That Time Morrissey Said Depeche Mode Sucked - New York Post

That time Morrissey said Depeche Mode sucked - NY Post
By Hardeep Phull

August 25, 2017 | 3:15am

In August 1981, a young, buzzy electro-pop band named Depeche Mode rolled into Manchester, England, to play at a small club called Rafters. Spirits were high; the band had just had its first major hit with “New Life” and another smash called “Just Can’t Get Enough” would hit the UK Top 10 before the end of the year.

But one person not buying into the hype was a local writer named Steven Morrissey, then 22. As depicted in the new film “England Is Mine” which opens Friday, before Morrissey became a star as the singer of the Smiths during the mid-’80s, he was getting in his curmudgeon practice by writing letters to the music press, and even penning the occasional review.

In a write-up published in the now defunct weekly Record Mirror, he called out Depeche Mode as “hilariously unimaginative” and accused them of peddling “every murderously monotonous cliché known to man.”

“That viewpoint is a very Manchester thing,” director Mark Gill tells The Post, referring to Morrissey’s brutal writings, which laid waste to not only Depeche Mode, but also the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones and even the Ramones. “It’s not enough for you to be good, everyone else has to be s - - t!”

‘Whatever [Morrissey] says — positive or negative — it will be going on my wall.’

Portraying Morrissey is rising Scottish actor Jack Lowden (who played the pilot Collins in “Dunkirk”). The 27-year-old spent a year researching the role by delving into these old writings, interviews and, of course, the lyrics of Smiths songs that drew heavily on Morrissey’s youth.

“He talked a lot in his early interviews about his experiences, his family and his depression,” says Gill, a 2014 Oscar nominee for his short film “The Voorman Problem,” who grew up in the same area of Manchester as Morrissey. “That early period of his life was certainly the most romantic for me. I was certainly never interested in making a film about the Smiths.”

Also on hand to help the director and star get an idea of what young Morrissey was really like was Billy Duffy, who was Morrissey’s early bandmate in the Manchester punk group the Nosebleeds, before he found success with the Cult. Unsurprisingly, Morrissey was often as scathing in person as he was in writing.

“The scene in which Morrissey criticizes the lyrics of Joe Strummer [from the Clash] is based on a story that Billy told us,” says Gill.

But the director is aware that the next target of Morrissey’s fury might be “England Is Mine.” The singer (who this week announced he is releasing his album “Low in High School” in November) maintained a distance from the film during production and has so far given no verdict. But if it doesn’t meet his standards, Morrissey will have little problem speaking up.

“Whatever he says — positive or negative — it will be going on my wall,” says Gill. “Maybe my bedroom ceiling, so I can see it every morning when I wake up!”
 
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Morrissey has always seen a threat in other bands and artists that he knew had the power to rule the charts. He has spent his life feeling envious and hateful instead of enjoying his own success.

The delight when Sweden and Malta made him number 1 in the album charts was clear for all to see. He has always had more ambition than he admitted.
 
The Depeche Mode gig in question. A reasonably decent audience recording.

 
Havnt we concluded he has pretty bad taste in music.. dead horse

It's easy to say that and I have done so myself about other peoples taste in music. But I remember the local record store owner who always told people off whenever someone made a comment if a customer was asking for an album by someone that somebody in the store did not approve of.

Certain types of music may be weird for some and like a religion for others. I suppose it's not the music itself but in fact what we put into the music ourselves. It channels something for us and we can all turn lyrics into being about something personal and the meaning of a song can be as many as the people listening to it.

Nowadays music doesn't mean as much to me as it once did but it made my life richer once and gave me an escape I very much needed at the time. People that spent time on other things than music probably made it in life and have proof of that success but I'm not sure they had a higher meaning in life or that their life was in any way better.

Music is like TV and you can turn it off if you don't like it unless you are out shopping of course.
 
It's easy to say that and I have done so myself about other peoples taste in music. But I remember the local record store owner who always told people off whenever someone made a comment if a customer was asking for an album by someone that somebody in the store did not approve of.

Certain types of music may be weird for some and like a religion for others. I suppose it's not the music itself but in fact what we put into the music ourselves. It channels something for us and we can all turn lyrics into being about something personal and the meaning of a song can be as many as the people listening to it.

Nowadays music doesn't mean as much to me as it once did but it made my life richer once and gave me an escape I very much needed at the time. People that spent time on other things than music probably made it in life and have proof of that success but I'm not sure they had a higher meaning in life or that their life was in any way better.

Music is like TV and you can turn it off if you don't like it unless you are out shopping of course.

THIS:>
" i suppose it's not the music itself but in fact what we put into the music ourselves. It channels something for us and we can all turn lyrics into being about something personal and the meaning of a song can be as many as the people listening to it."

