Morrissey's Kill Uncle turned 27 last March 4: after all this time what are your opinions on it?

I felt it was a huge disappointment at first but definitely a grower that just got better and better. I'm the end of the family line became a very early anthem for me as I decided when very young to never have kids and the world drew a sigh of relief at that news.

Cannot say I was ever too keen on his rockabilly attempts that I happen to know the rockabilly community laughed at especially those playing that style of music in real life as musicians.

Loved Found Found Found and Tony the Pony is like Skinny points out a song deserving much more credit and I think it was on the album version released here back then.

I like Our Frank and I didn't drive many friends girlfriends home but I walked with a few who always moaned about their boyfriends being hopeless cause they always turned to me with the problems cause they felt I was much more calm and mature for my age.

My youth really was the stuff of a Moz fan character in every way.
 
Over the years many people have criticised the production and I tend to agree. The songs sounded great on the KU tour (Sing Your Life, Mute Witness, There's a Place in Hell..., Driving Your Girlfriend Home - such a poignancy on the live version) and I think it's a shame he hasn't performed any of them live since 1991. I can't think of another time in his career where he so quickly distanced himself from an album.
 
It's still better than anything he's done since Vauxhall & I. At least he sounded different and otherworldly on it, unlike the fairly bland sound he's been peddling recently, with the exception of World Peace.

It was the kind of artsy fartsy pose that you would expect Morrissey to evolve into, but I think it was panned mostly because of the period in which it was released. The grunge era was in full swing, and the dreamy/chimey post new wave sound was fading out. The album landed in the middle of that transition period.

I think if it was released a few years before, it probably would have received better reviews. I think it was seen as being too twee, but sound-wise, it really wasn't that far removed form his work with Street, which everybody loved.

I think it's why Morrissey suddenly switched to the beefed up sound on Your Arsenal. He was trying to shed that softer image, and make a "physical record" as he put it.
 
My Love Life came out 17-Sept-91

Nevermind came out 24-Sept-91.

Kill Uncle didn't come out in the full swing of Grunge. Your Arsenal did.
 
My Love Life came out 17-Sept-91

Nevermind came out 24-Sept-91.

Kill Uncle didn't come out in the full swing of Grunge. Your Arsenal did.
Nevermind was released in 1992 here in Sweden same day as My Bloody Valentine and their album Loveless. Got them both the same day on release.
 
My Love Life came out 17-Sept-91

Nevermind came out 24-Sept-91.

Kill Uncle didn't come out in the full swing of Grunge. Your Arsenal did.

Was gonna say the same and personally i think it only helped the album. More people knew liked and were of a like mind with morrissey in the alternative crowd than in the general hair metal tough guy music scene that came before it. Animal rights expanded sexuality and gender identity literary intellectualism etc were all much more approved of by grunge and alternative fans (however superficially). It’s also not like everything was heavy as twee pop and power pop were all part of the scene from the Vaseline’s to the folk pop of the lemonheads big gay heart
 
The Smiths broke up then Viva Hate was as good as anyone could expect, then we got Kill Uncle. With hindsight it's not bad but at the time it was erm, underwhelming. I felt the same way towards World Peace and Ringleaders and I reckon it holds up better than those.
 
I don't think it was just disappointing after Viva Hate, but also after the string of amazing singles.... Last of the Famous --> Interesting Drug --> November and to a lesser extent "Ouija Board." After those rockers (and Bona Drag), "Kill Uncle" just seemed lackluster. Like others I like 4-5 songs on it, but I loved all three of the songs on each of those singles, and had loved all of Viva Hate. It really was the first time in his career that a record came out and I felt anything remotely like disappointment (though I'm sure I tried to argue how brilliant it was at the time).
 
The Smiths broke up then Viva Hate was as good as anyone could expect, then we got Kill Uncle. With hindsight it's not bad but at the time it was erm, underwhelming. I felt the same way towards World Peace and Ringleaders and I reckon it holds up better than those.
Wasn't it just a case of Moz losing his sense of humour along the way?

Even his earlier videos had a sense of humour and charm that disappeared as time went on.
 
Crap then and crap now.
 
