Is Morrissey in a massive musical rut?

[Worm]

I think you, Mr Worm, (and others in this thread) make the huge mistake of assuming that Morrissey is some kind of musical genius. He's gone on record as saying that he doesn't even consider himself to be a musician.

Speaking for myself, I never said he was a great musician. I said he did a lot to shape the songs, which has been stated many times by all of his collaborators, including Johnny Marr. I think Morrissey would laugh at the idea that he's simply the singer in a group-- as an example of this, I point to the fact that he has told journalists, on more than one occasion, that he regards The Smiths' songs as his songs. He's used those very words. He doesn't say, "The Smiths, the band I used to sing in..." They're his songs, he's said, and he would say the same of his post-1987 material.

I also tried to argue not that Morrissey somehow radically transforms the music, but only that it was the producer, not the band, who made the decisive difference in the sound.

I’m sorry but the idea that he's throwing his career down the drain is nonsense. ... the idea that he’s suddenly found himself in serious trouble, commercially or artistically, is rubbish.

"Nonsense"? "Rubbish"? He doesn't have a record contract.

 

[Black Cloud]

What interests me most about this whole thread is that these days, fans seem to be putting more energy into Morrissey's career than he does. Is he as bothered as we that he can't write another masterpiece?

 

[Anaesthesine]

A warm welcome back for Anaesthesine & Worm {Dickensian solicitors surely?}
The recent piece of ping-pong was the only enjoyable thing I've consumed on here in the last quarter year. Thank You both.

This place barely deserved you back in the day, and it sure-as-shit doesn't deserve you now. Unless it's as a Statler & Waldorf arrangement, looking down and dispensing judgement on the muppets below...

As to the thread topic, I have never previously bothered to add comment as my only thought was 'null and void'. But then that's most probably due to my having just seen 11 concerts on the current tour, and all I know is they were the finest, most vital performances I've seen in 20 years and some 60 plus Morrissey shows. And the most un-rut like endeavours I could imagine.

I sincerely wish that both of you can catch up with him at some point come November.

Why thank you Joe: it's nice to come home from a grueling week on the road to such kind words. I've gotten far more from this site than I've given.

My year won't be complete without a (musical) encounter with Morrissey this coming winter; he knows how much we love him here on the East Coast.

I think you, Mr Worm, (and others in this thread) make the huge mistake of assuming that Morrissey is some kind of musical genius. He's gone on record as saying that he doesn't even consider himself to be a musician. He's a singer and a lyricist in a pop group - that's all he's ever been. The albums are released under the name 'Morrissey' for marketing reasons, not because he's a solo artist. He's never written a note of music (‘vocal melodies’ don’t really count), and he's never played an instrument apart from some comedy piano on DOADD. So, the idea that he largely determines how each record sounds, musically, simply ain't true.
Of course, he has a say in how the recorded songs turn out but only really from a musical layman's point of view. He gets given demos by his songwriters. Some of the songs he likes, others he doesn't, but his influence in how they end up sounding is pretty minimal. The musical problem, if indeed there is a problem, is the strength of the melodies, not the way the songs are arranged. Years of Refusal had plenty of musical diversity (When Last I Spoke to Carol, Good in Your Time, OK by Myself, and Arms Around Paris are all miles apart stylistically), as did Who Ate Me Curry. An interesting arrangement (e.g. the flutes and the softly strummed guitars of I’m Not Sorry) does not, a great song, make.

I counter your post with Exhibit A: Alain Whyte's song originally entitled "Not Bitter But Bored." That song, as recorded with Alain's band, was utterly banal and completely forgettable. Morrissey got his hands on it, rewrote the lyrics and the vocal line, and it became "Irish Blood, English Heart": an instant classic. That's genius.

What interests me most about this whole thread is that these days, fans seem to be putting more energy into Morrissey's career than he does. Is he as bothered as we that he can't write another masterpiece?

Which is more distressing, I wonder: the loss of a great artistic muse, or the loss of a great artist?

 

[Worm]

Which is more distressing, I wonder: the loss of a great artistic muse, or the loss of a great artist?

Write to the author of "James Dean Is Not Dead" and see what he says.

