Years of Refusal is utterly brilliant

I've finally had a chance to listen to it a few times through. I love it. Some of the songs really grab me, and some don't. But I see the way they fit together, and I can tell that further listening will reveal more little hooks and surprises and alternate interpretations, as they always do. I have questions that will never be answered, and that's the beauty of it.

But I'm really frustrated with all the armchair quarterbacking here. You don't walk up to a painting in a museum and say, "Nice, I guess, but I think he should have used more blue." or bitch about what brand of paint or brushes were used. It's art. Walk up to it, admire it, hate it; project yourself into the story, or watch from afar, but it's not yours. If you want to write songs, then do it, but Morrissey's work is his own, and if you constantly second guess everything he does then you're totally missing the point. He isn't going to make Viva Hate II, or Vauxhall & I, Still Together After All These Years. Not everything has to have a damn sequel.

Real art in music is rare enough, you should appreciate what we have.

Ok, sycophantic (I will be accused) rant over.

Hi Preggers!

The only problem with your otherwise excellent rant is that we come to this site to discuss Morrissey's records. By your logic we would simply love Morrissey's art and not give a damn about arguing its merits one way or the other. You don't want to drink, don't go to the pub. :rolleyes:

Had Morrissey not become the greatest singer, like, ever, he might well have become a music critic. So criticism of his records is okay I think.
 
Hi Preggers!

The only problem with your otherwise excellent rant is that we come to this site to discuss Morrissey's records. By your logic we would simply love Morrissey's art and not give a damn about arguing its merits one way or the other. You don't want to drink, don't go to the pub. :rolleyes:

Had Morrissey not become the greatest singer, like, ever, he might well have become a music critic. So criticism of his records is okay I think.

I'm not a proponent of blind acceptance, but if the conversation stuck to actual criticism and not foot-stamping, it would be more interesting to read. I'd love threads that did close readings of the lyrics, for instance. We never get those, and posts that veer in that direction don't usually get a lot of responses.

I read lots and lots of, "Vauxhall was 89 times better! This sucks! Jesse needs to go!". That's not really interesting or useful criticism, is it?
 
I read lots and lots of, "Vauxhall was 89 times better! This sucks! Jesse needs to go!". That's not really interesting or useful criticism, is it?

I can prove by careful application of algebra that "Vauxhall and I" is merely 30 times better. :)

There is something about his music now that's resistent to criticism. It has become a bit more of a love it or hate it proposition, by design I think. He's enshrining himself in music as a permanent and beautiful paradox. The longer he carries on the more useless criticism gets. I love it. He forces you to re-think your attitude toward pop music, the starting point of your thoughts being, of course, the little bombshell he dropped in 1987 that pop music was dead.
 
I Love the album and it grow and grows and grows.....

My only gripe is that it is a very serious and "dark" Morrissey album, which is nothing unsual of course! However, all the themes and lyrics on this record are quite dark, maybe even more so than before. There is nothing wrong with that in a way - Like Morrissey said, it is a reflection of the society today - but just one "happier" tune on this album would not have gone amiss!

So if ROTT was "the sex album", then YOR is "the death album".....And I am only saying this jokingly! :lbf:
 
Your colloquial English is really natural. There was another thread where this was mentioned but is seems to be a reference to oral sex (of a non-gentle nature) in the back of a taxi, enhanced by the movements of the car.

Have to ask -- have you by chance met Bozman in Portugal? He has a house there. Hope to visit your country one day.

Thank you, you're really kind! And now I finally have a visual! Thanks a lot for the help on that, now I can blush everytime I hear that line. :blushing:

Oh, I wish I could hug his tummy but no... I haven't met with him. Portugal is still big for tiny me. You should visit Ericeira. It's lovely and, sadly, I only found that out now!
 
I must say that after listening a lot to YOR on the past few days I really, really like it -one of my favorite Moz albuns ranking probably 3 or 4 on my list (Vauxhall and Your Arsenal still untouched).

Any way it's :thumb:
 
I was talking to Sweet and Tender Hooligan about the album and something struck me, the second half of the album sounds like b-sides Morrissey might have used in the nineties. Some of the later songs on the record sound like they're grasping for Moz classics, but just can't quite get there, which is sad. Still really like the album, but my opinion of it changes very quickly.
 
Yes, nothing says "sexy" like getting blown in the back of a yellow cab!:)
Who said it was yellow ? Do you know something we don't ?
Besides, black cabs are sexiest of all.
Horny in a Hackney Cab
;)
 
Who said it was yellow ? Do you know something we don't ?
Besides, black cabs are sexiest of all.
Horny in a Hackney Cab
;)

No, just thought it was funnier that way...
 
Last night I had dinner with a friend who, long ago, was in an very unpleasant relationship with a Morrissey-obsessive. She knows Morrissey's solo work, but never really cared for it. She loves The Smiths.

As I was driving her to the train I put on YOR, just as background music. She didn't say anything for a while and, when I went to turn it off, she insisted on hearing it through. She LOVES it, and thinks it is some of his best solo work. She also thinks the current band sound fantastic.

There you go.
 
