I’ve been a fan since the Smiths.
That's where I stopped reading. Nothing is a bigger bummer than when someone on this site starts their response with, "I've been a fan since the Smiths." Shame on you for making me embarrassed for you. If you want to get into a dick-swinging contest, I have plenty of Smiths ticket stubs that begin with the Palladium Theater in '85 up until the Universal Amphitheater and Irvine Meadows in '86 to throw on the table.
See, I can play that game, too, but it's boring and I digress.
JM was untouchable in the Smiths, but it's been diminishing returns since then. The The? Sure, great. The Pretenders and Talking Heads? Could've been good if he stuck around longer than a weekend. From there, it's been hit and miss, but mostly, just forgettable. The solo stuff? Well, let's just say Johnny has the perfect voice for a lead guitarist. And Electronic -- that first LP was pretty good, but the band's first single was a dig at Morrissey. It started that far back.
I'm not going to spoon feed you, but go put your big-girl panties on and look for JM interviews over the last few years. There was a lengthy string of bitchy, backhanded comments he gave where he couldn't shut up about Morrissey. And it all cumulated in JM's interview with Uncut in March of this year (how did you miss that one?) when he was doing press for a new LP, and went into his usual "Down with Morrissey" soundbites.
Even JM's son Nile made it a family affair, and hopped in and and got involved. The only reason why Nile Marr is Nile Marr is because of his daddy's relationship with Morrissey, and his chart performance proves it. (
The numbers don't lie.) The Marrs came off childish and petty. It would have been so easy to keep it civil, but Johnny relished the friction until Morrissey publicly told him to chill out in an open letter.
JM's only response was a limp "open letters hadn’t really been a thing since 1953," but had nothing of substance to say to defend himself. He even threw in a Trump reference in there, which seemed like a subtle attempt to align Morrissey with the old, orange pig. It was such a cringy retort, like is that all you got? Whereas Morrissey's letter was eloquent and polite, it kind of read to me like he was pleading with JM to live his life and stop living in the past.
So if JM is so offended by el Hefe, why does he keep singing the lyrics he wrote? Why not just play Smiths songs as instrumentals? That said, judging from this comment in Far Out shows that Johnny has learned his lesson.
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All of this, the bit about Electronic is really appalling and how Marr stabbed Hooky in the back too, he is really a nasty character.