well enough, a new Morrissey album would almost certainly sell better sooner than making fans and record buyers fed up with seeing another re-release or compilation. For those whose impulse is to check under the "Morrissey" section each time they go into a record shop, it's gotta be disenchanting to see a dusty stock of songs you already have slapped inside a "rare, archival, never before seen" sleeve-shot of Morrissey 20 years younger than he actually is.
 
The only thing is though, I feel as though a bunch of us thought the same thing whenever the "Very Best Of" came out on Major Minor - that a compilation release would just be a contractual stipulation he'd have to fulfill in order for EMI to release a new album by him..But surely their can't be THIS many needless obligatory releases in the fine print..I can't imagine it's the most lucrative plan for EMI. I feel as though if publicized well enough, a new Morrissey album would almost certainly sell better sooner than making fans and record buyers fed up with seeing another re-release or compilation. For those whose impulse is to check under the "Morrissey" section each time they go into a record shop, it's gotta be disenchanting to see a dusty stock of songs you already have slapped inside a "rare, archival, never before seen" sleeve-shot of Morrissey 20 years younger than he actually is.

I would have thought that a new (possibly final) album on EMI would have led to increased interest in the Morrissey back catalogue. EMI must be putting some finance towards the re-issue but probably not enough for a full record deal.
 
How can there not be enough space on the CD when the centenary edition had the full album plus five or six more tracks? Something to do with re-mastering, I assume? All this remastering is a lot of shit anyway. Unless you (a) have speakers the size of a fridge-freezer and immaculate hearing, or (b) have no life and spent hours analysing each song note by note, you don't really notice any difference. Unless of course you fall into the aptly named 'c' category and you don't notice any difference but will pretend you do to try to sound like some sort of music aficionado.

And please don't provide links to some geek on the Internet who has written a 10 million word essay on how great re-mastering is. I don't care that much really.



I'll be buying this, as I've bought the other reissues, for the artwork and for the sake of having a "complete" collection. It's only £15, if you don't want it don't buy it or continually bitch about it on here.


Well said... My sentiments exactly!
 
It will be interesting to see how Stephen Street's remastered 'Viva Hate' tracks compare with the versions remastered by Bill Inglot and Dan Hersch that were included on 'Bona Drag' Redux and Very Best Of
...

No, honestly. It will.
 
Thank you very much, it's my youtube channel.
I've put that clip together for a bit of fun this morning. :)

You have done a great Job, as always I.R.!
Cheers Moz
 
am I the only one who thinks the new artwork/typography is a marked improvement over that hideously dated typography/back cover of the original?

As happy as I am to hear that a Stephen Street remastered edition of Viva Hate will soon be in my hands, there are legitmate gripes with this re-issue that will do more harm than good to the album's legacy amongst Mozzer's core audience

for one, axing a song as wonderful as "Ordinary Boys" in favour of sub-standard b-side fare like "Treat Me Like a Human Being" is nothing short of atrocious. If they were so adamant that song was on there, they could have easily slipped it in between "Ordinary Boys" and "I Don't Mind If You Forget Me". They had no problem doing this with "Hairdresser On fire" for the original American release, and there is PLENTY of room on the album for an additional three-minute song

Which brings me to my next point: why mark the occasion of an album like Bona Drag with new artwork and layout, remastered sound and SIX bonus tracks, and then skimp on bonus tracks for a Viva Hate reissue? PLENTY of time left on a CD or a double-LP for added vault tracks that any fool knows his hardcore fanbase would love to get their hands on, with the added benefit of enhancing the overall collection of songs with unreleased session material at the end of the original running order

instead, they hatchet one of the best songs on the record's back half and replace it with a b-side that was just released last year on a pointless "Glamorous Glue" re-issued single. If a track from the original running order just HAD to go, wouldn't "Break Up The Family" make the most sense, since it was just (pointlessly) remastered and released on last year's "Very Best Of" collection

as one person said, this is a grave error in jugement all around, and a missed opportunity to validate another Morrissey album re-issue in the eyes of his obsessives. And as one of those hardcore obsessives, I'll still be buying both the VH re-issue and that godawful Sparkshead picture disc, but ONLY because I'm an obsessive fan

Which gives me more than enough right to bitch, moan and plead my case about what I don't like about the whole thing
 
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