Superb review. Balanced, nuanced, but with some seriously hard-hitting blows:
"Still insisting on the sort of 1990s record deal which would have subsidised that South American jaunt, but no longer exists in an imploding music industry, he has been without a label for some time. "
"Morrissey's talent has stayed circumscribed by its interest in the witty description of his own despair and loneliness, and regressed from the similar subject of The Smiths by losing their songs' healing, communal connection to an adolescent generation. That has been replaced by a deepening, resourcefully amusing solipsism."
" insensitive solipsism, most infamously when, immediately after Anders Breivik's mass killing in Norway, he said on stage that the 77 dead were "nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried shit every day".
"His role as a sort of rock Prince Philip, putting his foot in his mouth on subjects such as this and immigration, has been another reason for old fans abhorring him."
Oh dear. Reviews linking him to Alan Clark and now the Norman Tory Whore bloodline's most egregious exponent of unquestioned Privilege!
Morrissey's previous sulking sojourn ended with YATQ, which was marred by tiresome complaints about his business and legal failings and dramas. He retains elements of that mindset in imagining that there is some conspiracy to prevent him from another spell on the payroll of international entertainment corporations with access to aggressive marketing tactics and stategies to force the lumpen herd consumer to listen to "Boy's A Looker". His most ridiculous song, attempting to lambast Pop Idol when he is being revealed as just another lucky contestant in the early 80s NME managed Indie-Pop Idol Show. With Paul Morley and John Peel as guest panellists choosing who got to escape the dole and who had to get a real job in the real economy doing something other than Bread and Circus. Entertainment as Repressive Tolerance. "Marcuse is me!"
It remains to be seen if Morrissey can do another comeback. If he does, one can only hope he moves beyond his tired tropes and addresses the real existential dramas of being a Boomer Graveyard Multi-Millionaire entertainer in the Hollywood Hills in a way that connects with his non-celebrity audience rather than more nonsense that "says nothing to me about my life". That would be a sad epitaph to his later career when he connected so potently at the outset.
I've enjoyed listening to Morrissey and his contribution to "The Smiths" over the last couple of weeks as I had a comment bash here. But I'm getting bored now so will soon return to lurking and LOL-ing at the cult dramas as they play out. It's like a mad sit-com or Celebrity Big Brother. Thanks to all for contributing to the co-created collaborative revenge on corporate rock star whoredom. Thanks to those who gave us the Interwebs. And, in the days of Manning, Assange and Snowden, thanks to America for it's First Amendment and to DavidT for making this place a reasonable guardian of those foundational principles. "Viva America!" "Viva Los Angeles!" "Viva 'Hilarious Career Car-Crash Live Film!"
"Still insisting on the sort of 1990s record deal which would have subsidised that South American jaunt, but no longer exists in an imploding music industry, he has been without a label for some time. "
"Morrissey's talent has stayed circumscribed by its interest in the witty description of his own despair and loneliness, and regressed from the similar subject of The Smiths by losing their songs' healing, communal connection to an adolescent generation. That has been replaced by a deepening, resourcefully amusing solipsism."
" insensitive solipsism, most infamously when, immediately after Anders Breivik's mass killing in Norway, he said on stage that the 77 dead were "nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried shit every day".
"His role as a sort of rock Prince Philip, putting his foot in his mouth on subjects such as this and immigration, has been another reason for old fans abhorring him."
Oh dear. Reviews linking him to Alan Clark and now the Norman Tory Whore bloodline's most egregious exponent of unquestioned Privilege!
Morrissey's previous sulking sojourn ended with YATQ, which was marred by tiresome complaints about his business and legal failings and dramas. He retains elements of that mindset in imagining that there is some conspiracy to prevent him from another spell on the payroll of international entertainment corporations with access to aggressive marketing tactics and stategies to force the lumpen herd consumer to listen to "Boy's A Looker". His most ridiculous song, attempting to lambast Pop Idol when he is being revealed as just another lucky contestant in the early 80s NME managed Indie-Pop Idol Show. With Paul Morley and John Peel as guest panellists choosing who got to escape the dole and who had to get a real job in the real economy doing something other than Bread and Circus. Entertainment as Repressive Tolerance. "Marcuse is me!"
It remains to be seen if Morrissey can do another comeback. If he does, one can only hope he moves beyond his tired tropes and addresses the real existential dramas of being a Boomer Graveyard Multi-Millionaire entertainer in the Hollywood Hills in a way that connects with his non-celebrity audience rather than more nonsense that "says nothing to me about my life". That would be a sad epitaph to his later career when he connected so potently at the outset.
I've enjoyed listening to Morrissey and his contribution to "The Smiths" over the last couple of weeks as I had a comment bash here. But I'm getting bored now so will soon return to lurking and LOL-ing at the cult dramas as they play out. It's like a mad sit-com or Celebrity Big Brother. Thanks to all for contributing to the co-created collaborative revenge on corporate rock star whoredom. Thanks to those who gave us the Interwebs. And, in the days of Manning, Assange and Snowden, thanks to America for it's First Amendment and to DavidT for making this place a reasonable guardian of those foundational principles. "Viva America!" "Viva Los Angeles!" "Viva 'Hilarious Career Car-Crash Live Film!"
