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Underground > Radio & Music >

Morrissey: You Are The Quarry

  
  

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rab
17:57 / 08.03.04
I'm not putting morrissey on a pedistal as a person. What I am saying he is different and thats what makes him who he is. Once again what amazes me is that we are criticing the person instead of his music. His music is unique, he doesn't fall in a general catagory. Sure everyone one has their opinion about what was his best material and will hes new album be as good. I'm beyond that, I feel music needs people like him. Bono from U2 said the same thing, music needs someone like him.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
18:04 / 08.03.04
Why?
 
 
rab
18:35 / 08.03.04
Why? Because he is different. Hip hop singers are a dime a dozen, rappers are a dime for two dozen. There is only one Morrissey, Bono, and Martin Gore. It's like those who drink Coke complaining about those who drink Dr pepper. Coke is no better, so they should just not say anything, and if they are, well then say it about Coke. And Dr pepper gives those who don't like Coke a different option. Thats why...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
18:35 / 08.03.04
well, actually, answering rab's point from a position ze probably wouldn't agree with, i'd quote this:

"Such a role model for these gloriously troubled, post-closet, times. "

and before someone says this is nothing to do with his music, it's all in there, and he's the kind of artist who inhabits his music as a character, and his public persona is not dissimilar. "morrissey" is a whole, and probably something wildly different from Stephen Patrick Morrissey.

And also, rab, I think you'll find that some of the most loving voices here are also able to be massively critical. While waving our knickers in the air and chanting

(to the En-ger-land theme)

Mor-ris-sey
Mor-ris-sey
Mor-ris-sey...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
18:43 / 08.03.04
Oh, and Rab. Yr being an idiot.

ambisexual, pale, white, english, gender-bender, guitar boys.... ten a penny where i come from. and at various points in ooh, the 70s, 80s, 90s have been impossible to get away from.

'Missy Elliot's/'Lil Kim's/'Dizzee's? pretty few and far between.
 
 
rab
18:53 / 08.03.04
On your second post about me being an idiot, I don't know what the heck your talking about in the rest of the post. I'm an idiot because I find it amazing how people who can stand to listen to hip hop, have the nerve to complain about Morrissey.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
19:19 / 08.03.04
Again, unless you can actually make it relevant in some tiny way to the topic at hand, hip hop conversation = hip hop thread. Conversation about how liking one thing immediately voids your opinion on something else = anywhere on the Internet but here.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
11:48 / 16.03.04
Information that may be of interest to ye, via Morrissey-solo.com, via Simon Goddard reviewing the new album on BBC 6 music. Track listing and info ahoy:

"There's a clipped drum sound almost a bit like New Order's "True Faith", quite electronic. And there's a lot of spaghetti western twangy guitars in it."

"I described the song [I Like You] as anodyne, and now I'm retracting my comments on the BBC because I think that the actual recorded version is really really good. I was impressed and surprised."

"His singing on this record is really, really fantastic, and his lyrics as well... There are some good jokes on this album... He's being very political, very controversial, but at the same time there are desperate, lovelorn, isolated, classic Morrissey and a real sense of him singing about himself and perpretraing his own myth..."

"My favourite lyrical note on the album is in the song "I Have Forgiven Jesus" ... 'Monday -- Humiliation. Tuesday -- Suffocation. Wednesday -- Condescension' and the line that absolutely killed me 'Thursday is Pathetic."

"The opening track "America Is Not the World" has a funny verse about hamburgers. Classic Morrissey, like "Meat is Murder"

"The Slum Mums doesn't appear on the album.... "Mexico" is not on it."

"The full track listing is:

 America is Not the World
Irish Blood, English Heart
I Have Forgiven Jesus
Come Back to Camden (Godard's favourite song)
I'm Not Sorry
The World is Full of Crashing Bores
How Can Anyone Possibly Know How I Feel?
The First of the Gang to Die
Let Me Kiss You
I Like You
All the Lazy Dykes
You Know I Couldn't Last

"[Come Back to Camden] is a really classic Morrissey song. In the same vein as "I Know it's Gonna Happen Someday" and "Trouble Loves Me", a beautiful piano ballad. And the lyrics are very John Betjmen, "Everyday is Like Sunday". There's a line about 'Drinking tea with the taste of the Thames' It's a really fantastic song. It's got that welling-up quality about it."

"There's a great flute solo on "I'm Not Sorry". 'I Like You' begins with like an acid-house synth, which sounds horrible but really works."

"A lot of credit must go to Jerry Finn. ... Electronic drum sounds like on Viva Hate with "Late Night, Maudlin Street" That sharp kind of click"

"It's no great musical departure from Vauxhall and I, but in terms of production it sounds very contemporary."

"He sings about Americans being overfed warmongers. America is Not the World is a really strong opener."

"I think his fans will love it and there's so much good will out there in the world for Morrissey."

Morrissey is also doing the old Meltdown festival thing, and apparently has got the New York Dolls to reform to play it for him. But I guess that's another thread...
 