The fact it means that much to you is because you are sensitive to music. It is a great pleasure and a benefit not everybody has. Even though almost everybody says to like music.

Of course it is what we put into the music itself but you won't appreciate all music so the music you really like has a mysterious quality, something I would call "magical" as no other word seems appropriate.
But I don't like the magician meaning of it. Cause you know magicians fool you.
It is the artistic part of it I guess.
 
THIS:>
" i suppose it's not the music itself but in fact what we put into the music ourselves. It channels something for us and we can all turn lyrics into being about something personal and the meaning of a song can be as many as the people listening to it."

The fact it means that much to you is because you are sensitive to music. It is a great pleasure and a benefit not everybody has. Even though almost everybody says to like music.

Of course it is what we put into the music itself but you won't appreciate all music so the music you really like has a mysterious quality, something I would call "magical" as no other word seems appropriate.
But I don't like the magician meaning of it. Cause you know magicians fool you.
It is the artistic part of it I guess.

Yeah, and sometimes you are in a certain emotional state and a song or a record comes into your life and that tend to stay with you for life.

For me Morrissey and in particular Viva Hate came into my life at a time when I needed a change or many changes. It ended with me freeing myself of the people I never felt were my real friends and instead I started to travel cause of the interest in music in general and also because I followed football.

At that time I saw the world just as Morrissey saw it on Viva Hate and also how he saw things in general in interviews. I was thinking back to that time last night as I was in bed about to fall asleep and realised that Morrissey became someone I liked cause it was hard to pinpoint him and sum him up and his stage presence was beyond what words could describe.

He was like nothing else going on at the time and a soulmate despite me never having met him. I think I saw him as an individual in a world of group pressure people that all had one mind and not a mind of their own but he had a mind of his own and went his own way no matter what.
 
Spooky,
This was floating around instagram a few days back.
FWD.
1587339312331325903.jpg

Full text from '81:

"22 August 1981 - Record Mirror (UK)
Steven Morrissey reviews a Depeche Mode / Ludus concert:
"Depeche Mode may not be the most remarkably boring group ever to walk the face of the earth, but they're certainly in the running. Their sophisticated nonsense succeeds only in emphasising just how hilariously unimaginative they really are. At once we recognise four coiffured Barry White's (a nauseating version); "cain't get enough of your lerve" they profess too dull to be even boring. They ressurect every murderouly monotous cliche known to modern man, and "New Life" looms as nothing more than a bland jelly-baby. Still the man from 'Jackie' was impressed, knowing that, at leat, these boys have nice hair... and the conveyor belt moves along. Ludus, plainly wishing they were elsewhere, hammered out a passionate set to an audience possibly hand-picked for their tone deafness. But Ludus like to wallow in other people's depravities and therefore their music offers everything to everyone. Linder was born singing and has more imagination than Depeche Mode could ever hope for. Still Depeche Mode get the Jackie spread. No justice!"
 
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Morrissey was right. Depeche Mode disappeared shortly after.

LOL

Still around it seems and their latest stop in Sweden made a famous music journo comment that the crowd was very old and she wondered what the men had done with their bodies as they were all fat.
 
Spooky,
This was floating around instagram a few days back.
FWD.
View attachment 42126
Full text from '81 (something the article omitted to reference despite the title!):

"22 August 1981 - Record Mirror (UK)
Steven Morrissey reviews a Depeche Mode / Ludus concert:
"Depeche Mode may not be the most remarkably boring group ever to walk the face of the earth, but they're certainly in the running. Their sophisticated nonsense succeeds only in emphasising just how hilariously unimaginative they really are. At once we recognise four coiffured Barry White's (a nauseating version); "cain't get enough of your lerve" they profess too dull to be even boring. They ressurect every murderouly monotous cliche known to modern man, and "New Life" looms as nothing more than a bland jelly-baby. Still the man from 'Jackie' was impressed, knowing that, at leat, these boys have nice hair... and the conveyor belt moves along. Ludus, plainly wishing they were elsewhere, hammered out a passionate set to an audience possibly hand-picked for their tone deafness. But Ludus like to wallow in other people's depravities and therefore their music offers everything to everyone. Linder was born singing and has more imagination than Depeche Mode could ever hope for. Still Depeche Mode get the Jackie spread. No justice!"

:lbf: genius ! love it ! M would have ROCKED! in the music journalism world if the band thing never took off.
 
http://nypost.com/2017/08/25/that-time-morrissey-said-depeche-mode-sucked/

That time Morrissey said Depeche Mode sucked
By Hardeep Phull

August 25, 2017 | 3:15am

View attachment 42125


In August 1981, a young, buzzy electro-pop band named Depeche Mode rolled into Manchester, England, to play at a small club called Rafters. Spirits were high; the band had just had its first major hit with “New Life” and another smash called “Just Can’t Get Enough” would hit the UK Top 10 before the end of the year.

