It will rank, surely, as one of the greatest mysteries of the modern era.
How on earth did a bunch of blokes who'd spent the previous 10 years churning out mediocre, chug-rock indie-pop write an album full of rich and frequently beautiful music with sky-tickling melodies, innovative arrangements and, at times, virtuoso musicianship?
Does a producer really make that much difference?
Was it Gustavo's influence? The early signs were positive. Gustavo is a proper, song-writing musical composer, not just some tokenistic indie-bloke session guitarist who can knock a few chords together, and stick a fuzzy, unmemorable guitar line over the top. But, rather bafflingly, many of the new album's highlights were written by the much maligned J Tobias. How did he manage to up his game so dramatically?
It's obviously great news for us fans - it's what we've longed for, for years. But how did it happen?
Sorry,but I think your assessment is a bit off.
Some of us who are guitar players, (and I also play piano and can read and write music, I don't just throw fuzzy chords together), but some us guitar players actually like some of the songs with a bit of rocking guitar crunch. Don't forget Morrissey is and has always been more along the lines of Indie pop if not full blown Indie pop. I don't know if its the songwriting or what,but Jessy seems to always be getting picked on. His job isn't that easy. There are a ton of riffs and fills he has to play on most of the songs while playing live. Yes one aspect is the heavy guitar chording from time to time, but a lot of what he plays is coloring around Boz playing rhythm on an acoustic guitar or only slightly crunchy electric. With the amount of fills he has to play it sometimes can almost be like one big long guitar solo in itself. And keep in mind how many songs between older songs of Moz and Smith songs are they playing that Jessy actually had a hand in writing? So for him to play all of the guitar riffs pretty much note for note perfectly, regardless if you think there is too much overdrive to his sound or not is pretty impressive.
And from a guitar player's perspective believe it or not Jessy is considered to get pretty good tone for that particular Alternative Indie distorted guitar style,compared to a lot of other guitar players out there. He uses a lot of boutique hand made small company made guitar effect pedals and the same goes for the amps that he uses. As for Boz I'm pretty sure he has an endorsement deal with Blackstar amps, which at best are mediocre entry priced tube amps. Blackstar doesn't really get into any of the real pricey hand wired stuff that most touring professionals play these days. But I get it,he's pushing there amps. Boz uses mostly vintage amps when they record anyways, which are hand wired.
I've always really liked the Moz sound,(which I;ll explain), more or less hasn't changed that much sine Your Arsenal, (exception being,most of the ballads on Vauxhall). But even those ballads on Vaux sound similar to the mellower songs from each subsequent release. I personally prefer the circa 1994-1997 sounds of songs like Now I am a was,Know body loves us,You must Remember,Lost,Sunny and their two B-sides etc... To me the ultimate perfect blend of both Heavy guitar Moz and more mellow guitar Moz would be the studio version of Triouble Loves Me. It has the haunting piano chord verses and then of course has its moments of exploding guitars. I believe Boz wrote that one. And I highly doubt Boz is out of Ideas. I remember reading an interview where Alain said sometimes he and Boz will send over 30 to 50 instrumental tracks each, and it more or less depends on how many of those inspire melodies for Moz to sing over. So I think your wrong in stating Boz is out of ideas. If anything Moz has lost a bit of vocal range and maybe even some of his ability to keep up with his carter spanning standards of extremely intense,passionate hooks?? As I say in another post, for thje first time ever I wasn't immediately wowed by any of the melodies on this new album. I usually will get those goose bumps and be drawn into at least a couple of tracks straight away on a new Moz album, and I just didn't get it. Most Moz albums always had a few amazing tracks that you loved pretty m,uch the moment you listened,you didn't need time for them to grow on you,which a lot of people are saying myself somewhat included.
But I've always thought even with (Jessy entering the picture) that Morrissey has a particular sound which, more or less has stayed roughly the same since Your Arsenal. The songwriting is so strong that your guaranteed to get a good strong rhythm section of drumming and bass playing. Then I've always enjoyed the typical Moz arrangement of usually an acoustic guitar thumping some rhythm chords in the background, one of the electric guitars playing some filler more notey riffs,(a lot of times with a tremolo effect being used), and then the 2nd electric guitar keeping the rhythm with a bit of distorted guitar, and depending on the song, Jesse (mostly),but sometimes Boz and he will switch when it comes time for a song's guitar solo. On top of all of the beautiful guitar sounds, you then have the keyboards,usually playing some nice acoustic or electric piano, with a few synth stabs here and there overdubbed on top. Besides some of the early solo songs having a bit of synth because it was still the keyboard days of the 80's after all, Morrissey's music has used much more synths from Quarry onward. Ever since was it Mikey? The original Quarry comeback era keyboardist had one of the modern day Moog Voyager analog synths amongst his keyboard rig, there has been loads of synths on every record Quarry and beyond.
I'm also willing to bet with the Gustavo penned Neil Cassidy, and its heavy chunky guitar,that there is a good chance that Gustavo also plays guitar and writes songs on both keys and guitar? Myself being a musician personally the basic chord structures to the new album's songs sound pretty typical Morrissey to me. What seems to be different is just slightly less overdriven guitars and the amount of clean "spanish type", guitar solo's and fills helps to amplify (so to speak), the fact that the sound is less guitar driven. I for one was a bit let down with Art Hounds. The live version was killer,with tons of energy compared to the studio version.
It seems like since the negative reactions to Kill Uncle and the general consensus that it was to tame; I don't know if Moz had intended to follow that album up with a more guitar driven album? But, having coincidentally hooked up with more of a band,(Alain, Boz,Spencer and Gary), rather than session guys from the first two solo albums,and its Bona drag compilation b-sides he now was able to get a more cohesive raw live band sound which subsequently became the guitar heavier Your Arsenal album. Due to Moz's love for guitar driven glam rock the heavier guitar sound worked.
Perhaps on this new album between the producer and Moz/Boz, (I include Boz because he is the musical director and probably has a say in some of the arrangements or at least its his job to get as close to whatever sound Morrissey probably describes he wants to try and go for per song). But I'm sure they consciously said lets go a little less guitar heavy since the last few records were all very guitar mad. To me perhaps because the album's overall feel could have consciously been discussed some of the arrangements sound a little forced and too busy; I think for some of the songs the more stripped back guitar driven sound would have suited them better. Keep in mind too, a lot of songwriters will make a sketch demo of a song first which a lot of the times will be stripped down and feature pretty much acoustic instruments. Even some of the more guitar heavy songs off the last few albums could have gotten their start being more on the mellow side,and sometimes vice versa. Sometimes too song arrangements can be spontaneously changed just before they are recorded. Lots of variables,so who knows without asking them if they had an overall sound they were going for or if they just took the recording of the album song by song and it ended up the way that it did?
In the end I like an album that is a happy medium of both guitar driven songs and more mellower songs. And agree with me or not, I think the album that best does that is You are the Quarry. I don't know how much of those recordings if any Jessy was involved in as I'm pretty sure Alain Whyte despite not touring with the group anymore still had a heavy hand writing a bunch of the Quarry songs,no? I got rid of all my Cd's and booklets when I went completely digital a few years back so I can't look up Jessy's recording involvement on Quarry,but I'm sure someone will know? I do think Alain played on the album though if I remember right?
But I think your assessment was slightly off.
