fredkocherpepsi
Active Member
Me too! I just know I find it fantastically enjoyable. But these things can often change over time.
I was telling my wife today how I’ve listened to the album so many times...she’s yet to hear it. haha
Me too! I just know I find it fantastically enjoyable. But these things can often change over time.
I was telling my wife today how I’ve listened to the album so many times...she’s yet to hear it. haha
I feel a bit sorry for the people who aren't enjoying it as much as us, because they're missing out on a real treat.
I feel a bit sorry for the people who aren't enjoying it as much as us, because they're missing out on a real treat.
To respond to some of the very interesting points raised so far:
'Hairdresser On Fire' - I absolutely think he was right to release the album as he did in the UK, and inserting this song into the US version was a mistake. It's a nice enough tune, but its tonally completely wrong for the album, being far too lightweight and silly.
As it stands, the UK tracklisting is perfect in my eyes and ears. The album is a song cycle, an examination of what it meant to grow up in Britain in the 60s, 70s and on into the 80s. It feels like an intensely personal thing, and while treating art as autobiography can be dangerous, its tempting to see Morrissey pouring a whole lot of himself into these songs. Is it a coincidence that his parents divorced in 1972 and that year gets a mention in the album's longest, perhaps strongest track? Maybe, but then again....
While this could all become a bit 'This Is Your Life' self-referential, Morrissey's genius is to take that personal truth and make the album's songs speak universally - here is all the unrequited love, the passions, the depressions, the struggles, the triumphs and the hard won wisdoms that characterise most of our own journeys through childhood, adolescence and adult years All with killer tunes. Just like The Smiths best albums, then.
I'm not with those who think the second half sags. For me, those songs just flow so well into and out of each other, peeling back new layers of the same themes. Lyrically, 'Break Up The Family' is a gorgeous, aching revisit on those opening lines of 'There Is A Light' - a more mature yearning for companionship and reforging connections.
I mean, every time I hear him sing these lines - with that sad, knowing sweetness - it chimes so much with my own teenage years I can only marvel:
It wasn't youth, it wasn't life
Born old, sadly wise
Resigned (well, we were)
To ending our lives
I'm so glad to grow older
To move away from those awful times
I want to see all my friends tonight
And was there ever a more poignantly and beautifully sung lyric about the perils of trying to fit in than this, in the sublime 'Dial-A-Cliche'?
But the person underneath
where does he go?
does he slide by the wayside?
or...does he just die?
when you find that you've organized
your feelings, for people
who didn't like you then
and do not like you now
Without wishing to carp about the new album, the way Morrissey deftly touches on this subject of self-actualisation is light years beyond the clumsy, whinging and lumpen writing of "I'm Not a Man", for example.
On the subject of how the album sounds, I think the recent remaster was sonically a great job, revealing more nuances and textures in the songs. So I've used that remastered version - with 'Ordinary Boys' restored from the original and the beginning and ending of 'Maudlin Street' edited back in - to produce the definitve version for myself. If you like the album, I'd recommend giving that a go - it has never sounded better, and stands up against anything he's done, The Smiths included. If you're American, you might not 'get' the anti-Thatcherite last song (for me, its a bold, compassionate rallying call for those who watched as the heart got cut out of our country), but anyone with ears can hear beauty and delicacy in the acoustic, almost folky treatment of the song which Street's remaster shines fresh light on.
When I refer above to lumpen writing in 'I'm not a Man' - something which characterizes a lot of WPINOYB - I think this might be my major issue with both Vauxhall & I and Your Arsenal too. While those earlier albums are nowhere near as dreadfully written as this current one, I do think there are signs creeping in that Morrissey is losing his muse somewhat.
For example, Vauxhall's first three songs are lovely and poetic and really set the bar high. But then he goes and does 'Hold Onto Your Friends', which is just cringeworthy and lacking any of the deftness, grace or 'show not tell' aesthetic that the previous songs displayed and which courses through Viva Hate.
There are other songs on Vauxhall which suffer from the same dead hand on them - 'The Lazy Sunbathers' is just the pits, for example, and there's bad writing and a certain lack of discipline sprinkled across in most of the other tracks. Its not enough to ruin the album, but it does throw a spanner into my enjoyment of the work.
Maybe I'm way too fussy? Probably. But I think most of what The Smiths did and what Morrissey managed to produce with Viva Hate were stone cold classics - lasting works of art that unite a staggering lyricism with a knockout musicality. Since Viva Hate, I think he has struggled to display anything like the same consistency. Your Arsenal, for example, starts strongly but then really nose dives when he gets all preachy and bitchily, annoyingly tiresome with We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful - one of those "listen to me!" Moz songs where all you need is the title to know how bad it's going to be. And then, as if that's not enough, what's this ridiculously lame bollocks about someone called Fatty doing on the album? No, no and just no. No matter that the album then ends with 3 wonderful songs, it's been sunk by those awful torpedoes. From Arsenal to ARSEnal and back again.
Anyway, enough negativity. We have 'Viva Hate', and that's all I really need right now. Go play it loud and remember how insanely good he could be.
Without wishing to carp about the new album
Better yet why not accept that Morrissey is never going to float your boat again and don't bother buying any of his new stuff. That way you won't be disappointed nor have to spend valuable minutes of your life making countless posts in various threads about how good he used to be. With all of this accumulated time you could probably fit in an extra listen of Viva Hate each week, sat right next to the speakers really concentrating on it.
Better yet why not accept that Morrissey is never going to float your boat again and don't bother buying any of his new stuff. That way you won't be disappointed nor have to spend valuable minutes of your life making countless posts in various threads about how good he used to be. With all of this accumulated time you could probably fit in an extra listen of Viva Hate each week, sat right next to the speakers really concentrating on it.