Rolling Stone Germany review by Arne Willander - IANADOC 4/5

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For what it's worth, here's what Google-Translate makes of the article:

This is true authorship: that for three decades someone who writes virtuoso lyrics and sings delightfully, but has never written music, has performed the songs of different, well: composers who all sound like him, so morrisseyesque.

From the beginning of his solo career, the songs tended to turn into questionably bland, pretentious and rough, but it was always Morrissey. The flawless no longer succeeded because Johnny Marr no longer made music for him. After lean years and disturbing submissions, the troubadour, now generally recognized as irresponsible, has entered the late work phase, which means that it is absolutely free of fools, which is causing miraculous blooms.

Last year “California Son” enchanted, an album with favorite songs that Morrissey naturally selected as idiosyncratically as interpreted: pieces by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jobriath. "I Am Not A Dog On A Chain" now has all unmistakable Morrissey melodies (somehow grandiose, somehow elegiac, somehow plaintive).

But also the ancient beats of pet shop boys hits, brass movements, small piano interludes, an apart melodramatic duet with Thelma "Don't Leave Me This Way" Houston, a fiddle in "Once I Saw The River Clean", the defiant replica of the hostility in "I Am Not A Dog On A Chain" ("I use my own brain, I raise my voice "), the tender and solemn art song" The Truth About Ruth "including opera soprano the lacing, the ominously sprawling, noisy, dragged-out, spread-sung “The Secret Of Music "(" Bomm-bomm-bomm, the drum "), finally the cheesy swan song with children's choir, "My Hurling Days Are Done": "Time, no friend of mine / There's nowhere to run."

The Morrissey lettering on the cover is finally beautifully artless and bulky. The famous chin is stretched. And Morrissey's face shines with delight.


I like this sentence: "After lean years and disturbing submissions, the troubadour, now generally recognized as irresponsible, has entered the late work phase, which means that it is absolutely free of fools, which is causing miraculous blooms."
 
Get real, Marr was shite, maybe the worst thing happened to him. Morrissey is Alain, Boz & Spencer. It was the only gang he ever had. Gustavo and Jesse don't make a gang, Smiths is no gang. A song about Ruth don't magically shred the fax, teddy bears don't bring Alain back. The kid has f***ed up really bad. Gelatos ain't gonna fix that.
 
4 out of 5 seems fair to me.

Here's why!

The album loses .5 for the terrible bloody cover. .5? Yes! .5.

It also loses .5 for that lyric 'I don't read news papers they are troublemakers'.

Rest of the album is pretty bloody good.

Yes it is, Skinnybob. I know you're reading this! ;)

You as well, Surfacebob.
 
Get real, Marr was shite, maybe the worst thing happened to him. Morrissey is Alain, Boz & Spencer. It was the only gang he ever had. Gustavo and Jesse don't make a gang, Smiths is no gang. A song about Ruth don't magically shred the fax, teddy bears don't bring Alain back. The kid has f***ed up really bad. Gelatos ain't gonna fix that.
...the f*** are you on about, Rudy?

Lay off the morphine.
 
Get real, Marr was shite, maybe the worst thing happened to him. Morrissey is Alain, Boz & Spencer. It was the only gang he ever had. Gustavo and Jesse don't make a gang, Smiths is no gang. A song about Ruth don't magically shred the fax, teddy bears don't bring Alain back. The kid has f***ed up really bad. Gelatos ain't gonna fix that.
You are ridiculous!!
 
4 out of 5 seems fair to me.

Here's why!

The album loses .5 for the terrible bloody cover. .5? Yes! .5.

It also loses .5 for that lyric 'I don't read news papers they are troublemakers'.

Rest of the album is pretty bloody good.

Yes it is, Skinnybob. I know you're reading this! ;)

You as well, Surfacebob.

I think the worst lyrical moment on the album is that whole section beginning "Maybe I'll be skinned alive by Canada Goose" and ending in "because of my niece". I can't even bring myself to sing along with it in coronavirus isolation. The whole album could have been made twice as good just by replacing that section with decent lyrics. But otherwise, I'm still largely enjoying it.
 
