By now everybody must be sick of rock nyc’s obsessive writing about Morrissey. I am nearing the end of his biography and you can expect at least one more “Morrissey In Segments” (I am gonna review his review of the Michael Joyce trial, a sorta of Kafka trial of absurdism) before writing about the autobiography as a whole. But before that I thought I’d take a sprint down the solo albums, and review and grade em… nothing big, mind, maybe I’ll do full reviews of each of them later on.
So here we go…
Viva Hate (1988) – Produced by Stephen Street and released six months after the Smiths broke up,”Suedehead” entered the charts the UK charts at # 6 and topped out at # 5 and two more tracks followed it into the top ten. With Street and the great Vini Reilly the heart of the band, Morrissey misses Marr but not as much as you might expect. “Margaret On The Guillotine” is agitprop at its best and “Everydays Like Sunday” failed to crack the States though it should have – B+
Kill Uncle (1991) – Using session musicians and Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, the duo popular but hit and miss, Morrissey called it “session musician embalming fluid”. but really it is the producers who let him down. The somngs are uniformly good and “There’s A Place For Me In And My Friends In Hell” is great. Nothing can ruin the voice – A
Your Arsenal (1992) Entered the US charts at # 21 back when that meant something and the tour found Morrissey greeted Beatlemania style from West to east, the entire chaos ending when Moz cancelled the rest of the tour at the mid way point. A spectacular album,both “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” and especially “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” among his great achievements. Everything Lady Gaga claims to do for her fans, Moz does for his here – A
Vauxhall And I (1994) – His third album in four years and another masterpiece. Just about his greatest string of songs on one album, it is so great I missed “Speedway” till he performed it on his last tour. The recordings aren’t great the way they are on the later Tormentors, but the songs are perfect and his vocals are controlled and passionate; note the dis of “high court judges” on “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I get”- A
Southpaw Grammar (1995) Three years between albums and what we get is a weird, weird, weird album: a sort of proggy droney perplexity. I didn’t like it at the time, but how can you dislike an album that samples Shostakovich? “The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Children” is eleven minutes of disassociation. Produced by Steve Lillywhite, apparently he was on a great producers of the early 80s mode – B+
Maladjusted (1997) – This is just another Morrissey album in the best way humanly possible, every song is exactly what a good Morrissey song should sound like, the playing is powerful but not the oversell of Southpaw or the wetness of Kill Uncle. Also his most explicitly gay album to date. “With my hands on my head I’ll frup on your bed…” – A
You Are The Quarry (2004) – Morrissey’s most outspoken album, if that is humanly possible, there is a sense where everything about the album is very clearly in your face. His voice is as good as ever and his band a little better than ever and at least three songs are first tier Morrissey plus Nancy Sinatra covered a fourth – A-
Ringleader Of The Tormentors (2006) – “I Will See You In Far Off Places” is Morrissey’s greatest song, the Middle eastern flavored guitars like an Islamic prayer in the background and the story of threat and desire. “If your God bestows protection upon you and the USA doesn’t bomb you, I believe I will see you somewhere safe…” The rest of the album is also superb and the production, by one Tony Visconti, is his best to date – A
Years Of Refusal (2010) – Hmmm, not bad but guitarist and co-writer Alain White is missed, the first song, Alain’s last with Moz, is the best on the album. I realize my taste is in the minority but I far prefer Tormentors. This is awful dull for a Moz album – B