I get it, you are on of those people who think everything Morrissey releases is brilliant. Well, the album sales tell a different tale.
Anyway, thank you for pointing out that some of the worst & most tuneless songs were composed by 'musical director' Boz. He should be the first to go.
Oh please. Album sales are meaningless at determining whether an album is brilliant. Patti Smith's Horses is considered to be one of the most brilliant albums of all time and I would be surprised to learn if it sold very many units at all (though I could be very wrong). In fact, I was just reading about Neutral Milk Hotel and their seminal album, considered by many to be brilliant, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has sold only 300,000 copies since it came out nearly 15 years ago. This was pretty shocking to me and I was astonished by how low this number was (in fact if somebody told me this wasn't true I wouldn't be a bit surprised). This in spite of the fact that wikipedia tells me that "The album continues to sell well, and was the sixth-best-selling vinyl album in 2008."
Brilliance is not determined by record sales. That being said I do not think that Morrissey's last album was anything approaching brilliant, but I don't think it was a terrible album. In fact, I would say it was a good album. And the reviews in the commercial press would back me up on this--4 Stars from All Music Guide, which only gave Viva Hate, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I, You Are the Quarry four and half stars. Hell, All Music Guide only gave Meat is Murder 3 1/2 stars (and no I don't believe that Years of Refusal holds a candle to Meat is Murder nor is it merely half a star away in quality from Moz's best solo work). Pitchfork Media gave the album 8.1/10, NME 8/10. The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and Q all gave it three stars and Spin and Uncut gave the album 4 stars. Meaningless metrics yes, but indicative of how out of touch some of the naysayers are here.
The point being is this--the Smiths were a brilliant band and one of the most innovative bands of popular music of the last thirty years. They are also my personal favorite band of all time. Morrissey's solo career has had ups (Viva Hate, Bona Drag) and downs (Kill Uncle, Maladjusted). He's one of the greatest artists of all times and probably my favorite artist after the Smiths. That being said his output for the last ten years has not been the most brilliant and innovative work of music in general of the last ten years. But it hasn't been terrible. It's been pretty good.
So in summary--Morrissey is a legendary music figure who has been involved with some of the most innovative and brilliant music of the last 30 years, he continues to record albums that are good and well-recieved critically, he tours regularly (when he's not canceling) selling out venues that are about the size expected for a cult indie artist, and people here think his career has reached some unprecedented low in all of musical history and he should quit.
I am not of the Morrissey can no do wrong crowd, he can, but I am also not of the Morrissey can no do right crowd either. And I find both groups of people similarly delusional and out of touch with reality. I suspect both groups are suffering from a heavy dose of nostalgia and reacting to it in very different ways.
