Morrissey's Kill Uncle turned 27 last March 4: after all this time what are your opinions on it?

Marco

Junior Member
The abum was widely criticized at the time of its release and since then is always voted as one of this worst álbum.
I was listening to Kill Uncle, something I haven't done for quite a while and I was surprised that so many people hates it. From 10 tracks, I think at least 7 are good ones and I love "Driving Your Girlfriend Home", "(I'm) The End of the Family Line" and "Mute Witness". Not to mention the singles that I really like.

What are your thoughts regarding this álbum today. Do you think, like me, it is underrated or it desserves its fate?

Cheers!
 
I agree that there are good songs on it, and I don’t dislike the album. I even enjoy Tony The Pony. To me it just feels... flat, or Morrissey-lite, both in terms of the songs themselves and the production. And I think it gets most of its hate due to the two preceding albums: Strangeways and Viva Hate.

I don’t think people really expected something so... well, lite-sounding, to arrive in the wake of those two monumental releases. If anything, you would more expect the release chronology to be Kill Uncle > Strangeways > Viva, in an alternate universe where things sonically made sense.

But in closing, I like it, just not as much as everything else he has to offer.
 
I think the first four tracks work as a good landing pad for a solid and diverse album. But then the album goes totally of the rails. The throwaway King Leer, the aborted slog of Found x 3 and the tuneless meandering of Harsh Truth Of The Camera Eye are among the worst tracks that he has ever placed on an album. Only Driving Your Girlfriend Home truly stands out from the rest and with the album bowing out after 32 measly minutes, it gives the impression that they were barely able to even scrape the whole thing together. Which is of course not true, considering all the material they left out because of some strange whim of Morrissey.
 
Thanks for this thread which has caused me to give the album a listen for the first time in a while...

The album starts pretty well, I think, with Our Frank which is an enjoyable listen. Not the most dynamic opening single, but not a bad song.

It's with Asian Rut that things start to go a little wrong imo. I don't dislike the song itself, but it kills any momentum the album might have had and Sing Your Life can't really get it back.

Mute Witness would have been a better choice of second song and is a personal favourite from this album. This is one of the only songs from the album that I think Morrissey should attempt again in concert.

King Leer and Found, Found, Found are pretty weak songs, both lyrically and musically.

Things pick up again with Driving Your Girlfriend Home, but unfortunately The Harsh Truth of the Camera Eye drags on for far too long and End of the Family Line is fairly unmemorable. These songs also don't really work well together and there is a lack of energy.

There's a Place in Hell (the original version) is a fitting closer to the album and is better than much that precedes it.

I'm not sure this is Morrissey's worst album (I would personally say that is Southpaw Grammar due to the absence of lyrics), but it wasn't strong enough. The music does sound unfinished (as Mark Nevin has admitted) and lyrically Morrissey was not at his best. The production also doesn't exactly grab the attention.

I do think that Mark Nevin could have been a good collaborator for Morrissey though as later songs Pregnant for the Last Time, My Love Life, I've Changed My Plea to Guilty, I Know it's Gonna Happen Someday and You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side prove.
 
The music does sound unfinished (as Mark Nevin has admitted) and lyrically Morrissey was not at his best. The production also doesn't exactly grab the attention.

I do think that Mark Nevin could have been a good collaborator for Morrissey though as later songs Pregnant for the Last Time, My Love Life, I've Changed My Plea to Guilty, I Know it's Gonna Happen Someday and You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side prove.

Good points, Flib, and I mostly agree. I think many of the songs are actually good (Our Frank, Mute Witness, Sing Your Life, End of the Family Line, There's a Place) but they just sound under-cooked - poorly arranged and produced. I think it's noticeable from footage of the Kill Uncle Tour how much more life they have when played live - even King Leer is really sparky. All that flatness disappears. And yes, when you look at that list of subsequent songs, I'd say Mark Nevin has nothing to apologise for.
 
Slight but enjoyable. Most of what others have said I would back. Side two sorta drags and is unmemorable and some songs barely sound like more than initial demo jams (found found found). The rearranged track list is an improvement. Not just the added songs but it make the first half glide by and build in a way in didn’t before. I also really like the music of king leer
 
Starts well but the momentum isn’t sustained. There’s enough for a good EP and a few strong B sides, but it’s not much of an album. And I like King Leer.
 
Better than Southpaw Grammar, and songs work in isolation... but as a collection, it just doesn’t flow! So many of the songs are so much better live. I’m in the King Leer supporters club, too, though Tony the Pony on the re-release is definitely one of his weakest moments on record!
 