 
Sax
07:00 / 30.03.04
Morrissey is now playing the Reading and Leeds festivals this August bank holiday.
 
 
Sax
07:03 / 30.03.04
I think the title of the album is different now, too; "For Your Quarry".

And according to his website, it's still "You Are The Quarry".
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
08:12 / 30.03.04
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure where that came from. For some reason it was reported on morrissey-solo at some point...
 
 
PatrickMM
20:45 / 30.03.04
Looks like Morrissey will be headlining Lollapalooza

Moz would probably be enough to get me there, but throw in The Flaming Lips and Polyphonic Spree, and I'm really psyched. I never really thought of Morrissey as a big festival guy, but I guess it could work.
 
 
Loomis
20:48 / 04.04.04
There's a brief description of what you can expect on each track from playlouder.com.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
22:21 / 04.04.04
It's like those who drink Coke complaining about those who drink Dr pepper. Coke is no better, so they should just not say anything, and if they are, well then say it about Coke. And Dr pepper gives those who don't like Coke a different option. Thats why...

Is Dr Pepper one of those new fangled hip hop guys?
 
 
Sax
18:53 / 08.04.04
Yes. He's the new flava.
 
 
rab
20:04 / 08.04.04
Hey Gypsy,

Thats what I've been saying. Moz is one of the only singers that I know of that gets looked under a microscope. Just the fact that people even talk about the content of his music, shows how good he is.

Rab
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:56 / 08.04.04
I like Morissey and Hip Hop. But I don't like Dr Pepper OR Coke. Fuck. I'm going to have to go and sit down.
 
 
Loomis
08:24 / 09.04.04
Dr Pepper is the new New Coke.
 
 
Ganesh
01:50 / 10.04.04
Moderately interesting (if a tad bog-standard) interview in today's Guardian Review, 'Somebody has to be me' - complete with standard-issue, pre-doomed-but-hey-who-can-resist attempt on the part of the interviewer to Pin Down Morrissey's Sexuality:

I decide to broach the subject of his sexuality and mention his splendidly titled All the Lazy Dykes, a song about the liberating effects of coming out of the closet.

"Trying to get somebody to," Morrissey corrects, smiling. "And telling her if she came to join the lazy dykes she'd be one herself. And she needed me to tell her, of course, because she can't come to that conclusion herself."

Doesn't that invite speculation?

"No. Andy Williams could have sung that song. It just happens to be me who's singing it."

This is nonsense but let's press on. Does he believe in love?

"Um. I believe it does exist, yes. I've skirted it on a few occasions."

But never plunged in?

"Plunged? I think I've plunged, yeah."

Were all these people women?

"They seemed to be, as far as I knew. They would all be women if they had a choice." He laughs as if to say: "That's all you're getting."

I think it's interesting that, as well as being deliciously slippery on questions of sexuality, La Moz also seems increasingly (or am I just now noticing?) oblique on gender...:

"I was diagnosed with depression before they knew what gender I was"
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
10:38 / 10.04.04
He's going to be on Jonathan Ross, sometime soon. I think in about three weeks. Be ready!
 
 
Ganesh
12:22 / 10.04.04
Oooh! Wonder how he'll get on with Wossy...?
 
 
Ganesh
08:31 / 16.04.04
I see friends shaking hands, saying "how do you do?"'



They're really saying "I love you"...
 
 
PatrickMM
23:14 / 29.04.04
The Irish Blood, English Heart video is up on VH1. The video's sort of weak, being just his performance, but the song's great. It feels uniquely Morrissey, yet really modern also. The guitars in the chorus part are phenomenal.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
19:23 / 30.04.04
He's aged well, lookswise, eh?
 
 
Ganesh
02:11 / 01.05.04
Yep. I suspect that may be a prosthetic quiff, though.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
12:50 / 01.05.04


Website with tasters of tracks, and all that kind of stuff. Sounds quite good, so far. I'm looking foward to liking Morrissey, again. And also - the first of his records I can buy new! (It all rather passed me by when I were a lad). It's nice to see him doing well... although the video's a little dull. Simple, but dull.

UK site here.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
10:38 / 06.05.04
So then, the album (and all three b-sides) appears to be leaking on to a file sharing program near you, for those who enjoy the thrill of downloading.

Too early to tell what I think of it. Lots of good, some bad... not sure what to make of it yet.

"The first of the gang to die" appears to be the strongest track, by far, in my eyes. It's also the next single, apparently.

Also: a single review from ZOO magazine. Yes.

MORRISSEY
IRISH BLOOD, ENGLISH HEART

Moz tears off his big girl's blouse, flings his flowers into the bin and returns with a patriotic anthem so rock hard you could cut diamonds with it. *****

Five stars, rock hard, eh? Quite.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
18:29 / 08.05.04
"I've been dreaming of a time... when to be standing by the flag, is not shameful..."

