Johnny Marr prefers Ian Curtis to Morrissey!

Maurice E

Junior Member
The December edition of Uncut came out today.
There's a short interview with Marr and Bernie Summers (presumably to tie in with the 'Best of Electric' out soon if not already).
The Idea of the piece is to find out how well people in bands know each other by predicting the answer to their bandmate’s question.
One question was simply ‘Morrissey or Ian Curtis’ to which Marr replies ‘Ian Curtis, today’.
Hmm, makes the rumour about Marr joinging Moz on stage at the G-Mex seem even more far fetched; especially given Morrissey's well publicised views on the merits of The Joy Division!
 
Hmm, makes the rumour about Marr joinging Moz on stage at the G-Mex seem even more far fetched; especially given Morrissey's well publicised views on the merits of The Joy Division!

True, especially since in that short little answer he hints that he might have preferred Morrissey at an earlier time but not now. It reminds me of an Electronic interview in Details back in 1991 or 1992 in which Marr implied (or failed to reject the implication) that Sumner could have sung "Hand In Glove" better than Morrissey.

But, taking a less negative view, it's also possible that Marr gave the Ian Curtis answer to flatter his current friends in New Order, all the more so because New Order is enjoying and leading a mild Joy Division revival by playing songs in concert and re-releasing remastered versions of JD's albums in 2007. I tend to believe this rather than the other interpretation, because Marr seemed indifferent to Joy Division when The Smiths started. My impression was that he disliked them, actually (and Factory Records also), along with most "modern" outfits; all his musical influences at the time pre-dated punk and post-punk. Yet he claims his favorite New Order song is "In A Lonely Place" (written by Joy Division), so who knows?

In any case it's an unfortunate comment to make. Possibly it stems from the fact that "Ringleader Of The Tormentors" fell out of the charts faster than any #1 in history, while "Boomslang" set speed records in reaching the cut-out bins. That has to hurt.
 
I've never read an interview yet where Johnny doesn't have a little dig at Morrissey. It's to be expected. Morrissey has always been a lot nicer about Johnny than the other way round.
 
"There's a short interview with Marr and Bernie Summers (presumably to tie in with the 'Best of Electric' out soon if not already)."

Fortunately some kind soul posted the Best Of Electronic on these message boards, namely Getting Away With It and Get The Message.
 
Interesting comment and I've noticed that too. Morrissey has remained pretty positive about Marr over the years.

When Marr said 'Ian Curtis, today' I like to think he meant that he changes his mind quite frequently, but it was probably still meant as a little dig.

It's strange how Marr's post Smiths stuff has been relatively poor. A few Electronic singles were absolutely splendid though (especially Getting Away and For You)...


I've never read an interview yet where Johnny doesn't have a little dig at Morrissey. It's to be expected. Morrissey has always been a lot nicer about Johnny than the other way round.
 
It's strange how Marr's post Smiths stuff has been relatively poor.

I think that is a relatively poor comment to make. Do you mean the one album he has done with The Healers, or do you include the excellent stuff he has done with The The, Kirsty MacColl, Billy Bragg - just to mention three?

Anyway, he probably prefers Ian Curtis (today) as both are Manchester City fans, so they could meet up and go for a pint and watch the game. Well, if Curtis was alive they could!

The Goat
 
Joy Division with Curtis as lead singer were good. Sumner singing Joy Division songs is not good. He is the most overated lead singer around today. I was totally underwhelmed when I went to see them at the Apollo a couple of years ago.
 
"Today" as in "these days" or literally the day of the interview, I wonder. And is it Curtis vs. Smiths-era Moz or present-day Moz?

Is ROTT statistically the fastest-dropping #1 of all time, or are you exaggerating?
 
I think its quite ironic that even today Johnny Marr still finds himself under Morrissey's shadow. This latest comment from Marr malicious or not proves there is still some resentment or even jeolousy, its hard to tell or not, LOL.

But if truth be told, I think Marr only wishes he would have the success Morrissey has had since becoming a solo artist. 9 out of 10 people only remember Morrissey from The Smiths and say Morrissey was The Smiths and I for one couldn't agree more even though we all know Johnny played a HUGE part too but as Morrissey sings, That's Just The Way It Goes.

I bought Johnny Marr and The Healers first album, played once or twice and off to the reject bin it went. As for Electronic, they did some great songs but most of it was not commercial stuff so again, not goot enough.

