Absolutely agree with all of that. His vocals are a less-is-more thing. Great for harmonies/backing but not meant to be the main attraction. It's a "nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there" dynamic. I like Alain a lot but his voice is not meant to carry a song. The songs themselves, though, are consistently great.
I'm just kind of nervous that he's so chummy with Gannon and Spencer. I have a hard time understanding how M is OK with that, being as jealous and territorial and petty as he is. Mind you I'm not saying those are bad traits in his case; he's always been like that and it's worked for him. But it confounds me how he has brought Alain back yet doesn't mind that Alain's solo backing band is mostly comprised of people who have publicly badmouthed M. Kind of cucky on M's part.
Alain would do well to get someone else to write his lyrics for him. He could easily as a director does with an actor just tell the person, this is what I want to say in the song and hopefully get some flowing words to sing. I don't write songs but I do write stories and scripts with dialogue and I can tell you even if it isn't a song the words still need to take certain shapes and fill out certain rhythms to work well. One can give a great actor terrible dialogue and it won't matter one bit how skilful that actor is, the words will still come out like banal drivel. I know because I've written come clumsy dialogue and then heard it out of the actor's mouth and had to fix it quick smart.
Before Alain's first Vegas gigs with Morrissey, Alain was already playing with the
Other Guys and Morrissey had to have known about it then. Since then Alain has been invited back for another Vegas run and is as far as we know he is slated to co write the next album.
So taking all that into account, I don't see his
"chumminess" with the
Other Guys as an issue at all and I definitely don't see it as a cuckold move. Quite the opposite actually. Morrissey may have realised he ain't getting any younger and may have mellowed just a little when it comes to forgiving someone.
He may see bringing Alain back into the fold as one last chance to write some more
songs to save your life... so to speak. Remember
it takes guts to be gentle and kind and Morrissey may see it as an opportune time to put his money where his
BIG mouth is. Lol, managed to get a few lyrics in there. Sorry couldn't help myself
I also don't see Alain's return as a replacement for Boz Boorer. Boz didn't write anything on the Dog album and as far as I am concerned it is one of his strongest collections of songs in recent times. Clearly he hasn't just brought Alain along to play rhythm guitar for a gig here and there. It's a big damn deal welcoming Alain back and I suspect Morrissey has big plans for that relationship to produce some fire.