Could have been better if same-period songs such as "My Love Life", "I've Changed my plea to guilty", "Pregnant for the last time", and "The Loop" were part of it in place of some of the weaker songs. And mightier production. Overall, it is the Morrissey album I listen to the least, by far.
 
I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s not my favorite album, but a few of the songs from it are true favorites of mine- “King Leer” and especially, “Mute Witness.”

Although I dislike the 2013 remastered album’s cover art, it does sound much crisper and sharper.
 
I also think it interesting to note that this is still morrissey figuring out how to work as a solo artist on his own. How to arrange sessions and communicate ideas with people who aren't old friends. Stephen street was a hold over from the smiths whom he already had a relationship with as well as Andy Andy mike who he of course worked with in the smiths and then on certain singles and songs. This seems like his first solo album to fully break with the past and in some ways probably suffers from it in the sense that he probably didn't know how to work with and deal with certain people and said people didn't have maybe the relationship or comfort to be more forceful. I mean it's been said that what's been submitted to morrissey was demo music and basic ideas with morrissey returning finished work and I can't help but think that if it ha debentures street he might have said to morrissey that no we need to finish the music
 
There's an airiness to some tracks that give Morrissey's voice a chance to breathe. I liked Morrissey's younger voice, it seemed lean and agile but still had substance. And I love his. twisted logic on 'Our Frank'. Most people feel sick after drinking too much, but he needs drink to stop him being sick.
 
Thanks for this thread which has caused me to give the album a listen for the first time in a while...

The album starts pretty well, I think, with Our Frank which is an enjoyable listen. Not the most dynamic opening single, but not a bad song.

It's with Asian Rut that things start to go a little wrong imo. I don't dislike the song itself, but it kills any momentum the album might have had and Sing Your Life can't really get it back.

Mute Witness would have been a better choice of second song and is a personal favourite from this album. This is one of the only songs from the album that I think Morrissey should attempt again in concert.

King Leer and Found, Found, Found are pretty weak songs, both lyrically and musically.

Things pick up again with Driving Your Girlfriend Home, but unfortunately The Harsh Truth of the Camera Eye drags on for far too long and End of the Family Line is fairly unmemorable. These songs also don't really work well together and there is a lack of energy.

There's a Place in Hell (the original version) is a fitting closer to the album and is better than much that precedes it.

I'm not sure this is Morrissey's worst album (I would personally say that is Southpaw Grammar due to the absence of lyrics), but it wasn't strong enough. The music does sound unfinished (as Mark Nevin has admitted) and lyrically Morrissey was not at his best. The production also doesn't exactly grab the attention.

I do think that Mark Nevin could have been a good collaborator for Morrissey though as later songs Pregnant for the Last Time, My Love Life, I've Changed My Plea to Guilty, I Know it's Gonna Happen Someday and You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side prove.

Good points, Flib, and I mostly agree. But end of the family Line is the best song of the record ( perhaps with a place in hell )
 
For every strong track, there is an inchoate throwaway, made worse by the free rein of Langer/Winstanley's production and the lack of charisma Nevin brought as a guitarist/"bandleader." The production team was much better on the earlier singles when Paresi was allowed to play more full-blooded and less like a drum machine or series of loops. Even with a hired gun like Kevin Armstrong, there was more of a "band sound" on "Ouija Board," "November," and "Piccadilly Palare," perhaps cemented by Rourke and Paresi being a simpatico rhythm section for most of it. Nevin's guitar work feels more like an afterthought. Perish forbid that Your Arsenal had been more of the same, without the whipcrack of glam and rockabilly flourishes that Alain and Boz brought to bear. I think the success of Nevin's two songs on Arsenal are due largely to Morrissey, Th'Lads and Ronson rather than the (musical) composition. One can't say definitively without a demo to compare it to, but I would wager that a good case could be made for Boz and Alain getting a co-write for "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side."

Kill Uncle was Morrissey bringing the "friends who are session musicians and just some plain old sessions musicians" model to its natural term in the wake of Street and Reilly's departures. It was time to get a band again.
 
Much better album than the sum of the songs taken individually, but since people do not listen to full albums anymore, it is unfairly bashed.
 
It is terrible. A slight and lifeless half hour of ill formed ideas and padding in its released form. The album drags with bad pacing, and some of the worst songs Moz has ever released anywhere in any form - not a surprise given he has performed nothing from it live in 27 years. I have a different running order, which is tolerable.

Our Frank
Mute Witness
Pregnant
The Loops
I've Changed My Plea

Sing Your Life
King Leer
Driving Your Girlfriend Home
My Love Life
I'm The End Of The Family Line
There Is A Place In Hell
 
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