Morrissey vs Morrissette

[Foxymoron]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/8666620.htm?1c

 

[moby]

you have to sign up, can you cut and paste it or something?

 

[Foxymoron]

I got through from Google, but here you are

Posted on Sun, May. 16, 2004

Anger management through rock-and-roll

Rock-and-roll is the ideal mode of expression for cranks and malcontents. From their bully pulpits, artists can inflate tiny slights into righteous crusades, transform the most commonplace occurrences into metaphysical anguish.

The rock audience expects a certain amount of cathartic unburdening. But there are levels. Some artists simply snarl and bitch. Others draw from the bottomless pool of universal discontent to make lofty music that acknowledges the culture's narcissism and self-obsession.

Tuesday brings a vivid illustration of this, as two of pop's biggest complainers drop long-awaited works. Morrissey, the former Smiths vocalist once known as the "Manchester miserabilist," returns after a seven-year hiatus with You Are the Quarry (Sanctuary, ***1/2 out of four stars). And Alanis Morissette, the shrill Canadian songbird who asked the musical question "Isn't it ironic?," serves up another inventory of indignations on the aptly titled So Called Chaos (Maverick **).

Talk about your cosmic flukes: On the same day, it's possible to buy the latest musings of an '80s merchant of melancholy, who elevated existential complaints to trembling high art, and his just-plain-ticked-off Gen X doppelganger, whose inner turmoil leaves little room for anything but agony.

Morrissey, Morissette. Misery, miser-ette.

Listening to these two back-to-back is a lesson in the creative use of anger. Both are connoisseurs of human foibles, but their tactics are miles apart. Morrissey charts the extremes of what could be considered taboo emotion; Morissette is obsessed by the sort of relationship grievances girls chatter about in the food court. He forces dark interior thoughts into the open; she's a shut-in replaying the same breakup scenes in a joyless loop.

On Quarry, Morrissey, 44, spreads out an extravagant feast of small slights and larger disappointments, and savors each bittersweet morsel. He wallows in pain from his childhood, and wonders, on the deliciously enraged "I Have Forgiven Jesus," why his creator "stuck me in self-deprecating bones and skin." He's serious, but never dire: There's a twinkle in Morrissey's eye as he laments the "First of the Gang to Die," and rhymes "uniformed whores" with the year's most trenchant title, "The World Is Full of Crashing Bores."

The Los Angeles-based Englishman, who will play the Tweeter Center on Aug. 18 as part of the Lollapalooza Tour, is as prickly and disconsolate as ever. (One new song is called "How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel.") But he's also a citizen of the world, concerned with what he sees as galloping insensitivity and how complex arguments are reduced to crude polarities.

The album begins with the anti-imperialist proclamation "America Is Not the World," and from there charts a dual course: Even when the songs are about particular conflicts ("Irish Blood, English Heart" is the most obvious), other meanings bubble below the surface. This agit-rock veteran - whose catalog includes the Smiths' Meat Is Murder (1985) and the 1994 single "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get" - doesn't rail head-on against consumer-culture or TV torpor: His riffs are laced into more oblique lyrics.

There's no such subtlety lurking within the tightly controlled So Called Chaos. Morissette's fifth CD begins with what's meant as a wry comment on instant-makeover books; "Eight Easy Steps" picks up the tabla of "Baba" and other tracks from 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, except where they had sticky choruses, this one sounds like the product of some songwriting software's "venting" menu.

The enlightenment theme continues on track two, a bludgeoning anthem that proclaims "the only way out is thru," then Morissette's muse disappears. Pretty soon the 29-year-old - who will be at the Mann Center on Aug. 8 - sounds like a lost teen who's finally ready to turn things over to Dr. Phil.

She yammers on about apologies and excuses and how she's been hurt by insensitive boyfriends. And when she demands that her paramour acknowledge responsibility in a festering dispute ("Not All Me"), her resolve is unconvincing. Within minutes, she's back to her default resentment, sarcastically vowing to suppress her dreams and become "spineless, the most beautiful appendage."

Still mining the themes that sold 16 million copies of her U.S. debut, Jagged Little Pill, Morissette rarely looks up from her journal to engage the world. Her so-called hurt is enough, she evidently believes, even when dispensed in monochromatic hues.

That's one approach, but as Morrissey proves, anger acquires more dimension when painted in living color.

