If Morrissey had 1/10th of the creativity or originality of Kraftwerk he would be a very lucky man. Kraftwerk, a band which always was and remains ahead of the curve, and actually puts effort into its live shows to put on the most interesting spectacle possible for its paying audience. Morrissey meanwhile, for the past nine or ten years has chugged through the dregs of his discography on-stage which tested the patience of even his most loyal supporters.
This is a man who has been going through the motions in 95% of his recorded output for the better part of 20 years and ran out of topics to write about some time around 1994. Imagine him coming up with an innovative concept like 'Kraftwerk 3D', a radical reimagining of his past music, for his own live shows; implausible because he's content to put in the least amount of effort possible as long as enough people are willing to shell out their hard earned money to see the decreasing amount of live dates he puts on every year. But the recent cancelled European tour suggests that's not quite the cash cow it used to be.
Kraftwerk remain highly regarded and retain their air of mystery and intrigue which they've been cultivating since the early 1970s -- something Morrissey had built up too to an extent but carelessly chucked away about ten years ago. Now he could just as easily be a tabloid journalist and has all the credibility of someone like Piers Morgan. He'd have a lot in common today with 'Tony the Pony', a man whom he despised 30 years ago. Next time he's performing in Tel Aviv he should bring Katie Hopkins on stage to duet with him on the song 'Israel'.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that Morrissey will be a footnote in the musical history books, whereas Kraftwerk will be regarded as one of the most influential bands of the 20th century. They were trail-blazers who inspired the creation of new genres of music -- 1980s new wave, techno/house music, a lot of early hip-hop, trip-hop, and so on, it all owes a debt of gratitude to Kraftwerk. You could probably sit here and list hundreds of musicians who were directly influenced by Kraftwerk -- from Bowie's Berlin trilogy all the way through to Daft Punk or Calvin Harris today.
What did Morrissey inspire? David Cameron apparently, but what else? Misanthropy. Glamorizing childlessness, solitude, bridge burning and schizoid behaviour. Devotion to celluloid and vinyl over human relationships. And an army of bequiffed clones/tossers with an inflated sense of their own self-importance like Morrissey. As for musically: Marr was the influential one. Hardly anything Morrissey inspired stood the test of time, just the odd band here and there like Suede who distanced themselves from him a long time ago.
For an out of shape 59 year old man with a comb-over to state that one of his recent live performances was bigger than Beatlemania is beyond sad. Can you visualise what Morrissey's reaction would have been if in the mid to late 1990s a 60 year old Paul Anka, during the period he started performing a slowed down version of Smells Like Teen Spirit (the sort of thing Morrissey will be doing soon on 'California Son') had stated that his audience reactions were more impassioned than The Beatles' audience reactions during the height of Beatlemania? He rightly would have mocked him for his delusionality, which is exactly what we should be doing to Morrissey now.
(I mentioned late career Paul Anka because that's the sort of artist I'd be more inclined to mention in the same breath as Morrissey today, or maybe Pat Boone, rather than Kraftwerk, David Bowie, or The Beatles. No disrespect intended to Paul or Pat, I'm certain their audiences remain more enthusiastic than Morrissey's to this day. And at least Paul has 'My Way' under his belt, a song which will still be sung at wedding receptions, birthday parties and funerals, long after Morrissey's name has faded from memory.)
