Hello again, pop figures, and as part and parcel of our ongoing music series, as well as the multi-part commentary on the pop icon known only as "Morrissey", we come to yet another piece that is related to this year's release of "World Peace Is None Of Your Business" - it's Moz's tenth solo album and like basically most of the rest, it is not insignificant.
Rather surprisingly, WPINOYB comes as a double CD set comprising almost twenty songs, and sounds somewhat unexpectedly fresh for an artist of such, errr, maturity! For sure, the "old" Morrissey is there, with the usual sociopolitical agenda quite well to the fore, and his lambasting of societal mores and norms quite nicely in place. If you listen to "Kick The Bride Down The Aisle" for even part of the song, you will get my drift!
"She just wants a slave, to break his back in pursuit of a living wage
So that she can laze and graze, for the rest of her days
Write down every word I say...."
You can probably get the idea from those words alone, and you know, I am not gonna say that they are totally inaccurate; I suspect that they might be right on target on more than a few rare occasions. Why? Simply because I have seen real living examples of it, and it doesn't help us men to sleep at night knowing there is another species living among us - one that schemes against us, and plots to sentence us to a lifetime of hard graft, while being observed from grassy knolls, where said species "lazes and grazes".
Boy, I better quit while I'm ahead before a mob gathers in protest, but it's all Morrissey's fault, as usual! He would probably hug me, as a consolation for the abuse I would take in supporting his stance on the ancient ceremony of (un)holy matrimony. So yes, old Mozzer is alive and well, and kicking, and this new work finds him in typically rebellious form and in equi-typically fine voice. I am not gonna go as far as to say that it's a masterpiece, not least because what pop musician can still produce a masterpiece at the grand old age of 83?! He is 83, right?!
There are plenty of reviews out there, by those whose job it is to do such things and with the time to discuss each song in detail - sadly, I don't! So I will leave that to them, and cut to the chase. The part of this work that really got to me much more than I anticipated was the material on CD2 - on it's own it could easily have formed half of an entirely independent album by His Miz. While the previous CD1 contains more of his trademark barbed utterings (both musical and lyrical), I feel that CD2 is something of a departure and dare I say it, might even be some of his most commercial material ever - there are one, two or three true pop hits sitting modestly in the six song selection.
There is a trio of songs that falls in sequence, and I went from thinking "Wow, that's cool!" to "Holy f**king moly!" by the end of it, and went directly back to repeat them again. We are of course talking about "Drag The River", "Forgive Someone" and "Julie In The Weeds". These are three examples of ol' Mizzery's awesomeness when he is firing on an all cylinders and his true understanding of pop music and love of alternative pop get combined into something unique that can only have come from him - and impossible to imagine coming from Johnny Marr, by the way.
All I had to hear was "Julie, lie down, in the weeds and see, something new, something new" and I was hooked - the song bursts forth from some obscure scratchy buzzy sounds into an accordion-laced pop gem that is quite irresistible. Even those who want to resist it and say it's not hard enough to be a Moz song, will fall by the wayside. I was in shock - a Morrissey song with accordion, what the hell is going on? For me, it is His Miz's equivalent of "Cherry Bomb" by John Mellencamp and I never thought it would be possible to say that about a Morrissey song - ever!
It should be #1 in the British charts, but of course it won't be. Not least because, yes, once again, the artist known as the Big M finds himself without a label, even though his deal with legendary Capitol Records (via Harvest) was apparently for two releases. In some ways the Big M just cannot help himself, and he found reason to criticise Capitol's head honcho Steve Barnett for the lack of any videos to support the release, among other reasons. I gotta admit, if I had taken in an artist at the end of his recording career, one who is notoriously difficult to work with and please, by the way, and he/she then turned round and put me down after releasing the album? I doubt very much whether he/she would have access to the building any longer, never mind spending serious cash on them.
It all just underlines that not only was Morrissey always more of a solo artist than a band member, but that he should have decided early on to have his own record label handling just his releases, so he could retain control. While he has been very willing to take record company cash in the past, he has railed against them having control and shows little appreciation for their investment in him. In some ways, this is not a sin for an artist, it simply emphasises they are and should remain artists, and have nothing to do with the business world.
Ah, but there's the rub - we like the tons of cash, but we don't like those who gave it, and we may even end up resenting them for it. We love the recording studio, but hate those who paid for it. But business is business, and you can't have it both ways. In a fashion, his cantankerousness for the business end of making music reminds me of Van Morrison, historically, but Van knew when to let it go and let the businessmen do their thing. He was the artist and musician, and they were involved in making money from it. Simple, but not so for Morrissey.
I could say that natural selection and evolution has taken its course, and this latest dumping by a record label should signal the end of the man's recording career - time to retire, old boy. But I will not and cannot say that! Why? The most overwhelming conclusion that I derived from WPINOYB is that this artist is not ready to retire, and sounds primed for much more to come - he clearly is at his very best when in front of a microphone in a recording studio, as this recording shows. If he could just go in and make the records, and then zip it, he could have a very long career still ahead of him. Ah, but then that wouldn't be Morrissey, would it, and we love him warts and all. Rave on Steven Patrick Morrissey, rave on thy holy fool.
On that note, this holy fool is due for some terrace time, i.e. chaise longue time, -but only after a serious infusion of my Bolivian Black Magic dark chocoroast coffee beans! Signing out, that's it from me on this glorious late summer Sunday morning! Kevin Mc
No comments:
Post a Comment