But one person not buying into the hype was a local writer named Steven Morrissey, then 22. As depicted in the new film “England Is Mine” which opens Friday, before Morrissey became a star as the singer of the Smiths during the mid-’80s, he was getting in his curmudgeon practice by writing letters to the music press, and even penning the occasional review.

In a write-up published in the now defunct weekly Record Mirror, he called out Depeche Mode as “hilariously unimaginative” and accused them of peddling “every murderously monotonous cliché known to man.”

“That viewpoint is a very Manchester thing,” director Mark Gill tells The Post, referring to Morrissey’s brutal writings, which laid waste to not only Depeche Mode, but also the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones and even the Ramones. “It’s not enough for you to be good, everyone else has to be s - - t!”

‘Whatever [Morrissey] says — positive or negative — it will be going on my wall.’

Portraying Morrissey is rising Scottish actor Jack Lowden (who played the pilot Collins in “Dunkirk”). The 27-year-old spent a year researching the role by delving into these old writings, interviews and, of course, the lyrics of Smiths songs that drew heavily on Morrissey’s youth.

“He talked a lot in his early interviews about his experiences, his family and his depression,” says Gill, a 2014 Oscar nominee for his short film “The Voorman Problem,” who grew up in the same area of Manchester as Morrissey. “That early period of his life was certainly the most romantic for me. I was certainly never interested in making a film about the Smiths.”

Also on hand to help the director and star get an idea of what young Morrissey was really like was Billy Duffy, who was Morrissey’s early bandmate in the Manchester punk group the Nosebleeds, before he found success with the Cult. Unsurprisingly, Morrissey was often as scathing in person as he was in writing.

“The scene in which Morrissey criticizes the lyrics of Joe Strummer [from the Clash] is based on a story that Billy told us,” says Gill.

But the director is aware that the next target of Morrissey’s fury might be “England Is Mine.” The singer (who this week announced he is releasing his album “Low in High School” in November) maintained a distance from the film during production and has so far given no verdict. But if it doesn’t meet his standards, Morrissey will have little problem speaking up.

“Whatever he says — positive or negative — it will be going on my wall,” says Gill. “Maybe my bedroom ceiling, so I can see it every morning when I wake up!”

“Whatever he says — positive or negative — it will be going on my wall,” says Gill. “Maybe my bedroom ceiling, so I can see it every morning when I wake up!”

:) at least Gill's preparing for the worst with a dash of good humor.
 
'dead horse' ? Never heard of them.

Flogging a dead horse?
Pulling a dead horse?
That is said in Dutch too whenever everybody knows and can see clearly the mission (whatever it is) will fail.
Like when you see and hear a politician talking out of his arse. :brows:
 
Flogging a dead horse?
Pulling a dead horse?
That is said in Dutch too whenever everybody knows and can see clearly the mission (whatever it is) will fail.
Like when you see and hear a politician talking out of his arse. :brows:

oh thanks for clearing that up. I thought he was saying that M has bad taste in music because he likes this band called 'dead horse' which made sense to me. But what doesn't make sense then is that he's actually saying he thinks M has bad taste in music(o_O), which couldn't be FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. O.k there's a handful of clunkers in his list of favorites, but they pale in comparison to the number of great and inspiring artists that he has shared with the world. Just my two cents, which is worth millions to some anons who troll this site.
 
oh thanks for clearing that up. I thought he was saying that M has bad taste in music because he likes this band called 'dead horse' which made sense to me. But what doesn't make sense then is that he's actually saying he thinks M has bad taste in music(o_O), which couldn't be FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. O.k there's a handful of clunkers in his list of favorites, but they pale in comparison to the number of great and inspiring artists that he has shared with the world. Just my two cents, which is worth millions to some anons who troll this site.

Of course he has great taste in music Ketamine!
"Under The Influence" was great!
I am always curious about the pre video shows as he seems to always be searching for music to inspire him.
I think he does put a lot of time in it as the great music lover he is.
Always searching, he has much more knowledge about it then many people realize.
:thumb:
 
Of course he has great taste in music Ketamine!
"Under The Influence" was great!
I am always curious about the pre video shows as he seems to always be searching for music to inspire him.
I think he does put a lot of time in it as the great music lover he is.
Always searching, he has much more knowledge about it then many people realize.
:thumb:

.



well, without his 'bad taste' in music, we wouldn't have the music he and the Smiths have brought us.



:cool:
 
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