Back when I was in college radio, I received my initiation into
\nthe moping world of The Smiths and their lead singer Morrissey via
\na listener request. Within time I had acquired all of the group’s
\nalbums, and had begun to explore the solo career of Morrissey.<\/p>\n
And while he always had a few good tracks on his albums, they
\njust failed to impress me the way The Smiths did – end even
\ntheir<\/i> albums could be spotty at times. (This, along with the
\n“insult” of declaring The The “okay” spelled the end of one
\nrelationship – it’s hard dating a critic, she learned.)<\/p>\n
Morrissey’s 1992 release
\nYour Arsenal<\/i> contains some of his best-known tracks courtesy
\nof alternative radio, but it also contains some of his most boring
\nmaterial.<\/p>\n
The poppy songs are incredible – I am constantly impressed by
\nGary Day’s bass work on “Tomorrow,” one of the songs that
\noriginally made me want to pick up this album. (For some reason,
\nthe version I have is a Canadian release.) “We Hate It When Our
\nFriends Become Successful” is one of Morrissey’s finest moments,
\nfeaturing stellar guitar work from Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte. Even
\nthe “hidden” hits, “Glamorous Glue” and “You’re The One For Me,
\nFatty,” tend to grow on you.<\/p>\n
But, ah, the pressures of being the melancholy Dane (even though
\nhe’s British, I know) of the alternative world finally begin to
\ntake their tolls on the music. Morrissey tends to lose track of the
\ngoal – writing a decent song – by concentrating on how poetically
\nmiserable he is. “Seasick, Yet Still Docked,” “The National Front
\nDisco,” “Certain People I Know”…. these all could have been great
\nsongs, if they only weren’t so damned boring.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that I am against Morrissey’s musical view of the
\nworld – as the existentialists called it, “this bitch of life.” In
\nsome senses, this is some of Morrissey’s most positive music in a
\nwhile – which is saying a lot. But if he could just cut down a
\nlittle bit on the dramatics, this could have been a better album. I
\nheard him the
\nfirst<\/i> time he proclaimed “London is dead”… he didn’t have
\nto repeat it ad nauseam. (He would sink even lower into this poetic
\ncesspool on
\nVauxhall & I<\/i> , an album so bad I stopped buying his solo
\nalbums.)<\/p>\n
When he keeps hitting you over the head with these images
\nwrapped around songs that just fail to go anywhere, you end up
\nstarting to worry about the boy. He’s been on this “I-am-miserable”
\nkick for well over a decade – I think the well really began to dry
\nup with this release. There’s only so many ways you can express
\nboredom without becoming boring yourself. Unfortunately, Morrissey
\nhas started to cross that line.<\/p>\n
However, one should give him some credit – he hasn’t collapsed
\nto the public pressure (and, I’m sure in some sense, pressure from
\nhis label) to reunite with the rest of his old bandmates for a
\nreunion tour a la other groups (I won’t name names, but you can
\nguess
\n
\nWho<\/i>
\n<\/b> ). Oh, sure, he could have taken the easy way out and made a
\nquick pile of cash. Instead, he has chosen to slug it out on his
\nown, come what may. For that alone, he earns my respect.<\/p>\n
\nYour Arsenal<\/i> does have some moments of brilliance within its
\nshort time frame, but for the most part, it fails to satisfy in the
\nlong run. Diehard Smiths and Morrissey fans will undoubtedly love
\nit – the rest of us can wait for the eventual “best-of”
\ncollection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5780],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-35669","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-morrissey","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35669"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35669"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}