"You Are The Fog"? LOL! No, I've switched off Morrissey's dry ice machine so his smoke and mirrors don't work anymore. His USP for his FMCG line of CDs and Gigs is 'outrage', particularly trolling animal rights issues. It's completely pointless as he has every gift he needs to reach an audience without such provocations and, indeed, would reach the much bigger audience he craves if he didn't repel Joe/Josie Six Pack with his outlandish and frankly ridiculous socio-political posturing.
As I've stated numerous times, I think he's an incredible singer, writes wonderful vocal melodies and mostly excellent to brilliant lyrics. However, he's also a profoundly disturbed human being. I think he's emblematic of the failure of the entire punk/post-punk project, alongside John Lydon. Popular music has been reduced to a 'lifestyle condiment' to sell either bling or rebellion, or both if it's the deeply confused Kanye West end of the spectrum. I find this topic fascinating because so many people of my generation have wasted their lives building 'rebel' images only to find that they were simply being played by post-capitalism. I have friends who *used* to earn a living from Recorded Sound. They are now reduced to hawking t-shirts and touring every toilet venue they can just to finish paying off the mortgage. They report that what was fun in their 20s is now an ordeal in their mid 50s. I am extremely fortunate in not having to traipse around in a van to sell t-shirts but shudder to think of what fate might have befallen me if I'd drank the pop-music Kool-Aid back in the day. I also think that 'fame' is probably the worst thing that can happen to a vulnerable person and Morrissey is Exhibit A for that argument.
It's also odd that Morrissey continues to rail against a model of the music industry that barely exists anymore. He never mentions pitiful streaming royalites from technology giants like YouTube,Spotify & Pandora, still insisting that there's a large pot of physical gold to mine from bricks'n'mortar music companies. And that he should be sharing it. As far as I can tell, his complaint is that he is not part of the 1% elite at the Grammys and BRITS. However, I've concluded he's just as ill-informed about music business economics as he is about the nuances of animal rights issues. He is no longer a 'real' pop star and he cannot stand it. I personally think 'fame' was a modernist concept that technology is destroying but that's a niche debate beyond this site. However, Morrissey is a particularly rewarding trigger to thinking about these topics and I'm not asking anyone else to join in!
"More and more, pop stars seem to exist solely online. And therefore they don’t really exist at all."
http://grantland.com/features/lady-gaga-katy-perry-eminem-justin-timberlake-beyonce-year-music/
I agree with you that many who bitterly complain about my musings on Morrissey on this forum should STFU and just listen to the music, enjoy the shows, and press 'erase' on the bits that disrupt the trance. Including my comments! It's really rather ridiculous that anyone continues to either read or argue with me if their only 'reason' for listening to Morrissey is to enjoy the music as part of whatever lifestyle/entertainment apparatus they feel is meaningful. Everyone who feels that way should just put me on Ignore. After all, if there's no point 'rationally' discussing him then there's no point commenting on this forum beyond expressing gratitude for the emotional states which his music triggers.
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