Last night I had dinner with a friend who, long ago, was in an very unpleasant relationship with a Morrissey-obsessive. She knows Morrissey's solo work, but never really cared for it. She loves The Smiths.

As I was driving her to the train I put on YOR, just as background music. She didn't say anything for a while and, when I went to turn it off, she insisted on hearing it through. She LOVES it, and thinks it is some of his best solo work. She also thinks the current band sound fantastic.

There you go.

Since we're going anecdotal, I have tried in vain for a long time to get my significant other to listen to Morrissey and YOR is making a believer out of her. Go figure.
 
Since we're going anecdotal, I have tried in vain for a long time to get my significant other to listen to Morrissey and YOR is making a believer out of her. Go figure.

:eek: Teach me!

In all seriousness, the most I could get out of my dh was: "It' definitely not worse than anything else he'd done. Kill Uncle is still my favourite though."
 
So if ROTT was "the sex album". . .

One of the things I'm relieved about, with the new album, is that there is no mention of Moz's kegs! As I said way back when (in discussions of Ringleader), it was like a teen-aged experience of sex filtered through a middle-aged man, and, IMO, it often wasn't pretty. On the contrary, some of Morrissey's discussion of sex, now that he's actually having it, is cringe-inducing.

At any rate, I think YOR is a very well put-together record, with the possible exception of that flamenco nonsense. I love the rockers, so I'm happy that (and forgive me for repeating what I posted in the "favourite song from YOR" thread) even the epics are under 5 minutes long, and thrilled that most of the songs clock in under three minutes. I like that not every song is about the same subject, and that not every song's subject is Morrissey (although many of them are, I still hear some iamgination/story-telling in it).

Jerry Finn did everything right that Tony Visconti did wrong (I am no fan of Visconti as Moz's producer--sometimes you need someone to say, "'ang on a minnit!" and clearly there was no such person in Visconti's studio). The vocals! Are front of the mix! Can I get an amen?!

I will need to have a couple more listens before I can talk more specifically about the tracks, but so far I am pleased. Even "Throwing My Arms Around Paris," is a pleasant surprise (I always thought that, live, it sounded like two different songs jammed together willy-nilly, but now I get it--another credit to Finn's production).

ETA: Oh, and anyone care to back me up that "Black Cloud" is a 2.0 version of "Heir Apparent"?

--jeniphir
 
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well, I've actually heard the album now so can finally contribute to this thread! having said that, I've not really made up my mind. been focusing on the six 'new' songs.
'Carol' was the first song to jump out at me (and seems like an obvious second single choice) and I'm slowly realising what the 'It's Not Your Birthday' fuss is all about!
 
well, I've actually heard the album now so can finally contribute to this thread! having said that, I've not really made up my mind. been focusing on the six 'new' songs.
'Carol' was the first song to jump out at me (and seems like an obvious second single choice) and I'm slowly realising what the 'It's Not Your Birthday' fuss is all about!


Better later than never. ;)
 
One of the things I'm relieved about, with the new album, is that there is no mention of Moz's kegs! As I said way back when (in discussions of Ringleader), it was like a teen-aged experience of sex filtered through a middle-aged man, and, IMO, it often wasn't pretty. On the contrary, some of Morrissey's discussion of sex, now that he's actually having it, is cringe-inducing.

At any rate, I think YOR is a very well put-together record, with the possible exception of that flamenco nonsense. I love the rockers, so I'm happy that (and forgive me for repeating what I posted in the "favourite song from YOR" thread) even the epics are under 5 minutes long, and thrilled that most of the songs clock in under three minutes. I like that not every song is about the same subject, and that not every song's subject is Morrissey (although many of them are, I still hear some iamgination/story-telling in it).

Jerry Finn did everything right that Tony Visconti did wrong (I am no fan of Visconti as Moz's producer--sometimes you need someone to say, "'ang on a minnit!" and clearly there was no such person in Visconti's studio). The vocals! Are front of the mix! Can I get an amen?!

I will need to have a couple more listens before I can talk more specifically about the tracks, but so far I am pleased. Even "Throwing My Arms Around Paris," is a pleasant surprise (I always thought that, live, it sounded like two different songs jammed together willy-nilly, but now I get it--another credit to Finn's production).

ETA: Oh, and anyone care to back me up that "Black Cloud" is a 2.0 version of "Heir Apparent"?

--jeniphir

Well put, I agree with just about everything.

I don't mind the sex talk because Morrissey has made a career out of being embarrassingly honest in his lyrics. To me, "I am human and I need to be loved/Just like everybody else does" is equally cringe-inducing, it's just that loneliness and heartache always sound infinitely cooler than waxing euphoric about orgasms that've been thirty years in the making (in this sense Sting and his "tantric sex" schtick have nothing on Morrissey's years of libido-refusal; let's hope he keeps plenty of towels in his bathroom, eh?). I found ROTT's mentions of sex to be charmingly candid, kegs and all. It wasn't a Michael Hutchence lyric, that's for sure.
 
ETA: Oh, and anyone care to back me up that "Black Cloud" is a 2.0 version of "Heir Apparent"?

--jeniphir


I think Black Cloud sounds like Tomorrow (musically anyway)
 
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