Wasn't it just a case of Moz losing his sense of humour along the way?

Even his earlier videos had a sense of humour and charm that disappeared as time went on.

Certainly in later years. I think you can pinpoint it to Ringleaders. That's where his lyrics started to be blunt rather than have nuance. Since then it's just got worse and worse. With Kill Uncle the quality probably wasn't there but there was humour in the lyrics.
 
Certainly in later years. I think you can pinpoint it to Ringleaders. That's where his lyrics started to be blunt rather than have nuance. Since then it's just got worse and worse. With Kill Uncle the quality probably wasn't there but there was humour in the lyrics.
Yeah, that is how I see it. He's always been witty and had a great ability to play with words and meanings but as you say with time that disappeared. Just like those people with really cemented political views they seem to be completely lacking any kind of humour.
 
It is terrible. A slight and lifeless half hour of ill formed ideas and padding in its released form. The album drags with bad pacing, and some of the worst songs Moz has ever released anywhere in any form - not a surprise given he has performed nothing from it live in 27 years. I have a different running order, which is tolerable.

Our Frank
Mute Witness
Pregnant
The Loops
I've Changed My Plea

Sing Your Life
King Leer
Driving Your Girlfriend Home
My Love Life
I'm The End Of The Family Line
There Is A Place In Hell

Swap Family Line out for Tony The Pony and you have my ideal KU album as well.
 
If Kill Uncle had been the first thing I'd ever heard from Morrissey, I'd have found it terrific. You gotta like an album that works in a homeless Chihuahua, a frisbee, getting sick all over someone's red pullover, Churchillian legs, and going to hell.

Unfortunately it didn't measure up to his other music, so it was and remains disappointing. But not as disappointing as when I first got it, because we had no idea he'd return to form for decades of killer songs and albums. It was, "Uh oh, this is the beginning of the end for Mozza!" Now it's just a minor subpar blip in a fantastic body of work. And it's still enjoyable. The songs were better live with the band, so the album could've been stronger even with the same songs (no offense to the session players).

I rarely break it out because my favorite songs from that stretch (Sing Your Life, The Loop, My Love Life, Pregnant for the Last Time, There's a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends - Live at KROQ, I've Changed My Plea to Guilty, East West) are all on the 3-CD set 'The Parlaphone Singles '88-'95", which is my favorite Morrissey compilation. (Is it weird to still play CDs?)

By the way, I don't like the cover of the reissue. Ugly yellow and Morrissey wearing a t-shirt with his own face on it. Ha
 
The Smiths broke up then Viva Hate was as good as anyone could expect, then we got Kill Uncle. With hindsight it's not bad but at the time it was erm, underwhelming. I felt the same way towards World Peace and Ringleaders and I reckon it holds up better than those.


I felt that way with Ringleader, too, but it has grown over the years to become a masterpiece in my mind. "Life is a Pigsty" is in my Top 20 songs of all time by any artist.
Now I feel like playing "To Me You Are a Work of Art" just thinking about that album. What a gorgeous song.

The b-sides "I Knew I was Next", "Sweetie-Pie" and "Human Being" are also great.
 
"Sing Your Life" is a great little Morrissey ditty. It feels so lightweight now and Morrissey probably cringes at the sound of it. I don't. When you watch the "Live in Dallas" gig you realise how explosive those "Kill Uncle" songs were on stage.
 
"Sing Your Life" is a great little Morrissey ditty. It feels so lightweight now and Morrissey probably cringes at the sound of it. I don't. When you watch the "Live in Dallas" gig you realise how explosive those "Kill Uncle" songs were on stage.

He probably still likes it. And it probably has inspired a few folks to step up to that microphone themselves.
And hopefully he'll never "get off the stage" (bad advice in that song) and will keep singing his life till his final year on Earth. And may he live long, but I hope to outlive him. I'd hate to die before having the complete set of albums. :eek:

I think the definitive version is the KROQ recording.
 
My favourite parts are I'm the end of the family line and There is a place in Hell for me and my friends. Sometimes, maybe down to the production, maybe it's just the songs, but much of KU feels a bit weak but those songs just work.
 
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