Why didn't Mozzer break through like REM?

[Eponymous]

Dear Wise Men & Women of Smithdom & The Solo Kingdom:

I was watching Oye Esteban today. I sat there with a wide grin on my face and enjoyed almost every video (save Sunny, please don't bludgeon me with an axe).

Here is my feeling - I found the videos to be, overall, outstanding, and not obscure or purposefully so. I have always felt this way.

I thought the video for "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" was especially brilliant. Morrissey in that narrow hall with those wonderful dangling lights, huge pixel-like posters on the wall, little girl in a crown, etc.

Morrissey was wearing a beautiful shirt and looked great, really fit, really well, athletic even.

I don't remember how much airplay this video received in the USA, and I wasn't in England so I don't know.

The song is excellent and has all the makings of a commerical hit. It is very...catchy.

So why didn't Morrissey break through with this song & video like REM did with Losing My Religion? Or did he?

Oh wise ones, please guide me with your posts, for I am lost in our Kingdom.

 

[Your Mama]

First they are a great band. It wasn't a fluke. It took ten years of great albums and hard touring to break.

Second, R.E.M. has great management. Don't underestimate this fact.

Third, R.E.M. made small compromises. It wasn't in the music just how they presented it. Moz is a stubborn and lazy bastard at times who seemed to sabotage himself at every turn after the success of Arsenal.

R.E.M. gets savaged on this board but they are a blueprint for how to be a successful band without giving much of anything up.

 

[Shiny Happy People... enough said!]

REM still sucks!

 

[macdoosey]

if the smiths had stayed together longer they may have been as big as REM.
but morrissey's solo stuff was never going to be bigger than the smiths or REM, not because it's bad, but it just wasn't possible after all the acclaim the smiths got, and stuff like that.

 

[Spring-Heeled Fish]

As far as I know it was a biggish hit for Morrissey in both countries, it was his only US hit I think and it hit the top ten in the UK, the problem was that Morrissey has managed quite a few near hit songs which have done well yet never broke through, I think this song was the closest he had to making a massive breakthrough. He's still a pretty big name though, how many 80's artists are there left knocking around selling out world tours at respectable venues?

 

[Worm]

First of all, Morrissey did have some success with that single in America, as I recall. It wasn't a top hit or anything, but it did chart in the lower regions of the Top 100, and if I remember correctly it was a Top 5 "hit" on the Alternative Charts, if that means anything.

Second, R.E.M. didn't really break through with "Losing My Religion". Their first breakthrough single was "The One I Love", which reached #9 in 1987. That year they left I.R.S. for Warner Brothers, and then released "Green", which had another hit single in "Stand". So by the time "Losing My Religion" came out, they'd already had some serious chart success, and having Warner Brothers fully backing its multi-million dollar investment really helped as well. Sire Records, though a subsidiary of W.B., didn't have that kind of promotional push ready for Morrissey.

Also, the critical reception their albums got during the 80s can't be underestimated. R.E.M. were critics' darlings, especially in Rolling Stone magazine, which has always fancied itself as "in touch" with the college music scene, of which R.E.M. had long been a staple. Meahwhile The Smiths were immediately pigeonholed as a whiny cult band with a gay singer (thanks a lot Kurt Loder), having even more points deducted for being English. In America, which had no NME/Melody Maker/Sounds outlets, critical approval in the mainstream press was much more important in the pre-Web days of the 1980s.

My other thought on the matter is that for U.S. radio and MTV, it's much easier to sell a *band* such as R.E.M. rather than a *personality* like Morrissey. If you look at the rock and roll that had chart success in the states in the 80's and 90's, by and large it came from groups, and often American ones, rather than solo performers. While the video for "The More You Ignore Me" was great, in a way it worked against Morrissey by featuring only him.

Although this isn't proof of my little theory, MTV was ready to start playing The Smiths just as they were breaking up in 1987, and never really played Morrissey except at all the usual midnight slots. In 1987 they had both "Girlfriend In A Coma" and "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" in limited daytime rotation for awhile before relegating them to the graveyard of "120 Minutes". I think if The Smiths had continued, enjoyed a sell-out tour along the lines of Morrissey's 1991/1992 "Kill Uncle" campaign, and done some more promotions (such as appearances on "The Tonight Show"), they might well have broken through. 1987 through 1990 were watershed years for "alternative" music in the States, having genuine hits by bands like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Love and Rockets and New Order, and in that environment the timing was right for The Smiths. Unfortunately they broke up, and Morrissey didn't capitalize on the momentum. "Viva Hate" had incredibly strong sales, but there was no tour and no follow-up for three years. By then he had to start from scratch. In any case, given the sort of reception post-Beatles British music gets in America, I'd say Morrissey's model of success would not have been R.E.M. but Depeche Mode of the "Violator"-era. But hey, having hit singles and selling out stadiums ain't bad.

 

[Abrahán]

I'll tell you my take on it...

Forget REM. Remember Band Aid in the 80s? Well, The Smiths were invited to that in I am not not sure what year but Morrissey said that 'The Smiths are too good for that' so they did not play. U2's performance was groundbreaking & have been huge since then. I saw a thing on the whole Band Aid thing on Vh1 two years ago & I have been a strong believer that if The Smiths had played at Band Aid, they would have been known worldwide as U2 is.

