It’s taken me 17 weeks, but I’ve finally decided that I have to share the review given to a Morrissey single by the NME:-

He has become the embarrassing incontinent grandfather of Britpop. The song is piss-poor old crap and a tune-impaired three-minute drone.

Now, given that the world’s most famous vegetarian and the paper have waged a bit of a war with one another since the late 80s, it’s no surprise that many of his releases have been treated with some disdain by various correspondents. It has to be said however, that this is a particularly vitriolic putdown.

But whisper it……they’re right….well the bit about it being piss-poor old crap and tune-impaired.

mp3 : Morrissey – Dagenham Dave
mp3 : Morrissey – Nobody Loves Us
mp3 : Morrissey – You Must Please Remember

It’s a 3-track CD single saved by the quality of Nobody Loves Us, a song that amidst so much flotsam and jetsam demonstrates that the great man could still give us something worth clinging onto as we floundered for reasons to keep believing.

The cover star for once is not Morrissey, but instead is a photo taken sometime in the 60s of footballer Terry Venables (born in Dagenham). If you want to know more about the life of that particular chancer, read here.

The single was released in August 1995 and reached #26 in the UK charts. It can also be found on the largely unloved Southpaw Grammar LP.

Happy Listening.

The release of You Are The Quarry in 2004 made for a triumphant comeback, but if anything the pressure on the 2006 follow-up LP Ringleader Of The Tormentors was even more intense as we waited to see if the quality could be maintained.

The new single was only officially made available some 7 days before the LP, but of course was already widely known thanks to regular airings of the video as well as leaked copies being posted on the internet.

Lyrically, You Have Killed Me is one of the most unusual singles ever released by Morrissey. They drew on the film Accatone, a work released in 1961 and dealing with pimps, prostitutes and thieves living in a rundown part of Rome, and also namechecked other Italian film stars (although I’ll confess to not knowing any of them before this single was released).

At this point in time, Morrissey was obsessed with Rome, choosing to both live and record the latest LP there. It’s a single that I reckon is one of his classiest throughout his long solo career, although I know a number of fans were disappointed that it was so radio-friendly, thanks to the influence of Jesse Tobias, the new guitarist in Morrissey’s band, and co-writer of this single. (Tobias had previously been associated with a number of mainstream American acts). By now no-one could reasonably expect the great man to be churning out pastiches of The Smiths, and in reality, all he was doing was reflecting the sort of music that many of his ageing fans were listening to elsewhere.

The b-sides were also quite interesting. One was a near unrecognisable cover of an old track by The New York Dolls, a 70s act that Morrissey had been obsessed with as a teenager, while the two original tracks were similar to the single in sounding polished and rather mainstream.

mp3 : Morrissey – You Have Killed Me
mp3 : Morrissey – Good Looking Man About Town
mp3 : Morrissey – Human Being
mp3 : Morrissey – I Knew I Was Next

A fabulous collection of songs if you were prepared to accept it was time for Morrissey to start acting his age….indeed, it could be argued that the two original b-sides are as good as anything that was on the critically acclaimed LP many of us rushed out and bought the following week.

Continuing the theme of The Eternal City, the sleeve shot was taken on railtracks in the Pigneto zone of Rome by Italian photographer Fabio Lovino.

Oh and I meant to also say that You Have Killed Me remains one of the great man’s most succesful singles, hitting #3 in the UK charts at the beginning of May 2006, and helped the LP hit #1 in the album charts shortly afterwards – only the third of his LPs to hit that spot (the others were Viva Hate and Vauxhall And I).

Enjoy.

The second single taken from Kill Uncle was, at the time, the lowest charting single in the solo career, hitting only #33 in April 1991.

And being honest, that’s about all it deserved.

