BookishBoy
Well-Known Member
Next up is "Asian Rut" from the Kill Uncle album. What do we think of this song?
Never got why song was deemed racist. Is it because he uses the word 'asian'? That's silly even on a 2020 level. Anyway, great moody piece, this. Heavy atmosphere, heavy, disturbing lyrics. And a nice vocal at that.
Never got why song was deemed racist. Is it because he uses the word 'asian'? That's silly even on a 2020 level. Anyway, great moody piece, this. Heavy atmosphere, heavy, disturbing lyrics. And a nice vocal at that.
It's so strange. Obviously times had moved on by the Kill Uncle reissue in 2013 but in their review of it, Pitchfork said that "Morrissey withholds empathy for the victim of a racist attack" in "Asian Rut". Which seems like a genuinely bizarre reading of the song, to me.It was deemed racist because they were looking for it - apparently because his self-righteous animal rights stuff pissed them off so they wanted to tarnish him a bit.
I don't think they realized that he was so intensely odd that it would escalate to quite the insane level it escalated to.
They probably thought he'd just be slightly lower on his high horse.
It's so strange. Obviously times had moved on by the Kill Uncle reissue in 2013 but in their review of it, Pitchfork said that "Morrissey withholds empathy for the victim of a racist attack" in "Asian Rut". Which seems like a genuinely bizarre reading of the song, to me.
From what I remember at the time, people who hated the "message" of "Bengali in Platforms" on Viva Hate found the "message" of "Asian Rut" on Kill Uncle almost provocative: like, oh so because we've called you a bit racist now you've gone and written a song about it from an Asian boy's perspective, etc...
It's so strange. Obviously times had moved on by the Kill Uncle reissue in 2013 but in their review of it, Pitchfork said that "Morrissey withholds empathy for the victim of a racist attack" in "Asian Rut". Which seems like a genuinely bizarre reading of the song, to me.
From what I remember at the time, people who hated the "message" of "Bengali in Platforms" on Viva Hate found the "message" of "Asian Rut" on Kill Uncle almost provocative: like, oh so because we've called you a bit racist now you've gone and written a song about it from an Asian boy's perspective, etc...
I also think another problem is that Morrissey is lot more screwed up by his Irish background than he lets on & England often forgets that Irish Catholics have not always been a welcome minority & he's not writing from majority perspective.
He was talking to a Scottish journalist in 2004 & Scotland does tend to notice that kind of thing:
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