Will there me a prize for the first person who manages to reach the end of the damn thing?

Well, that about sums it up.

It might be hard to accept, but I think everything this writer says is painfully true. This is the most intelligent, articulate, and spot-on observation about Morrissey, his fans, his career, and new album I've read.

It's true. All of it. We love you, Morrissey, but you aren't the same. We love Morrissey from 1984, and that Morrissey inspired in us the fierce loyalty that keeps us buying your albums.

And no, songs about judges, accountants, and taxmen really don't mean much to me.

It reads like he's welded together all of the cliches used to describe Morrissey's comeback so far.

broken

There's quite a bit of harsh truth here, however... What if my first listening experience with the Smiths/Morrissey didn't change my life? What if, upon hearing these songs at first, I thought,"What a unique voice. A great voice! What unique, witty, funny lyrics. Great guitarist." What if, upon each new release of Moz, I find his use of the English language often inspiring? What if I'm just thankful that someone who can write that well, can also sing that well. Well then...As long as Morrissey stays true to himself and writes songs he feels deeply about, even if they're about uniformed whores, I am there to listen. I'm always there. He may not have changed my life, but in my strange way, I have always been there.

'never played symphonies' is becoming many fans' favourite song?

Everything this writer says is pretty much true. The last time Moz was truly interesting and unimpeachably inspiring was in 1994 with 'Vauxhall and I'. As Snowswell says, Quarry is perfectly pleasant but by comparison to the Moz of times past it seems quite anodyne and uninspired. 'First Of The Gang' is the best song, but even that succeeds more as an excellent pop number than a moving, subtle analysis of, well, anything. What it would take to make Moz musically interesting again I don't know, but I dearly hope it rears its head soon!

I love Morrissey to pieces, and would probably follow him to hell. But the truth is that I do feel kind of weird seeing him dressed in those suits, and doing things like the Pepsi gig, and writing about how taxes affect rich people like him. Some of the songs in YATQ make me doubt if he really feels them or if he wrote them to please the crowd and perpetuate his melodramatic persona. Still, I think there is no singer/songwriter like him, and honestly doubt there will be. But I guess age, royalties that brought him luxuries, and sunny days made him more "Hollywood" than he is prepared to admit.

this article is certainly articulate and well written, but that doesn't mean we all have to start nodding in agreement and deciding he's right. Hitler was also articulate and wrote very well, but that didn't mean that what he said was necessarily sensible.

this writer makes many incorrect assumptions about morrissey's fans - while its certainly true that a small bunch of fans are probably miserable gits, out of the very many fans all over the world that i know personally, i hardly find that to be the case. i KNOW that morrissey isn't 20 anymore. I KNOW that he is NOT going to sing about the same things he sang about in 1984. I KNOW that he's "older and greyer" - but i like him because i like him. Simple as that - not because he "saved my life" or helped me through depression , or whatever else this writer assumes is true of all of us.

Is it such a sin to keep liking the same artist for 2 decades without some crashing bore having to incorrectly psychoanalyze it all?

It was hard to read such a long article specifically devoted to, as others have stated, the obvious (how Morrissey has changed over the years)-- While insisting that the people who should know/love him best really have no idea who Morrissey is and brainlessly defend him no matter what he says or does.

Really insulting and condescending-- Maybe there are people who are like this, but they can't be representative of all Morrissey's fans.

....but also quite WRONG. When something like this appears which seems fairly balanced in a way and well expressed, its all the more insidious when blatant and baseless untruths are slipped in.

"Racist lyrics", "disturbingly nationalist" "...more in common with Rush Limbaugh" these absurdities don't become any less untrue because they appear within some other well written prose. I won't begin to say how wrong they are because it really is just too tedious.

The irony is that the author projects his own neurosis and assumptions onto Morrissey in exactly the same way he accuses the more credulous fans of doing. How does he know that Morrissey has changed so much? This regurgitation of a statement about how immigration has to be controlled really won't do. "Porsche's...Clarke Gable's house...tanned...money" this is the evidence? He's had a fair bit of money since 1985; should we have stopped listening then?
"The once great anti-Thatcherite...." has he recanted on any left-wing/anti-Thatcherite statement he's made? Ever? When?

"The fanbase" are presented as a homegenous, credulous mass of fools who will follow their evil master's every whim. But if so why the different sales for each album? Why the rabid differences we see on these pages every single day? Yes he evokes very strong emotions, but to suggest this is all nostalgia for The Smiths is the purest shit.

Finally, a last word about the whole "moaning about judges, magistrates, policemen, lawyers" aspect of YATQ. A point there yes, especially on "You Knew I Couldn't Last" (which really does go over the top and is the only song on the album I really don't like.)

Morrissey has always been bitter and twisted and slagged off people who pissed him off; this is a key part of his appeal. On YATQ Moz does at least try to broaden this out into a generalised assault on officialdom and authority in general and contrary to Mr PopMatter's view and that of many others here that is certainly something I and many others can associate with. Especally when combined with slagging off Bush, Cromwell and the Royals. "More in common with Rush Limbaugh" my oily scrotum (which now I come to thing of it probably does....)