The b-sides are what make this single a bit more interesting, with one being his take on one of the most famous songs ever written by Paul Weller, while the other has a drum pattern that for some reason always reminds me of London by The Smiths.

mp3 : Morrissey – Sing Your Life
mp3 : Morrissey – That’s Entertainment
mp3 : Morrissey – The Loop

A few years back during a live show at the Edinburgh Playhouse, the audience was treated to a version of The Loop that I thought was one of the highlights of the night thanks to the harder and less refined edge that his backing band brings to all the Smiths-era and early Morrissey songs. It doesn’t often work (and if you want proof, track down their live butchering of This Charming Man), but for some reason it did on this.

Great haircut in the sleeve photo which was taken by Pennie Smith.

Enjoy.

One of his best but most neglected solo singles.

It was the third to be taken from the much derided LP Maladjusted and the follow-up to the rather appalling Roy’s Keen (as featured before in this series).

mp3 : Morrissey – Satan Rejected My Soul
mp3 : Morrissey – Now I Am A Was
mp3 : Morrissey – This Is Not Your Country

The single was in fact the closing track on the LP. Satan Rejected My Soul is, without question, one of the greatest song titles ever dreamt-up with the bonus of a catchy, sing-a-long tune to boot. It really was much much more deserving than the lowly #39 position in the chart and IMHO if this had been the lead-off single prior to the release of Maladjusted, it would have been a Top Ten hit, and the subsequent reviews of the LP would have been kinder.

Now I Am A Was really felt as if it was a farewell song from the great man, with its lyric referring to him starting at the top and working his way down…..while This Is Not Your Country is one of the few overtly political songs in his cannon with its observations on life in Northern Ireland. In my humble opinion, one of the best things he has ever written in his whole career…..

Released in December 1997 – it would be almost 7 years before Morrissey released his next single.

Trivia fact. The 7″ version did not include This Is Not Your Country, but a limited number of sleeves were printed saying that it did. I saw the misprint on sale on-line the other day for £60.

Happy Listening.

The second single taken from Your Arsenal surely contains one of the laziest ever Morrissey lyrics:-

You’re the one for me, fatty
You’re the one I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you’ll say
If  I’m in your way

All over Battersea
Some hope
and some despair

Repeated umpteen times with the occasional Buddy Holly impressions (a-hey) thrown in for padding.

It preceeded the album by three weeks and had me a bit worried about how it was all going to turn out. As it was, Fatty was one of the poorest tracks on the LP and was soon a candidate for frequent use of the skip button on the CD player.

Sometimes disappointing singles get rescued by decent tracks on the b-side, but sadly these efforts are quite forgettable.

mp3 : Morrissey – You’re The One For Me, Fatty
mp3 : Morrissey – Pashernate Love
mp3 : Morrissey – There Speaks A True Friend

At least the cover was a cracker…..another Linder Sterling photo taken at a concert in Chicago in 1991.

But my opinions weren’t shared by the general public….it was a single that climbed higher in the charts than any of those taken from Kill Uncle, hitting #19 in July 1992.

Happy Listening.

It is sometimes easy to forget that there was no new Morrissey music released between 1997 and 2004 – a period of time that was well in excess of his career with The Smiths.

The disappointment of Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted (although I don’t think the latter is as poor an LP as is often perceived), combined with the fact that only one of the last ten singles had ever cracked the Top 20 led many to write off Morrissey once and for all. He had been signed and dropped by a number of labels in the 90s and it looked as if his recording days were over.

But this period of inactivity at the end of the 20th Century coincided with many writers and journalists getting all nostalgic and acknowledging his importance to pop music, mostly in partnership with Johnny Marr. It also coincided with a fresh interest in indie-music as it came back into vogue one more time, and many of the singers and songwriters now being profiled in magazines, newspapers and within these new-fangled things called blogs started namechecking Morrissey all the time.

In 2002, he undertook a three-month long world tour, partly as a reminder that he still existed, but mainly to air a number of new songs that he had written over the past five years in the hope that some label would come in with an offer that wasn’t insulting. The tour got a lot of positive publicity, with many reviewers commenting that much of the new stuff sounded as good as anything he’d ever released and many alos wrote that they hoped these would see the light of day on a forthcoming record.

