Morrissey has a new album out. It's pretty fucking good, with flashes of great.
Here's my review, track by track:
1. Something is Squeezing My Skull:
A fast and punky song that opens the album with a nice kick. The lyrics find Morrissey in typical defiance of his critics and those who have wronged him (this would be an annoying tendency of his if he wasn't generally right.) The song ends in a fast breakdown where Moz pleads with someone to "Please don't gimme anymore" in an attacking vocal style that nearly becomes a yodel. It's a great album kick off that declares that Morrissey means business on this new album.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: It's a tie between "I know by now you think I should have straightened myself out/ Thank you, drop dead" and the positively randy (for a man who once was the most famous celibate in the world outside the pope:) "The motion of taxis excites me/ When you peel it back and bite me."
2. MAMA LAY SOFTLY ON THE RIVERBED
A strangely upbeat song about a strange Oedipal obsession with the narrator's mama, who was driven to some unspeakable act by "uncivil servants" and "priggish money men" in a song that mixes Morrissey's Manchester working class past with his artistic obsession with murder ("I will slit their throats for you.") A catchy tune that hides some bizarre and dark lyrics.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "And we will be safe and sheltered in our graves." (because it's just so Morrissey, isn't it?)
3. BLACK CLOUD
A middle of the road Moz song about one of the themes that gave him his miserabilist rep: unrequited love. It's nothing we haven't heard before... but nobody does this schtick as well as Morrissey, and his vocals shine through over a a pleasing enough arena rock bombast with some catchy Spanish style guitar strumming in the middle. Ultimately, one of the weaker tracks on the album.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "I can choke myself to please you/ and I can sink much lower than usual/ but there's nothing I can do to make you mine."
4. I'M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS
The album's first single, and a good choice at that. The tune sounds a bit like Moz's jangly old B-Side, "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference," which is a good thing (that song is pretty much a gem.) The themes are pretty standard issue Morrissey, with lyrics about the absence of "love" and "human touch," until Morrissey decides to do as the title of the song implies. Instead of being a lament of heartbreak, our boy is sounds defiant and triumphant, even though "only stone and steel" accept his love. The catchiest of Morrissey's recent visits to famous European cities (though not nearly as gorgeous as his walk through Rome in the Ennio Morricone arranged "Dear God Please Help Me.")
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "I'm throwing my arms around/ around Paris because/ only stone and steel accept my love."
Morrissey has been playing this song since he was touring in support of his last album, "Ringleader of the Tormentors," and (along with "That's How People Grow Up,") it appeared on his recent, slapdash (and very debatably titled) "Greatest Hits" album... but I've been a huge fan of the song since I first heard it performed live a few years ago. I've used the word "defiant" to describe a few of the songs on this album so far, but this is the one that deserves that description the most... it's a fast paced, snarling rock missile aimed right at his critics. Morrissey croons "you hiss and groan and you constantly moan but you/ don't ever go away and that's because all you need is me" and it ends up with him telling his detractors that "You don't like me but you love me/ either way, you're wrong/ you're gonna miss me when I'm gone." He's always been one of the most spot on, self reflexive pop lyricists, analyzing and defining his place in music history within his own songs (see The Smiths' "Rubber Ring,") and this rocker is one of his most direct and mocking examples of that lyrical dexterity. This one is a fist pumper.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC (out of many choices): "There's a naked man standing laughing in your dreams/ you know who it is/ but you don't like what it means."
6. WHEN I LAST SPOKE TO CAROL
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "I've hammered a smile across this pasty face of mine/ since the day I was born in 1975."
7. THAT'S HOW PEOPLE GROW UP
A catchy and funny song about being resigned to loneliness (yes, most other artists don't make songs about this subject either catchy or funny,) with Morrissey lamenting that looking for love his whole life has been a waste of time. Not much to say about this other than that I dig the ghostly moaning girl during the opening seconds of the song.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "I was driving my car/ I crashed and broke my spine/ so, yes, there are things worse in life than never being/ someone's sweetie."
8. ONE DAY GOODBYE WILL BE FOREVER
Morrissey advises a lover or a friend that they are going to be abandoned by the one they love... in typically funny fashion as "the smiling children tell you that you smell," while leaving room to be self deprecating as well ("just look at me- a savage beast-/ I've got nothing to sell.") Those mariachi horns come in again, and the song is pleasingly propulsive. This one should sound pretty good live.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "Always be careful when you abuse the one you love."
9. IT'S NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY ANYMORE
The triumphant centerpiece of the album. The song oscillates wildly (Smiths fans, did you see what I did there?) between what starts out as a sentimental love song to an angry lover's tirade to a psychosexual battle. The musicianship on the song is great and more inventive than usual for a Morrissey solo song as well, as the band switches modes from slow ballad to loud and angry rocker as they work hard to keep up with their famous frontman. This is one of my favorite Morrissey songs in a long time... and his vocal performance ties it all together beautifully. Great stuff.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "All of the gifts that they gave can't compare in any way/ to the love I am now giving you right here and right now/ on the floor."
10. YOU WERE GOOD IN YOUR TIME
A slow dirge with a tinkling piano and smoky late night lounge feel addressed to an artist who time has passed.... or is Moz singing about himself in another one of those self reflexive moments? After the witty, angry, and altogether alive "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore" just one track prior, in which Morrissey proves he's as vital and relevant as ever, this slower song (with its long, spooky outro, similar to the intro of The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,") shows he's ready as ready to accept the fact that the spotlight will move off of him eventually, even as it shines on him for another album. And of course, the dying of that light is death in our morbidly funny Morrissey's strange brain. It's a strange and haunting little tune.
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "Are you aware wherever you are/ that you have just died?"
11. SORRY DOESN'T HELP
This one is kind of filler... Morrissey mocks the very idea of an apology from someone who has wronged him, in typically melodramatic fashion. The closest thing the album gets to a "skipper."
MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "Sorry will not bring my teen years back to me (any time soon.)"
12. I'M OKAY BY MYSELF
Morrissey's theme of defiance comes back in this album closer, which builds to an absolutely monstrous conclusion as screams NOOOO! over and over again with his band absolutely rocking out as he tells an old flame he just doesn't need them. In his wise old age, the man who has spent years writing songs about how loneliness has made him miserable finally has the maturity to realize (post some sort of breakup, it seems,) that he really is okay by himself. It's entirely possible that he's talking about his solo career in the song as well. His feelings towards his former band mates is often debated (a debate which is constantly renewed every year with new rumors that The Smiths are reuniting, always quickly denied.) Morrissey has been a solo artist for more than twenty years now, yet to this day he is best known as the "former lead singer of The Smiths." His former band's legend lives on, but Morrissey is doing just fine on his own as a solo artist... and this album of sometimes angry, sometimes resigned, and almost all energized and funny songs proves that once again. MOST MEMORABLE LYRIC: "This might make you throw up in your bed: /I'M OK BY MYSELF!"
You just haven't earned it yet, baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment