Not sure this really counts as either strange or unexpected, but there's a bit of Morrissey/Smiths chat in this new Guardian interview with Molly Rankin, singer from the band Alvvays, which includes the following bit:
There can be a thorniness to fandom that becomes more apparent with each passing year – the idea that idolatry may not be as simple as it was in one’s youth. In almost every interview that Rankin is asked about her influences, she brings up the Smiths – so I ask, Smiths fan to Smiths fan, how she’s coped with the last few years, which have seen Morrissey show support for far-right political parties and spew racist sentiment at his shows and in the press.
“Because I love the idea of two people with great ideas colliding at a very specific time and making something really beautiful and timeless, I feel very invested in the Smiths – so you might have to pry that from my cold dead hands,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that I agree with the views of Morrissey and where he’s gone with all that – you know, justice for Johnny Marr.”
There can be a thorniness to fandom that becomes more apparent with each passing year – the idea that idolatry may not be as simple as it was in one’s youth. In almost every interview that Rankin is asked about her influences, she brings up the Smiths – so I ask, Smiths fan to Smiths fan, how she’s coped with the last few years, which have seen Morrissey show support for far-right political parties and spew racist sentiment at his shows and in the press.
“Because I love the idea of two people with great ideas colliding at a very specific time and making something really beautiful and timeless, I feel very invested in the Smiths – so you might have to pry that from my cold dead hands,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that I agree with the views of Morrissey and where he’s gone with all that – you know, justice for Johnny Marr.”