It makes sense to me. This is my opinion. It may not actually be true.




=my homepage=

 

[Ruffian]

> > So why didn't Morrissey break through with this song & video like REM
> did with Losing My Religion? Or did he?

> Oh wise ones, please guide me with your posts, for I am lost in our
> Kingdom.

Morrissey is ours.. he is owned by the cult. Success on a massive poplar scale (like REM) would not have made it quite as much fun! Always support the outspoken underdog. he is the one who will guide uyou in your lonely days!

There you go, some Morrissey-esque advice to put in your pipe.
Ruffian

 

[nonesoever]

Partly because he was overshadowed by the emerging wave of Britpop bands and
the success of Oasis and Blur in that year. Maybe.

> Dear Wise Men & Women of Smithdom & The Solo Kingdom:

> I was watching Oye Esteban today. I sat there with a wide grin on my face
> and enjoyed almost every video (save Sunny, please don't bludgeon me with
> an axe).

> Here is my feeling - I found the videos to be, overall, outstanding, and
> not obscure or purposefully so. I have always felt this way.

> I thought the video for "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I
> Get" was especially brilliant. Morrissey in that narrow hall with
> those wonderful dangling lights, huge pixel-like posters on the wall,
> little girl in a crown, etc.

> Morrissey was wearing a beautiful shirt and looked great, really fit,
> really well, athletic even.

> I don't remember how much airplay this video received in the USA, and I
> wasn't in England so I don't know.

> The song is excellent and has all the makings of a commerical hit. It is
> very...catchy.

> So why didn't Morrissey break through with this song & video like REM
> did with Losing My Religion? Or did he?

> Oh wise ones, please guide me with your posts, for I am lost in our
> Kingdom.

 

[Your Mama]

I've got Tickets

He's still a pretty big name though, how
> many 80's artists are there left knocking around selling out world tours
> at respectable venues?

Answer=R.E.M.

 

[davidtwigg]

Shint Happy People is shite

but I like REM

 

[Librarian on Fire]

Always support
> the outspoken underdog.

Of course this will happen in October when the final comes down to the black shirts of the All Blacks and the white shirts of England in the final. Did you see we beat Australia Ruff? William Webb Ellis is coming home. (His adopted home of nz of course, not the town of rugby)

 

[Eponymous]

Thank You All, Especially WORM

Dear People of the Moz:

I really have been enriched by your comments. Thank you. What a wonderful little world we have going here on Mozzer Solo.

WORM - I agree 100% YOU READ MY MIND!!

Your Arsenal should have gone platinum in the USA (or double or triple) like DM's Violator.

You are all lovely. Take a bow.

 

[Weiß]

I like it. Weren't The Smiths slated to open for The Police?

I heard at one time that The Smiths were supposed to have opened for The Police on their farewell tour in 1984? But for some reason, Moz and crüe wanted to "make it on their own" rather than on the coattails of what was then the biggest band in the world.

 

[Worm]

The reasoning...

Morrissey's reasoning was succinct and accurate. "We were asked to support The Police. How could we? We are far more important than The Police."

 

[Andy I.]

Re: REM suck!!!

They were shite at Manchester's Move Festival, the lead singer is a posing ninny not a God!his fans think he is some sort of God!there from Georga or somewhere and don't have hits anymore their glory days are gone! that song made me cry though everybody hurts thats coz I was depressed and everything makes me cry, but I still think The Smiths were WAY better!!
> and enjoyed almost every video (save Sunny, please don't bludgeon me with
> an axe).

> Here is my feeling - I found the videos to be, overall, outstanding, and
> not obscure or purposefully so. I have always felt this way.

> I thought the video for "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I
> Get" was especially brilliant. Morrissey in that narrow hall with
> those wonderful dangling lights, huge pixel-like posters on the wall,
> little girl in a crown, etc.

> Morrissey was wearing a beautiful shirt and looked great, really fit,
> really well, athletic even.

> I don't remember how much airplay this video received in the USA, and I
> wasn't in England so I don't know.

> The song is excellent and has all the makings of a commerical hit. It is
> very...catchy.

> So why didn't Morrissey break through with this song & video like REM
> did with Losing My Religion? Or did he?

> Oh wise ones, please guide me with your posts, for I am lost in our
> Kingdom.

 

[Banging em' Dave]

I don't think he was overshadowed in 1997 by bands like Blur and Oasis. I think if not for the wave brilliance and mediocrity that was Britpop then 'The More you Ignore Me..' might not have done as well as it did- it certainly got much more play that it would have done if it was released tomorrow per say.

If I remeber rightly even 'Dagenham Dave' got a lot of airplay and I remember the video being played regularly on MTV (Europe obviously). And what a comedy cracker of a song and video it is to.

Why didn't Mozzer break through like REM? Did he really want to? Surely he would have had to sell himself short- 'Shiny Happy People' must be one of the worst singles of the last fifty years.

Ruffians point is spot on- if we're honset, I don't think we'd really want him to have done either. He is ours!