It was also noted that many of the new songs had a contemporary feel to them – ie indie-pop – that would find favour with a brand new audience, many of whom hadn’t been born when The Smiths formed and to who Morrissey was a mysterious figure that loads of their mums, dads, aunties and uncles held in high esteem.

I first heard the comeback single courtesy of MTV2. I wasn’t actually paying all that much attention at the time when the first notes were struck – I was reading the sports section of a newspaper – but then I realised that this was a voice with which I was very familiar. The focus of my attention immediately shifted…..

I was stunned. At long last, Morrissey sounded important again. Here was a single that was wasn’t all that different from the sounds being churned out by the popstars of the moment, but his presence on it – his vocal delivery, his charisma within that video, his ability to come up with a great singalong chorus without it being something dumb – made it something truly special.

The other great trick was that we were getting to see the video some 4 weeks before the actual single was available in the shops, so that with every showing and listening, we realised how exceptional a song it was, especially compared to recent Morrissey songs. Some old fans might have bought the single out of habit, but many more came back to Morrissey for the first time in a over a decade, and along with an army of new fans bought it because it was something worth owning.

And despite it getting very little support from Radio 1 in the UK, the comeback single entered the UK charts at #3 which was easily the highest position in his entire career. If this single had been a stinker and a flop, then I guess Morrissey would have had no option but to retire from music, so in many ways, this was probably the most important record of his career:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Irish Blood, English Heart
mp3 : Morrissey – It’s Hard To Walk Tall When You’re Small
mp3 : Morrissey – Munich Air Disaster 1958
mp3 : Morrissey – The Never-Played Symphonies

What initially struck me when I bought the two CD singles was that the other songs were actually more than half-decent tracks and that in being able to issue them as mere b-sides, Morrissey must have great confidence in the dozen or so that he was going to issue on his comeback LP, You Are The Quarry.

His confidence wasn’t misplaced, as it is a very fine recording, ….but I’ll argue that it could have been a truly great album if some of the tracks that he kept back as b-sides (four singles were eventually issued) had replaced some of the less memorable tunes on the album.

But that’s Morrissey for you…..he never really does things the easy way.

PS

A few weeks back, as Part 8 of this re-posted series, I mentioned that the single Everyday Is Like Sunday had previously been the subject of a dmca complaint but that I had filed it differently this time to avoid a repeat situation.

I’m guessing someone out there decided to have a laugh at my expense.  This e-mail arrived during the week:-

To whom it may concern,

We have recently received a complaint regarding the following file(s), which you have been sharing through your Box account, and infringe on a previously-held copyright:

MyBox/Morri$$ey – Everyday…(is like a certain day of the week).mp3
MyBox/Marion – Violent Men.mp3
MyBox/Morrissey – Sister I’m A Poet.mp3
MyBox/Morrissey – Disappointed.mp3

We have deleted the above file(s) from your account. Please delete any other files from your account that may infringe on any previously-held copyrights, as these go against the Box Terms of Service. Be aware that further infractions may result in account termination.

Sincerely,
The Box Team

Totally bemused.

(1) the person making the complaint will have to have spelled out to box, that the artist had two dollar signs in the middle of his name rather than the usual double s.

(2) the person making the complaint has thrown in a Marion track from a different posting

(3) the person making the complaint didn’t extend it to Will Never Marry, the fourth track on the 12″ of Sunday which was also part of the posting at the beginning of May.

Ho hum.

Released in February 1991, Our Frank was the eighth single by Morrissey in just three years, but turned out to be the first flop of his career in as much as it failed to reach the Top 20.

It was also the first track on the LP Kill Uncle which hit the shops in March 1991.

I remember being utterly underwhelmed by this single at the time, but it is one that has grown on me quite a bit. The opening few bars, including the little burst of piano at around 0:17 remind me somewhat of Madness….

mp3 : Morrissey – Our Frank

I suppose on reflection that my initial reaction to the single was somewhat determined by my feeling let down by the two b-sides:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Journalists Who Lie
mp3 : Morrissey – Tony The Pony

Great titles. Shame about the tunes.