 

[Maurice E]

I'm not saying he's simply the singer in the group - he's obviously the lyricist and he does have some influence on how the music turns out, but my argument is that this influence is pretty minimal. The 'solo' tag is hugely misleading, and makes many people believe, that post-Smiths, he became a genuine solo artist whereas he never did anything of the sort. He just switched to a new set of musicians, a new producer and a new song-composer.
As for the producer making more of a difference than the band, of all the songs he's played live before releasing recorded versions over the last 10 years (e.g. Crashing bores, First of the gang, All you need, Paris, I like you, Something is squeezing, People grow up etc), there's not a single one where my opinion of it changed after hearing the recorded 'produced' version, and I expect that will be the same of the current batch (i.e. Kid and People will probably be a bit duff, Scandinavia will at least be interesting, Action, a pleasant (if slight) radio-friendly single, and Art-hounds the most muscially and vocally substantial song of the bunch.
As for not having a record contract, well of course that's strictly true but it's only been 2 years since the last studio album was released, and only a few months since he recorded the demos for the new album, so I don't think these times count as 'wilderness years'. If he's still searching for a deal in a couple of years, fair enough. But my hunch is that he'll have a deal by the end of the year. There is also a suspiciously long gap between the European and US tours, and we know he's already done some work with Visconti in Dublin. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses this gap to record much (if not all) of the new album...

Speaking for myself, I never said he was a great musician. I said he did a lot to shape the songs, which has been stated many times by all of his collaborators, including Johnny Marr. I think Morrissey would laugh at the idea that he's simply the singer in a group-- as an example of this, I point to the fact that he has told journalists, on more than one occasion, that he regards The Smiths' songs as his songs. He's used those very words. He doesn't say, "The Smiths, the band I used to sing in..." They're his songs, he's said, and he would say the same of his post-1987 material.

I also tried to argue not that Morrissey somehow radically transforms the music, but only that it was the producer, not the band, who made the decisive difference in the sound.



"Nonsense"? "Rubbish"? He doesn't have a record contract.

 

[Peterb]

I'm not saying he's simply the singer in the group - he's obviously the lyricist and he does have some influence on how the music turns out, but my argument is that this influence is pretty minimal. The 'solo' tag is hugely misleading, and makes many people believe, that post-Smiths, he became a genuine solo artist whereas he never did anything of the sort. He just switched to a new set of musicians, a new producer and a new song-composer.
As for the producer making more of a difference than the band, of all the songs he's played live before releasing recorded versions over the last 10 years (e.g. Crashing bores, First of the gang, All you need, Paris, I like you, Something is squeezing, People grow up etc), there's not a single one where my opinion of it changed after hearing the recorded 'produced' version, and I expect that will be the same of the current batch (i.e. Kid and People will probably be a bit duff, Scandinavia will at least be interesting, Action, a pleasant (if slight) radio-friendly single, and Art-hounds the most muscially and vocally substantial song of the bunch.
As for not having a record contract, well of course that's strictly true but it's only been 2 years since the last studio album was released, and only a few months since he recorded the demos for the new album, so I don't think these times count as 'wilderness years'. If he's still searching for a deal in a couple of years, fair enough. But my hunch is that he'll have a deal by the end of the year. There is also a suspiciously long gap between the European and US tours, and we know he's already done some work with Visconti in Dublin. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses this gap to record much (if not all) of the new album...

Hey Maurice E, I think that maybe your flying in the face of reason here. Despite the fact that he is not a musician (although I'd question that position, why is a singer not a musician?) his influence on all of his collaborators has been massive. Working with him they have all done the best work of their careers and without him they disappear. I know this still doesn't neccessarily make him a 'solo' artist but he is the catalyst.

 

[Worm]

I'm not saying he's simply the singer in the group - he's obviously the lyricist and he does have some influence on how the music turns out, but my argument is that this influence is pretty minimal. The 'solo' tag is hugely misleading, and makes many people believe, that post-Smiths, he became a genuine solo artist whereas he never did anything of the sort. He just switched to a new set of musicians, a new producer and a new song-composer.
As for the producer making more of a difference than the band, of all the songs he's played live before releasing recorded versions over the last 10 years (e.g. Crashing bores, First of the gang, All you need, Paris, I like you, Something is squeezing, People grow up etc), there's not a single one where my opinion of it changed after hearing the recorded 'produced' version, and I expect that will be the same of the current batch (i.e. Kid and People will probably be a bit duff, Scandinavia will at least be interesting, Action, a pleasant (if slight) radio-friendly single, and Art-hounds the most muscially and vocally substantial song of the bunch.
As for not having a record contract, well of course that's strictly true but it's only been 2 years since the last studio album was released, and only a few months since he recorded the demos for the new album, so I don't think these times count as 'wilderness years'. If he's still searching for a deal in a couple of years, fair enough. But my hunch is that he'll have a deal by the end of the year. There is also a suspiciously long gap between the European and US tours, and we know he's already done some work with Visconti in Dublin. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses this gap to record much (if not all) of the new album...

All fair comments.

I certainly agree his method of making music didn't change after 1987. He's always done it more or less the same way.