 

[broken]

Re: I got through from Google, but here you are

That's one rag we can be confident John Harris does not write for

> Posted on Sun, May. 16, 2004

> Anger management through rock-and-roll

> Rock-and-roll is the ideal mode of expression for cranks and malcontents.
> From their bully pulpits, artists can inflate tiny slights into righteous
> crusades, transform the most commonplace occurrences into metaphysical
> anguish.

> The rock audience expects a certain amount of cathartic unburdening. But
> there are levels. Some artists simply snarl and bitch. Others draw from
> the bottomless pool of universal discontent to make lofty music that
> acknowledges the culture's narcissism and self-obsession.

> Tuesday brings a vivid illustration of this, as two of pop's biggest
> complainers drop long-awaited works. Morrissey, the former Smiths vocalist
> once known as the "Manchester miserabilist," returns after a
> seven-year hiatus with You Are the Quarry (Sanctuary, ***1/2 out of four
> stars). And Alanis Morissette, the shrill Canadian songbird who asked the
> musical question "Isn't it ironic?," serves up another inventory
> of indignations on the aptly titled So Called Chaos (Maverick **).

> Talk about your cosmic flukes: On the same day, it's possible to buy the
> latest musings of an '80s merchant of melancholy, who elevated existential
> complaints to trembling high art, and his just-plain-ticked-off Gen X
> doppelganger, whose inner turmoil leaves little room for anything but
> agony.

> Morrissey, Morissette. Misery, miser-ette.

> Listening to these two back-to-back is a lesson in the creative use of
> anger. Both are connoisseurs of human foibles, but their tactics are miles
> apart. Morrissey charts the extremes of what could be considered taboo
> emotion; Morissette is obsessed by the sort of relationship grievances
> girls chatter about in the food court. He forces dark interior thoughts
> into the open; she's a shut-in replaying the same breakup scenes in a
> joyless loop.

> On Quarry, Morrissey, 44, spreads out an extravagant feast of small
> slights and larger disappointments, and savors each bittersweet morsel. He
> wallows in pain from his childhood, and wonders, on the deliciously
> enraged "I Have Forgiven Jesus," why his creator "stuck me
> in self-deprecating bones and skin." He's serious, but never dire:
> There's a twinkle in Morrissey's eye as he laments the "First of the
> Gang to Die," and rhymes "uniformed whores" with the year's
> most trenchant title, "The World Is Full of Crashing Bores."

> The Los Angeles-based Englishman, who will play the Tweeter Center on Aug.
> 18 as part of the Lollapalooza Tour, is as prickly and disconsolate as
> ever. (One new song is called "How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I
> Feel.") But he's also a citizen of the world, concerned with what he
> sees as galloping insensitivity and how complex arguments are reduced to
> crude polarities.

> The album begins with the anti-imperialist proclamation "America Is
> Not the World," and from there charts a dual course: Even when the
> songs are about particular conflicts ("Irish Blood, English
> Heart" is the most obvious), other meanings bubble below the surface.
> This agit-rock veteran - whose catalog includes the Smiths' Meat Is Murder
> (1985) and the 1994 single "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I
> Get" - doesn't rail head-on against consumer-culture or TV torpor:
> His riffs are laced into more oblique lyrics.

> There's no such subtlety lurking within the tightly controlled So Called
> Chaos. Morissette's fifth CD begins with what's meant as a wry comment on
> instant-makeover books; "Eight Easy Steps" picks up the tabla of
> "Baba" and other tracks from 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation
> Junkie, except where they had sticky choruses, this one sounds like the
> product of some songwriting software's "venting" menu.

> The enlightenment theme continues on track two, a bludgeoning anthem that
> proclaims "the only way out is thru," then Morissette's muse
> disappears. Pretty soon the 29-year-old - who will be at the Mann Center
> on Aug. 8 - sounds like a lost teen who's finally ready to turn things
> over to Dr. Phil.

> She yammers on about apologies and excuses and how she's been hurt by
> insensitive boyfriends. And when she demands that her paramour acknowledge
> responsibility in a festering dispute ("Not All Me"), her
> resolve is unconvincing. Within minutes, she's back to her default
> resentment, sarcastically vowing to suppress her dreams and become
> "spineless, the most beautiful appendage."

> Still mining the themes that sold 16 million copies of her U.S. debut,
> Jagged Little Pill, Morissette rarely looks up from her journal to engage
> the world. Her so-called hurt is enough, she evidently believes, even when
> dispensed in monochromatic hues.

> That's one approach, but as Morrissey proves, anger acquires more
> dimension when painted in living color.

 

[moby]

brilliant, thanks!!!!

 

[Foxymoron]

My pleasure