Morrissey's 'Viva Hate' Turns 30: How His Solo Debut Predicted His Post-Smiths Career - Billboard

Morrissey's 'Viva Hate' Turns 30: How His Solo Debut Predicted His Post-Smiths Career - Billboard
by Kenneth Partridge 14th March, 2018.

Excerpt:

"In his days as the headstrong, enigmatic lead singer of The Smiths, the most important U.K. guitar band of the ‘80s, Morrissey wasn't itching to go solo. Why would he? The band was defined by his peculiar psychology—narcissism tempered by self-effacement topped with a wicked sense of humor—and driven by a genius guitarist, Johnny Marr, with no desire for the spotlight. It was a nice arrangement.

When Marr left The Smiths in 1987, ending the group’s run after four brilliant albums, Morrissey felt bewildered and betrayed. “The split is our final loss of innocence,” Moz writes in Autobiography, the 2013 memoir that reveals little about what actually what actually broke up indie’s Leiber and Stoller. To make matter worse, Morrissey soon learned he was contractually obligated to give EMI another album. Such was the impetus for his debut solo, Viva Hate, released 30 years ago today (March 14, 1988)."


I was thinking about this earlier and... along comes an article!
An album most of us hold dear for innumerable reasons.
Happy birthday Viva Hate.
(Happy 24th birthday Vauxhall And I too - no article, but not forgotten).
Regards,
FWD.


Shoplifterromo also sends the link:

Viva Morrissey: Our June 1988 Cover Story - SPIN
Morrissey appeared on the June 1988 cover of SPIN. In honor of the 30th anniversary of his debut solo album Viva Hate, we've digitized the feature here.


Post in the MORRISSEY Facebook group:



42573_viva_hate_ad.jpg
 
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Late Night Maudlin Street is too long and needs editing?? It’s the fastest 7 minutes of my life. It deserves an extend mix. It should go on for another 2 hours...err... .2 and a half hours !! If anything needs editing it this article. It’s all filler after the first two sentences.
 

Regards,
FWD.
 
I didn't know that the American version had a different tracklisting: opening with Suedehead and What Now, Little Man replaced with Hairdresser On Fire (which should indeed have been on the album, since the side two is quite weak).
 


still missing 'the ordinary boys' on that remaster... :(

and the full version of LATE NIGHT MAUDLIN STREET

And Treat Me Like a Human Being on a 2nd disc alongside Sister I'm A Poet, I Know Very Well How I Got My Name, Oh Well I'll Never Learn, Disappointed, Hairdresser on Fire, I know very well how I got my note wrong
 
This is only partially accurate. I'm American and was one of the obsessive who owned it on every format and this was the tracklisting for the CD, record and cassette...

Hairdresser on Fire was indeed on there but...
Here was the Tracklisting:
1. Alsatian Cousin, 2. Little Man What Now?, 3. Everyday Is Like Sunday, 4. Bengali In Platforms
5. Angel Angel Down We Go Together, 6. Late Night Maudlin Street [SIDE B] 7. Suedehead, 8. Break Up The Family, 9. Hairdresser on Fire, 10. The Ordinary Boys, 11. I Don't Mind If You Forget Me, 12. Dial-A-Cliche, 13. Margaret On the Guillotine.

Other notes of American releases you may not be aware of:

Side 2 of the Smiths debut includes This Charming Man as the opener of that side
Meat Is Murder includes "How Soon Is Now?"
The US never got Hatful of Hollow or The World Won't Listen until the Warner re-issues in 1993.
Maladjusted included the track "Sorrow Will Come In the End"
 
I loved it upon its release but then I never mixed in Smiths fan circles, I was always the one foisting a Smiths tape and later CD on people I knew. I don't know anyone personally who didn't take to it.

Same. I didn't know anyone who listened to The Smiths so I didn't really know what people thought but I thought it was a great record. I still like every song.
 