Johnny is an excellent guitar player and I for one wish he would stick to that, its what he does best.
 
Considering how Ian Curtis has been dead for more than 25 years, Johnny can't have high thoughts about Morrissey. ;)
 
Joy Division with Curtis as lead singer were good. Sumner singing Joy Division songs is not good. He is the most overated lead singer around today. I was totally underwhelmed when I went to see them at the Apollo a couple of years ago.

I don't think he is overrated because I don't think there is anyone who rates him as a singer. Even New Order fans admit he is terrible. I think they see it as endearing. Along with his "dad" dancing.
 
I think its quite ironic that even today Johnny Marr still finds himself under Morrissey's shadow. This latest comment from Marr malicious or not proves there is still some resentment or even jeolousy, its hard to tell or not, LOL.

But if truth be told, I think Marr only wishes he would have the success Morrissey has had since becoming a solo artist. 9 out of 10 people only remember Morrissey from The Smiths and say Morrissey was The Smiths and I for one couldn't agree more even though we all know Johnny played a HUGE part too but as Morrissey sings, That's Just The Way It Goes.

I bought Johnny Marr and The Healers first album, played once or twice and off to the reject bin it went. As for Electronic, they did some great songs but most of it was not commercial stuff so again, not goot enough.

Johnny is an excellent guitar player and I for one wish he would stick to that, its what he does best.

The thing with Johnny is, he is only as good as the person he is working with. He tends to take on their characteristics. That's why The Healer's was so bland. He needs someone to tell him what to do.
 
Yeah, he did do some excellent stuff with MacColl and Bragg but that was mainly back in the 80's (except a few BB songs in the early 90s). He must have written nearly 100 songs in the 80’s, over half of which were fantastic pieces of music. But since then he’s probably written less than half that amount and a much smaller fraction of those were of similar quality to his 80’s stuff.

Judged by his incredibly high standards I think his recent stuff has been poor; by normal people’s standards, there have been some great relatively recent songs (e.g. For You). The last Electronic studio album got some pretty good reviews although the single I heard wasn't great.

In response to another comment about ROTT being the fastest falling album from number 1, that was a typical Moz exagerration. It did tumble pretty quickly but stuck around longer than Vauxhall (which also made number 1) and also sold quite a lot more.



I think that is a relatively poor comment to make. Do you mean the one album he has done with The Healers, or do you include the excellent stuff he has done with The The, Kirsty MacColl, Billy Bragg - just to mention three?

Anyway, he probably prefers Ian Curtis (today) as both are Manchester City fans, so they could meet up and go for a pint and watch the game. Well, if Curtis was alive they could!

The Goat
 
In that biography that was recently published, one of the most interesting quotes was Johnny saying how demanding Morrissey was of him. Always wanting him to write as much as possible.

This is probably what made Johnny so good at the time, but also in the end, the reason why he left. He just couldn't keep up with Morrissey's level of output.

You can also see why, in that case, if he ends up working with people who aren't that driven, he is not going to make the effort to push himself either. That's why it was so disastrous for him to hook up with Bernard Sumner for all those years. They just made each other lazy, hanging around the studio just taking lots of drugs.
 
I read Johnny Marr's biography while I was only holiday a couple of weeks ago and it did very little to change my opinion that Marr's post-smiths career has been unremarkable. I didn't even know he'd played on some tracks on Oasis' Heathen Chemistry. It did mention at one point that he'd said in an interview that Bernard Sumner was more "diva-like" than Moz.
 
Johnny, oh Johnny.

Forever you will be in the long shadows of Morrissey's success.
Forever you will be weeping and wailing over your disastrous musical relationship with Summers (or whatever the hell his name is, fat bloke from New Order)

Johnny, go suck on a lemon!
 
I don't think he is overrated because I don't think there is anyone who rates him as a singer. Even New Order fans admit he is terrible. I think they see it as endearing. Along with his "dad" dancing.
That's so true... I am a big Joy Division fan and a relatively mild New Order fan, but Barney's voice is very weak...it works on NO stuff, but, as another JD fan said one nme.com board: "Barney should be shot for trying to sing Joy Division songs". :p

As for Marr, it's really sad that he can't help but have a dig at Morrissey from time to time. Really, as Moz said, how come nobody ever asks him is he was desperately in love with Morrissey? :p (this is a joke, in case you didn't notice the smiley :) )
 
Back
Top Bottom