the journalist is simply saying that he is ruining his legacy and running the risk of not being remembered as the great artist who co-wrote the queen is dead, but instead the crackpot who left behind many more lyrically terrible albums than good ones. curtis of course, didn't write all these bad albums, the output was smaller, so will, creatively, be better respected in musical history.
i suspect for morrissey the well ran dry years ago. some of these new songs have the worst lyrics ever though, and sadly there's no one in his life to tell him. it's sad to see him surrounded by hack musicians, and no one to say, hey wait a minute, this is crap isn't it? but he believe his own genius... only it's no longer there.
the career descent has been largely self-inflicted. marr just had enough (and who can blame him?) street seemed the nicest guy ever and would probably have keep collaborating as long as he was paid... Alain and Boz probably could have provided more adventurous musical backdrops, but instead were encouraged to churn out the same old same old, because anything would be great purely because of M's presence.
some of the new music sounds ok, as the article pointed out, it's just the lyrics that suck. and in many cases it sounds like they don't fit the music, like the singer is trying to sing a totally different song to what the band are playing.
he has fans because of (very much in the) past glories. but there's really nothing to look forward to with new releases. the songwriters needed to change, but morrissey has been in an artistic rut for a long time.
i think people get passionate because the early songs meant so much to them. but there's no sense listening to badly written and performed songs by anyone.
the ashes of morrissey's creative genius is around us, if only we could see it.