If we limit his engagement in the songwriting process, though, doesn't that serve to underscore the importance of the musicians and-- especially critical, in my view-- the producer? We seem to disagree with each other on exactly how much influence Morrissey has on the songs themselves, but we agree on the fact that he takes raw backing tracks, adds his words and vocal melodies, and then a producer puts it all together in the studio. Thus, the question to ask is, what is the limit of his influence over each song? You say he's basically just a singer. I say he's more than that. But even if you're right, it places all the more emphasis on the role of a strong musical collaborator. The one crucial difference between The Smiths and Morrissey solo is that in the former arrangement Morrissey shared artistic director duties with Johnny Marr, and as a solo artist he takes on that role himself. I think his solo career bears out the fact that when he has a strong producing partner his material is much better, and furthermore his career testifies to his basic helplessness: he has to go with his instincts, collaborate with people he likes and trusts, and hope that the product of their labors is good. He's often been right (Ronson), but he's often been wrong, too (Langer/Winstanley).

As for the wilderness years, time will tell. I think two years without a record contract in the current music biz climate is equal to five or six years without a contract ten or twenty years ago. Just my sense of things, I could be wrong. Certainly he's going to release music on a label again. Will it be too late? The last spike in his popularity occurred about 20 years into his career, when there was a big Morrissey revival (around the time of "You Are The Quarry"). Without question he had a very strong batch of songs, and it was that, more than anything, which brought about a resurgence. Nevertheless, he did benefit from a lot of good press at that time, and some strong promotion from the label. Yet his next two albums did not sell as well, despite having songs as good as the ones on 'Quarry'. What happened? I'm not completely sure, but I think some of it has to do with the death of the traditional music industry-- artists needs to change and adapt or face irrelevancy, and as we know Morrissey is not terribly keen on changing and adapting.

 

[Peterb]

I don't understand why Morrissey should be struggling for a recording contract (although many posters believe this to be untrue), poor sales for Moz are still pretty healthy. He appears to be in the fortunate position of have a cross generational fan base and this can only be a boon (and we all like big boons).

 

[2-J]

He is struggling for two reasons.

1) First and foremost, his demands are excessive. He probably wants a large advance, generous allowance for promotion, and a 'traditional' record deal. These are rare these days.

2) His new material, at least what we have heard so far, is unlikely to impress many record companies.

 

[Maurice E]

I don't understand why Morrissey should be struggling for a recording contract (although many posters believe this to be untrue), poor sales for Moz are still pretty healthy. He appears to be in the fortunate position of have a cross generational fan base and this can only be a boon (and we all like big boons).

Oh dear - it really isn't that hard to comprehend. Instead of vague comments about healthy sales, and cross-generational fan bases, let's have a look at some actual sales instead.
In the UK, Maladjusted sold around 50,000 copies. You are the Quarry sold a whacking 400,000 copies, Ringleader managed around 200,000, then YOR reached around 85,000. It's clearly a very alarming sales trajectory. Instead of YATQ heralding a new era of platinum album sales for Morrissey it's looking increasingly like a blip.
For a conventionally-released album (adverts in the music press, CDs in the major outlets, physically released singles etc), sales need to be at least 100,000-150,000 (artists who sell fewer on a conventional contract tend to be dropped).
Morrissey can easily sell more than this number, but he needs a couple of brilliant singles and/or some major hype. In the 5 new songs previewed live (and the other new songs yet to be previewed), does he have 2 brilliant singles? This is the question record companies will be asking themselves.

 

[Peterb]

Oh dear - it really isn't that hard to comprehend. Instead of vague comments about healthy sales, and cross-generational fan bases, let's have a look at some actual sales instead.
In the UK, Maladjusted sold around 50,000 copies. You are the Quarry sold a whacking 400,000 copies, Ringleader managed around 200,000, then YOR reached around 85,000. It's clearly a very alarming sales trajectory. Instead of YATQ heralding a new era of platinum album sales for Morrissey it's looking increasingly like a blip.
For a conventionally-released album (adverts in the music press, CDs in the major outlets, physically released singles etc), sales need to be at least 100,000-150,000 (artists who sell fewer on a conventional contract tend to be dropped).
Morrissey can easily sell more than this number, but he needs a couple of brilliant singles and/or some major hype. In the 5 new songs previewed live (and the other new songs yet to be previewed), does he have 2 brilliant singles? This is the question record companies will be asking themselves.

Hey MauriceE, No need to so po faced about it! I don't know the sales figures so I make a judgment based on what I do know.

 

[Raphael Lambach]

Friend... if you're waiting for Morrissey changing his career, well, change your mind.d It won't happen anymore. Now, he's part of the mainstream - as well as Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Souxsie, Robert Smith and so on - then, the only thing most people expect of him is to play songs and give a good gig. Nothing more.

Of course, we'd like to get our hands over a good album too but... about this subject I think Morrissey should make an album at the "independent music industry". He doesn't need a great record label as Sony, Decca, EMI anymore. He can do it by himself.