The sleeve shot was taken by Pennie Smith whose work has graced many album covers, including that of London Calling.

Happy Listening (especially now that one week on I’ve remembered to add the links!!!!!!).

Of the most recent singles, this is probably the one that is most popular among fans.

It will always have a special place in my own memory, given it was the song that opened his 45th birthday gig in Manchester back in 2004, during which both myself and Mrs Villain hung onto one another for dear life as we willingly got dragged into a mosh pit down the front. We then showed a huge amount of common sense by retreating some 20 yards from the stage where we watched the rest of the show in a bit more comfort and a great deal more safety.

And yet…..when you compare it to many of the early Morrissey singles, it’s a tune that’s really quite ordinary, albeit it’s a song that has a catchy enough chorus:-

mp3 : Morrissey – First Of the Gang To Die

It was the second single taken from You Are The Quarry, and while it didn’t match the Top 3 position of Irish Blood, English Heart, its performance in reaching #6 in the UK charts meant at the time it was his third-highest single chart position, and more incredibly, First Of The Gang To Die became the best-performing follow-up single he had released in his solo career.

It’s a song that clearly means a lot to Morrissey as he’s performed it live more than any other.

But as I mentioned earlier, while it is one I have fond memories of, I don’t rate it as one of my all time favourite Morrissey tunes, although I do love his Buddy Holly impression near the end when he sings ‘he stole all hearts away-a-hay-a-hay-a-hay….’

The single was released on vinyl and CD, and there were three tracks which, in old money, would be called b-sides:-

mp3 : Morrissey – My Life Is A Succession Of People Saying Goodbye
mp3 : Morrissey – Teenage Dad On His Estate
mp3 : Morrissey – Mexico

The first of these is one of the very best-ever Morrissey b-sides, and a song that is arguably superior to some of those which appeared on You Are The Quarry. However, I feel that while Mexico has a nice enough melody, it is somewhat let down by an unusually dull lyric, and while Teenage Dad… has an engaging and sarcastic lyric, it is very badly let down by a pedestrian and plodding tune.

But I’m sure there will folk out there prepared to tell me that I’m well wide of the mark with such observations.

Incidentally, the photo used on the sleeve would appear to have been taken the same day as the photo that features on You Are The Quarry as the suit, shirt and tie combo appear to be identical.

Enjoy.

Now, this is just a hunch, but I reckon that in any poll of 1,000 fans asking for a list of their Top 10 favourite Morrissey singles, there will be at least 999 who include this. And the one who doesn’t is a liar.

Released in June 1988, Everyday Is Like Sunday has proven to be one of the most enduring songs of the solo career, having being played on most of the solo tours, particularly those since the 2002 comeback.  The single went to #9 in the UK charts which is a hugely impressive achievement given that the song had been available on the LP Viva Hate for a few months beforehand. And while I imagine that many fans would have bought the single for the sake of keeping up the collection (that was certainly my reason at the time), the fact is that the three extra tracks provided on the b-side of the 12″ single are as good as anything else Morrissey had released as a solo artist at that time in his career.

It was like a throwback to his early career with The Smiths when the release of a new single was every bit as eagerly anticipated for the b-sides as well as the ones you would see them perform on Top of The Pops.

mp3 : Morrissey – Everyday Is Like Sunday
mp3 : Morrissey – Sister I’m A Poet
mp3 : Morrissey – Disappointed
mp3 : Morrissey – Will Never Marry

The lead track (but not its b-sides) was once the subject of a dmca.  It’s been filed differently this time.

Enjoy.

Today’s offering goes back to 1997 and was the second single to be taken off the LP Maladjusted.

Unusually for a Morrissey single, he’s nowhere to be seen on the cover – instead its a 1950s photo in a London street (I have to be honest when I bought the CD single that it thought the photo had been taken in the 1970s in my own home city…..)

But there is a snap of the great man himself inside, looking as handsome as ever in a grey checked jacket and white shirt, leaning against an old juke-box.