It's like popping round to visit your grandad, isn't it? You're fond of him and you want to make him a nice cup of tea, but this involves listening to him bang on for a bit about what's wrong with the country these days. (Except Morrisey doesn't live here anymore, but there's a song about America with some truly rubbish lyrics too, so that's okay.)

The tune's quite good though, as these things go.
 
 
Ganesh
23:45 / 14.05.04
Flyboy, Flyboy, Flyboy. No matter how many organic radishes take root in the fecund shadows of your mighty glans, I fear we will never agree on the Mighty Moz.

Having said which, it feels slightly surreal to be opening every single bloody style magazine and seeing 'Irish Blood, English Heart' given five stars. It's not that bloody good. I'm sensing a faintly zeitgeisty call, a feeling that La Moz's time has come, as did Paul Weller's in the mid-90s, and he's being feted despite (rather than because of) his music. Just watched him on Jonathan Ross's show: the fact that it came across as even vaguely banteresque was much more a testament to Ross's interviewing skills than Moz's charisma, I felt. I was puzzled and slightly disturbed by the bitter-sounding intro to 'Every Day Is Like Sunday'. Hmmm.

Looking forward to Monday, though. And listening to 'Late Night, Maudlin Street' as we type...
 
 
aquaboy
15:34 / 16.05.04
just finished reading Spin's article with the dear Steven Patrick. I found it fascinating because after listening to his last album, I was sure he would fade into obscurity. Having been one of legion of the many emotionally dramatic teenagers who gravitated toward the Mozzer one would feel that on some level he's left the trappings of the wounded man he so identified with. i'm curious about the album and will report back one I listent o it.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
16:07 / 16.05.04
The thing is, 'Nesh, seeing him do 'Every Day Is Like Sunday' on Wossy's show, I do actually understand the urge to celebrate Morrisey and forgive him everything, now more than ever. (He got some good jokes in, too: refusing Ross' offer to drive him onstage with "I am trying for some measure of popularity, Jonathan.") But I was aghast at his apparently serious belief that the reason his fans cherish him is that he is "real" - "it's never a performance - never" - rather than that he is, say, bizarre and unique. This disavowal of pretence in favour of authenticity only confirms my previous suspicions that there is not that much to separate Morrisey and the grand old men of British rock who have previously been granted a renaissance - eg, Paul Weller. Who, while also a fan of being allowed to bang on about England all the time, at least had the decency to be living here when he did it.

"It's a question of how many people you'll continue to allow to flood into the country" - Morrisey on immigration, from the recent NME interview.
 
 
Ganesh
16:26 / 16.05.04
Oh, there's no denying ol' Moz has a multitude of Selfawarian blind spots; I think I can actually see what he was getting at with the "real" comment, though, so it didn't push my ghast button. As I've probably said elsewhere, though, much depends how one consumes music in general and his in particular (and one's attachment to him over time): I've never really found any of his cryptic or not-so-cryptic statements on 'Englishness' sufficiently outrageous to seriously mar my enjoyment of Morrissey as an artist and performer.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
18:15 / 16.05.04
More often that not, I'm increasingly dissapointed that he's really not as intelligent as I want him to be. And never what his multitudes of fans would like to think and make excuses for.

And that his new album is pretty dire.
 
 
Loomis
18:56 / 17.05.04
On first listen ... I really like it! I was expecting it to be reasonably listenable with maybe a couple of stand-out tracks, but I like it more than that already, and that's quite a good result given the fact that I'm notorious for not "getting" albums straight away, even by my favourite artists. I don't think that it's up there with Vauxhall and I as some reviewers have claimed, but my immediate response is that it's a worthwhile addition to the canon.

"Irish Blood English Heart" and "First of the Gang to Die" are as good as they were on the net, and "The World is Full of Crashing bores" and "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel" have more groove than I noticed on my brief net-listen the other day, and I can see myself coming to love them. My first impressions of "America is Not the World" and "I'm Not Sorry" were not that great, but again, I often end up loving tracks that I first thought were average (or worse). And "I Have Forgiven Jesus" is still echoing in my head as I type.

I also thought that the punctuation on the cover (though not on the spine) was interesting: "Morrissey, you are the Quarry", in light of his moans on how the media attack him.

But all in all, good stuff on first listen. We'll see what happens on successive spins.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
19:58 / 18.05.04
Well I like it. I wasn't expecting to, but I think it's really good. Thought I'd give it a go, intrigued by the ridiculous album cover as much as anything else. I think there's some really good songs on there, 'world is full of crashing bores' and 'first of the gang to die' are my current standout tracks. The latter of which sounds like Morrissey doing 'learned to love the bootboys' era Luke Haines, which is weird. Although 'come back to camden' and well, all of it, it growing on me with every listen. However 'I like you' is just plain creepy, brrrr...

There's some great understated little turns of phrase in the lyrics that remind me of The Smiths a lot more than his solo stuff, and he just seems really into the material, rather than just treading water for the sake of it.
 
  

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