I think the worst lyrical moment on the album is that whole section beginning "Maybe I'll be skinned alive by Canada Goose" and ending in "because of my niece". I can't even bring myself to sing along with it in coronavirus isolation. The whole album could have been made twice as good just by replacing that section with decent lyrics. But otherwise, I'm still largely enjoying it.
The only thing that makes the title track reasonable is thinking of it as a satire to STDIB. Otherwise it is too dumb to be "I am the most clever" clever and that's the second time. Neoliberalism is the new mainstream, so he is just a dog on that chain. Maybe the only way to get out is not to make songs about chains? That is the basic principle of awareness which is a little Hegelian to me. As long as he depends on veganism (and it depends on individualism) or cover hippie songs which he was shitting over in the 80s, he is a dog on the neoliberal chain. Maybe it is so free of him not to watch news and grow an apolitical arse, but that is the (r)eal chain. Ditch that badge, British Boy!
 
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I think the worst lyrical moment on the album is that whole section beginning "Maybe I'll be skinned alive by Canada Goose" and ending in "because of my niece". I can't even bring myself to sing along with it in coronavirus isolation. The whole album could have been made twice as good just by replacing that section with decent lyrics. But otherwise, I'm still largely enjoying it.

It's mostly a jaunty comedy song & that bit is about not being able to stop writing, so it's probably meant to be the writer losing control & doing whatever rhymes rather than him actually singing he'll be skinned alive because of his niece.
 
I think the worst lyrical moment on the album is that whole section beginning "Maybe I'll be skinned alive by Canada Goose" and ending in "because of my niece". I can't even bring myself to sing along with it in coronavirus isolation. The whole album could have been made twice as good just by replacing that section with decent lyrics. But otherwise, I'm still largely enjoying it.

Have you Googled Canada Goose?

f*** that company!
 
Have you Googled Canada Goose?

f*** that company!

I was at the Manchester Jazz Festival last year, they'd got a stage next door to Harvey Nichols. A girl was screaming about Canada Goose (getting in the way of the music to be honest) and handing out leaflets. A vile company.

Though I'm always amused by the protesters that hang around there shouting 'Boycott Harvey Nichols! Boycott Burberry!' as I scrape around my pockets for 50p. 'Ok protesters, I promise not to shop there'
 
While you're talking about his lyrics: The way he repeats lines ('Ruth is John' for example) gets on my nerves. He must have producers fearing for their job because someone needs to say to him, 'Have you thought about writing some more lines?'
 
My clear vinyl arrived in the post today. I have only listened to it once, and my favorite track currently is The Truth About Ruth. I also think some of the lyrics are embarrassing... Enjoyed California Son much more.
 
My clear vinyl arrived in the post today. I have only listened to it once, and my favorite track currently is The Truth About Ruth. I also think some of the lyrics are embarrassing... Enjoyed California Son much more.
It will grow on you, believe me, took me about 3 to 4 listens in its full entirety. .. now it's played at least once a day...even more now I'm inside a lot more
 
I was reading a review recently that mentioned the dog cover as being deliberately warped. I dont pay attention to covers much, I know it’s not typical of a morrissey fan, but when I read and then thought about it it seemed likely. They mentioned it being distorted because it was such a close up shot and the angle. That it looked alright a few feet away but not close up. Made me wonder if he was thinking about being scrutinized so closely that all anyone ends up with is an unfocused distorted image of him from one unflattering perspective
 
While you're talking about his lyrics: The way he repeats lines ('Ruth is John' for example) gets on my nerves. He must have producers fearing for their job because someone needs to say to him, 'Have you thought about writing some more lines?'

I don't think it's the lyric that's the problem on that track - I think it's the prissy defensive way he sings most of it, which has been a problem on some tracks since World Peace - he's not designed for direct polemic esp. not on something he's torn about like the epic battle between gender & sex.

Moz's forte is insolent, ambivalent & macabre.
 
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