"Life is very long, when you're lonely," Morrissey sang at the helm of The Smiths in 1986. The title track from the band's greatest album laments, in part, waiting around and around and around some more, answering questions about fulfilling a destiny defined for you by others. I wonder if Morrissey ever feels that way, himself?
One could make the argument that The Queen Is Dead is one of the greatest rock albums ever. After The Smiths blew up following a stellar four-year burst of achievement in the late eighties, Morrissey embarked on a solo career that has, in its output, dwarfed that of his early band. But he has endured a full two decades of Smiths nostalgia where some people have been waiting for him to make a record that rivals in its impact his first work. The key to The Smiths had been timing, of course, as their music was a salve to a generation that came of age amidst of the dreariness of Thatcher's England. Smiths nostalgia takes no account of how Morrissey's pop anthems were the soundtrack of the early nineties, how Smiths retro had little resonance amidst Cool Britannia.
So, now, some early reviews of Years Of Refusal suggest that Morrissey has taken an unprecedented turn to the loud and straightforward. This, too, lacks any historical perspective. Morrissey has turned up the volume before with Your Arsenal (1992) and Maladjusted (1997). In fact, the new record follows a formula to which Moz has adhered for some time. Some of the songs are quite heavy, demonstrating the influence of guitarist Boz Boorer, with whom Morrissey has collaborated much, much longer than he ever collaborated with Johnny Marr. Some of the songs are downright campy, the kind of swooning torchsongs that get his fans to rush the stage at his gigs. (But if, like me, you have ever seen a Morrissey show, you can attest that everyone rushes the stage, anyway.) Some of the songs are perfect pop earworms, the sorts of things you sing to yourself all day. Morrissey has not made an album packed with the third variety since the flood of material that tumbled out of him immediately upon leaving The Smiths, but at least he has here avoided the affectation of the worst camp that has been the ballast of some of his B-sides.
Some of the heavier songs are still remarkably melodic: "That's How People Grow Up," "One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell," and "I'm Ok By Myself." The pure pop of "Sorry Doesn't Help" and "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" is irresistible, and Moz's lyrics swing from the fragility of the former ("In the absence of your touch / And in the absence of loved ones / I have decided I'm throwing my arms around all of Paris because only stone and steel accept my love") to the egotism of "All You Need Is Me" ("There's a soft voice singing in your head / Who could this be? / I do believe it's me / There's a naked man standing, laughing in your dreams / You know who it is / But you don't like what it means"). While he fails here to rise to the heights of Vauxhall and I(1994), the instant classic of moody pop whose opening bars still fill me with my own nostalgia, Morrissey brings forth on Years of Refusal a timely collection of songs that adds at least a half-dozen titles to one of the most impressive outputs of any pop superstar of any era.
Unlike the casual fans who are waiting and waiting for something, or waiting for the return to something, I can always find something vital where Morrissey has taken me over the course of a twenty-five-year career.
Very cogent and informative review of the record!
Posted by: Joe | March 01, 2009 at 04:26 PM