Other notes of American releases you may not be aware of:

Side 2 of the Smiths debut includes This Charming Man as the opener of that side
Meat Is Murder includes "How Soon Is Now?"
The US never got Hatful of Hollow or The World Won't Listen until the Warner re-issues in 1993.
Maladjusted included the track "Sorrow Will Come In the End"

Don't forget those strange US only alternate mixes of 'I'd Love To', 'My Love Life', and 'I've Changed My Plea to Guilty'. And the US f***ed with all the Beatles records. Must be something in the water over there, I reckon. Daft eejits.
 
Bengali in Platforms is without doubt the most beautiful song on Viva Hate. Music, lyrics, production, everything. Those who perceive its message as somehow offensive are mistaken - it's actually quite empathetic to the immigrant experience of alienation.

Yes I think that but I can also see how it could go down quite well at a UKIP teddy bear's picnic
 
This is only partially accurate. I'm American and was one of the obsessive who owned it on every format and this was the tracklisting for the CD, record and cassette...

Hairdresser on Fire was indeed on there but...
Here was the Tracklisting:
1. Alsatian Cousin, 2. Little Man What Now?, 3. Everyday Is Like Sunday, 4. Bengali In Platforms
5. Angel Angel Down We Go Together, 6. Late Night Maudlin Street [SIDE B] 7. Suedehead, 8. Break Up The Family, 9. Hairdresser on Fire, 10. The Ordinary Boys, 11. I Don't Mind If You Forget Me, 12. Dial-A-Cliche, 13. Margaret On the Guillotine.

Other notes of American releases you may not be aware of:

Side 2 of the Smiths debut includes This Charming Man as the opener of that side
Meat Is Murder includes "How Soon Is Now?"
The US never got Hatful of Hollow or The World Won't Listen until the Warner re-issues in 1993.
Maladjusted included the track "Sorrow Will Come In the End"

Thanks for the info! The European version of Maladjusted which I bought at the time has also Sorrow, so I guess the UK version is the only one without it.
 
Thanks for the info! The European version of Maladjusted which I bought at the time has also Sorrow, so I guess the UK version is the only one without it.

The UK version allegedly omitted Sorrow because of the fear it may instigate more legal dramas.

The fact that it is also terrible was a mere oversight.
 
What times, eh?

I had a big quiff and worked at Volvo wearing Morrissey and Smiths t-shirts while shipping equipment to Saddam in Iraq. Peter with the old classic american car who unlike most other people owning one was still driving it at winter time. Nervous about the big bend being slippery when going home as we worked the evening shift which suited me who loved to get up late.

Then Rolf burst onto the scene and got a job there as well and I heckled him at his work station all night long. I gave him a New Order album on vinyl for one of his solo booze nights at home.

I had a finnish girl stalking me all over the workplace who moved to her own home and we used to bicycle to work together and she was afraid to stay in her new apartment on her own. Then I tried to off myself and came back like a ghost and she was trying even more to lay her hands on me but I found girls scary and did not know what to do with them.

Oh how she hated me years later and in a store she made signs at me but still smiled.

Then we had a guy that was a genius and hated music so much he used a scissor on the power chord to shut the radio up despite it being on and he could have got the shock of his life. He invented new things to save money for Volvo and make the place more effective and the more you throw something to a dog the more it will wag its tail.

He ended up in a shrink unit and all he did was cycle for miles and make his own buns. last I know he was with some woman who could have been his mother. Håkan was his name, oh my God.

I refused to work with him which lead to me getting the sack. Before that they wanted to send me to the states to work with someone but it never came off and they soon shut down that unit anyway.

Viva Hate is a backdrop to my two suicide attempts and coming back home from hospital the first thing I did was putting it on.

Viva Nineteen Eighty Hate

Pity you didn't f***ing succeed you f***ing quim and put us out of the misery of reading your drivel.
 
The UK version allegedly omitted Sorrow because of the fear it may instigate more legal dramas.

That's what I remember reading too. Which seems like a silly reason, because Europe and America aren't exactly on different planets than the UK -- you could just as easily build a court case on a song officially released in another country.
 
Pity you didn't f***ing succeed you f***ing quim and put us out of the misery of reading your drivel.
Cursed that very fact since those very days. I wonder if I am more sad about it than you are and the answer is a bit Carlsberg.

Probably!
 

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