[Point of fact- "magistrates" and "policemen" have no relevance to THAT court case as neither are involved in legal financial disputes, though to quote an older song no-one moaned about "lonely high court judges" do!]

Anyway Mr Popmatters no hard feelings I like to read a well expressed thing I violently disagree with. But please have the basic respect for me I have for you and don't accuse me of living in fantasy world, I like Morrissey's songs because I like his songs, if he didn't I wouldn't, and I am no more "wildly misled" about him than you are...

..like you're listening.....

Strange, in most of the reviews on Morrissey I have read a re-emerging comment is that Morrissey has not changed, is still the "pope of mope," so I think the premise of this article is shaky. Also the central question is a phony one, "why on earth do these fans stand by Morrissey since he has changed in a right wing high profile LA celebrity who tells them nothing about their lives.?"

I admit, I could also have done without some of the complaining about judges and other problèmes de luxe he bores us with on his album but morrissey singing about his trials and tribulations with media and music business is not something new, (paint a vulgar picture, speedway, journalists who lie).

OK, he probably has a lot of though. good for him. What does the author expects, that he shares it with his fans who have always been true to him?

Also, from what I gathered from reading interviews with friends of and morrissey himself, he is still pretty much the same recluse in LA. Not that that makes me happy, but it seems that the author choses to ignore facts that are inconvenient to his theory.

The Rush Limbaugh comment is ridiculous, what Morrissey said about immigrants is exaclty every Western government's position on the issue. Had he said that immigrants threatened English culture (which I think is what some mozzer critics read in songs such as "Bengali in platforms") that would have been altogether a different issue.

Morrissey also lashes out to Bush, campaigns for PETA, hardly typical Limbaugh (Morrissey also dislikes drugs .;)

I have to admit that the author brings up some very good points, but the issue he brings up is not limited to morrissey, but is a question that goes for every aging rock star: how do they maintain their edge and relevance and underdog position when fame and money and stardom befalls them? There is no clear answer, but I guess that I am happy that Morrissey is
aging in dignity.

An interesting article, but entirely loaded.

I like Moz because of the contradictions, because he is willing to allow that he is not perfect. The journalist is so incredibly selective in his quotation of lyrics. I mean, really:

A) The royalties that bring luxuries obscure - but do not erase - the squalor of the mind. This is hardly the celebration of decadence the journalist implies.

B) All of the rumours were not completely unfounded. The truth has never been established - nor will it be.

C) "We will descend upon anyone unable to defend themselves." Hardly a glorification, even if they are "the last, truly British people you will ever know" - which, as Morrissey makes clear, isn't saying much, then.

These lines hardly paint a picture of a man who's music is pointless, or a man whose political allegiances are black and white.

Moz is probably the only one left in pop who is truly contradictory, not pretending (Zoo-Pop era U2) or smugly knowing (Pulp).

As much as I hate to admit it, Snowsell has a valid point. Even the most blindly loyal Morrissey fan who listens to YATQ can see that the wistful boy who penned "Hand in Glove", "The More You Ignore Me...", "There is a Light..." (etc, etc) is not the same Morrissey that is with us now. Songs of youthful frustration and a longing for something more have been replaced with 'uniformed whores' and Latino gang fights.

But really, is that a bad thing?
 
Can anyone actually expect a man in his mid-40s to have the exact same feelings and outlook on life as he did in his mid-20s? Maybe the guy is happy now. Maybe he feels that he's 45 now and that the petty cares of youth just don't matter in the long run.

Or maybe he just has money coming out the arse and doesn't care anymore.

Either way, don't over-analyze things. Enjoy the comeback for what it is. One (likely) last chance to enjoy new material from a man who will go down as one of the greatest artists of our time.

In the last four weeks we have been bombarded by articles about MOZ ( good and bad reviews).
MOZZER cannot be stuck in the 80s or early 90s forever. He has moved on with the times and so his songs reflect that.
Some of the journalists and the critics should do the same. Moz keep going !!! Keep speaking your mind. I will always admire and RESPECT you for doing so. Love. L x

While some of the article is insightful, much of it is psycho-babble that has been espoused about the Moz in years past. We follow him because we love him- he sings our life. It's funny (or completely strange) but much of my life is wrapped up in "Moztime"~~ I met my future wife on the release of "November SAM" - saw the Moz on our honeymoon in '92 in MD. - first born son in time for "Vauxhall" - and now my one year old son Cade shares Morrissey's b-day on 5/22. Is it really so strange?

That is a great article and so true!
  Especially the parts about how he is different now, and you cannot relate to his new music, and his fans thinking of him as 80smorrissey and thats why they still like him. I honestly think there isnt a single morrissey fan who would have got interested in him without the smiths. Although first of the gang to die is a good song! And his voice is really nice now.
Also, not to be overly harsh, but some songs on you are the quarry are completley devoid of something which is really required in a song- a chorus.(Nameley the america one and camden one that I heard on the radio)