The reason I’m saying so much about the sleeve is that I really don’t have all that much to offer about the actual single which I reckon is one of the poorest and dullest he’s ever released. No tune to speak off and a completely lame lyric which relies totally on a pun. In fact, given there’s no promo video for the song, I’m guessing there was more enthusiasm from the record company than Morrissey himself.

I can just imagine some executive thinking….’maybe all those Manchester United fans will think it’s about one of their players….’

mp3 : Morrissey – Roy’s Keen
mp3 : Morrissey – Lost
mp3 : Morrissey – The Edges Are No Longer Parallel

I know there’s quite a few fans love the song Lost, but I think its nothing more than OK – although it hints at the sort of production that would dominate on You Are The Quarry some 7 years hence…

Enjoy (but I doubt it).

Until 2013’s low-key release of Satellite of Love, the chart performance of Hold On To Your Friends back in May 1994 held the distinction of being the lowest ever position of any Morrissey  single when it peaked at #47. Matters were not helped by the fact that only one song was added to the various formats (7″, 12″ and CD single) in the shape of a rather pointless cover of a song that dated back to 1961:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Hold On To Your Friends
mp3 : Morrissey – Moonriver (extended version)

His version of the Henry Mancini song, which has been covered by dozens of other artists, including the likes or R.E.M., Strangelove and The Divine Comedy (as well as just about every easy-going MOR singer you care to think of) is very very ordinary to the point of dullness. And at 9mins 39 secs in length, it could have done with some serious paring-down.

Happy Listening.

Back in March 1994, Morrissey released what many believe (myself included) to be his best ever solo LP in the shape of Vauxhall And I.

Chock-full of great tunes and witty lyrics, not to mention some of his best ever ballads (and I include his work with The Smiths in that observation), it was preceded a month before its release by The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get – which gave him his first Top 10 single in the UK for 5 years, as well as his only ever entry in the Billboard Hot 100.

And deservedly so, for not only is it one of his best singles, it was accompanied by a couple of more than half-decent b-sides:-

mp3 : Morrissey – The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
mp3 : Morrissey – Used To Be A Sweet Boy
mp3 : Morrissey – I’d Love To

When the LP hit the shops a month or so later, it was a bit disappointing to initially discover that Used To Be A Sweet Boy was also included among its tracks, meaning only 9 of the songs were entirely new. However, if the quantity was somewhat lacking, fans were more than amply compensated with the quality on offer.

Strangely enough, only one more single was taken from Vauxhall and I and arguably, it was one of its weaker tracks….but that’s for next week.

I promised at least one reader that when the Cult Classics series ended I’d use the Sunday slot to feature all the Morrissey singles.  Those of you who don’t like the idea have only got yourselves to blame….if you’d submitted more of your own cult favourites then we wouldn’t be here today looking at the career of a bloke who has invited Cliff Richard and Tom Jones to be special guests on upcoming shows in NYC and LA…..

As I mentioned back in January, Morrissey has released 39 singles across his solo career. Three of these have been US only releases, while another was a gorgeous duet with Siousxie Sioux.  For an awful long while, particularly at the beginning of his solo career, many of his singles weren’t included on any studio albums (although inevitably, they would find their way onto one or more compilations).

This particular release was a stand-alone single, and was actually the fourth and final 45 Morrissey released back in 1991.  It was regarded by many as a return to the more recognisable and better-loved  sound after a flirtation with rockabilly, albeit this single and its new b-side had lyrics that allowed critics to lazily throw the miserablist tag at him.

My Love Life is a song that didn’t really anything for me at the time, but while I’ve grown to like it a lot more over the years I still think its about 45 seconds too long.  It features Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders on backing vocals

But if I wasn’t always fond of the main track, that’s not a statement I’ll ever apply to the new song that was put on the b-side as I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty has always been one of my favourite solo Morrissey tracks.

I really feel this was the sort of musical road that The Smiths were beginning to go down at the end of their career with Johnny Marr trying to introduce more keyboards to the band’s sound, and I’m convinced it’s one that would have been near the top of many ‘my favourite ever Smiths song’ polls had it been written and recorded a few years earlier.

The bonus track on the 12″ is a live recording of There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends. It’s a version recorded for KROQ radio station in Los Angeles, and one that is completely unrecognisable from the original piano-led version that closed the LP Kill Uncle.

My Love Life hit #29 in September 1991, and the cover shot, which shows the famous quiff at its finest, was taken in Dublin while the aforementioned Kill Uncle album was being toured.

mp3 : Morrissey – My Love Life
mp3 : Morrissey – I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty
mp3 : Morrissey – There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends (live)

Happy Listening.

Back in November 2008 over at the old place, I began a series that looked at the 38 singles released by Morrissey.  It was intended to be a weekly series but between one thing and another,  the project took just over a year to complete. 

It was, unsurprisingly, one of the most popular features that ever appeared on TVV.  I’m now considering resurrecting it here on T(n)VV, partly as I’m guessing a number of readers are reasonably new to the stuff that I write and won’t necessarily have been around in 08/09 but also because I am finding increasingly difficult to come up with fresh stuff for the blog on a daily basis.

The thing is dear readers, if it is something that you feel is a total waste of time then please let me know and I will desist….the comments box, as ever, is all yours.

I’m going to do the series in the same random(ish) order from first time round but it won’t simply be a re-write from the first time round as I will incorporate some of the things that were said in the comments section.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the subject matter, Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 Nay 1959 in Manchester. He first found fame as the lead singer with The Smiths (1982-1987) but the following quarter of a century saw him embark on a solo career that has had its highs and lows and which has so far consisted of 9 studio LPs, 2 live LPs, 1 live EP, 11 (count them!!) compilation LPs and 38 singles. Oh and 1 autobiography.

His 39th single was released as a digital download in December 2013 but the vinyl versions won’t be available until late-January 2014. The single and the b-sides are all live tracks…but that’s for a future posting.

Today’s offering dates from 1995 when the great man had just moved label to RCA after seven years with EMI. After the critical and commercial success of Vauxhall and I in 1994 which at long last had folk talking about the songs again instead of simply looking at Moz the strange and often contrary and controversial individual, the content of follow-up LP Southpaw Grammar baffled many.

It contained just 8 tracks in total, of which two were more than 10 minutes in length and a huge departure from anything else he’d done in his solo career. It was an album cover that did not feature a photograph of Morrissey – again this was a departure from anything else thus far in the solo career, albeit the single Boxers, his final record for EMI at the beginning of 1995, had also not featured the singer on the cover.

Southpaw Grammar was released at the end of August 1995 and for the main part received a critical panning, although it sold well enough with long-time fans to reach #4 in the UK charts. It is an album that most fans rate as the most disappointing of the career although there are others who rate it highly for the very reason that it is so different from anything else he has ever done (although I don’t know anyone who is a fan of the extended drum solos!)

Two singles were taken from the LP. The first was Dagenham Dave, which appeared some 7 days in advance of the album (it too had a non-Morrissey sleeve).

The second single was The Boy Racer which came out some three months later. Given the time gap between the two singles, and the fact that Morrissey appears on the sleeve of one of the two CDs that were issued, I’m making an educated guess that it was an effort by the singer and his label to try to generate some fresh interest in the LP.

It was a ploy that failed, as the single got next to no airplay and barely dented the Top 40.

The lack of new songs for the b-sides didn’t help either – all that was on offer were live recordings from a London gig in February 1995.

It’s a bit of a shame as The Boy Racer, while by no means the greatest thing ever recorded, is a reasonable single that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s certainly the most accessible bit of music on the parent album.

But if there’s one thing it did highlight, it was that Morrissey’s performances of songs by his old band left you pining for Johnny Marr:-

mp3 : Morrissey – The Boy Racer
mp3 : Morrissey – London (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Billy Budd (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Spring-Heeled Jim (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself (live)

Enjoy.