Least-Favourite Moz/Smiths Tracks

Yes on all counts. 4-6 albums of first-rate, Historically Significant material. That's all. Maybe I'll give you Dylan, but he's the exception that proves the rule, and only because he's crazy.

Mark E. Smith? Are you kidding? The guy's darts hit the songwriting bulls-eye about once in twenty tosses. And he's a prolific tosser. :straightface: :)

Mark E is a lovely bloke actually, I was fortunate to shake his hand a few months ago, he gave a warm shake and a wink, it's media idiots who skew his persona and give him the lazy journo-tags, he's really down to earth, funny, very well read (probably more than Morrissey) and a superb lyricist.

He's also a lot more hard working and professional than Moz.
 
I never said otherwise? I'm aware that Johnny has largely "wasted" himself in the years after the Smiths split, if you want to look at it like that - as I explained in my earlier post on his Madchester tinkerings. I don't see how the notion of him making music for enjoyment is weak, though - if he's essentially jamming with his mates, it's not going to be ground-breaking, is it? When The Smiths started, Morrissey and Marr had a shared vision and they wanted to be successful. Every note, every word, had to count. When The Smiths were over (as I've already said) Johnny had nothing left to prove, and still doesn't. He's made his mark, he's made his money, he could have retired to a Cheshire mansion in 1990 and the music world would have been none the worse for it.

Another point that I think is very important is that Morrissey and Marr inspired greatness in each other. There were occasional flies in the ointment - "The Draize Train", as you mentioned, and the absolute hash that Morrissey made of the beautiful music for "Some Girls.." - but generally they pushed and pulled each other to further ambition and creativity. This has lacked almost entirely in Johnny's solo work - he has never worked with a "Morrissey-like" figure (perhaps by choice!) with the same lyrical talent and aesthetic principles. He went instead for the lazy potheads and the sub-par indie bands of the 'new' generation, who don't inspire anything in him, and consequently his music becomes as lazy as their words. Meanwhile, Morrissey didn't immediately run for a Marr-substitute, but he certainly wanted music and writing of a similar calibre. He aimed higher than Marr in his post-Smiths efforts, and raised his own game to match.

Re: vocal melodies. I could listen to almost any Smiths song as an instrumental, purely for pleasure. "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "Boy with the Thorn", and pretty much all the first album - they are beautiful pieces of music. I would never do that with any song from Morrissey's solo output - the music simply isn't good enough. If anything, Moz' lyrics have carried his solo career when for other artists, it would have been dead and gone.

Paul Weller for one...
 
I never said otherwise? I'm aware that Johnny has largely "wasted" himself in the years after the Smiths split, if you want to look at it like that - as I explained in my earlier post on his Madchester tinkerings. I don't see how the notion of him making music for enjoyment is weak, though - if he's essentially jamming with his mates, it's not going to be ground-breaking, is it? When The Smiths started, Morrissey and Marr had a shared vision and they wanted to be successful. Every note, every word, had to count. When The Smiths were over (as I've already said) Johnny had nothing left to prove, and still doesn't. He's made his mark, he's made his money, he could have retired to a Cheshire mansion in 1990 and the music world would have been none the worse for it.

Well, that's what I find rather to hard to believe, and harder still to accept. This is a man capable of creating the most sublime music in the history of rock music, and he proceeds to spend two decades jamming with potheads? I mean, how much fun can that really be, for that length of time? And why does he bother with things like touring, recording and promotion? "I'm going to spend the next year working on this album, but I'm not going to write any good tunes for it even though I could if I wanted to"?

Another point that I think is very important is that Morrissey and Marr inspired greatness in each other. There were occasional flies in the ointment - "The Draize Train", as you mentioned, and the absolute hash that Morrissey made of the beautiful music for "Some Girls.." - but generally they pushed and pulled each other to further ambition and creativity. This has lacked almost entirely in Johnny's solo work - he has never worked with a "Morrissey-like" figure (perhaps by choice!) with the same lyrical talent and aesthetic principles. He went instead for the lazy potheads and the sub-par indie bands of the 'new' generation, who don't inspire anything in him, and consequently his music becomes as lazy as their words. Meanwhile, Morrissey didn't immediately run for a Marr-substitute, but he certainly wanted music and writing of a similar calibre. He aimed higher than Marr in his post-Smiths efforts, and raised his own game to match.

That is the essence of my point. :) What that seems to boil down to is that without Morrissey, Marr couldn't create (and haven't created) the sort of brilliant music the Smiths recorded. He's had every opportunity, and whether he doesn't because he can't or doesn't because he chooses to play with the wrong people or just lacks ambition really does not matter much.

Re: vocal melodies. I could listen to almost any Smiths song as an instrumental, purely for pleasure. "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "Boy with the Thorn", and pretty much all the first album - they are beautiful pieces of music.

So could I, they're that good. It is an extraordinary testament to the amazing guitar melodies that in several songs you really need to focus primarily on the guitar rather than the vocal melody (Some Girls... and Girl Afraid, f.e.). But not always, and there is no way the vocal melodies are not a huge part of the music. In several cases, the whole harmonic character of the song emerges from the interaction of the two - in other cases, the vocal melody is clearly dominant (Hand in Glove and Rusholme Ruffians springs to mind, for example). For the that matter, there's some extraordinary and inventive bass work involved too (Rourke totally owns You've got everything now, for instance).

I would never do that with any song from Morrissey's solo output - the music simply isn't good enough. If anything, Moz' lyrics have carried his solo career when for other artists, it would have been dead and gone.

No, that's true. But again, my point ain't that Johnny didn't matter. Just that the music can't all have been down to him.

cheers
 
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Many inept choices being made here... How anyone can dislike Ambitious Outsiders is sick.

My picks:
Death at ones elbow
Golden lights
Mute witness
Fatty
Papa Jack
In the future..
All you need is me
 
No, that's true. But again, my point ain't that Johnny didn't matter. Just that the music can't all have been down to him.

cheers

But there is no other member of The Smiths that can write music except for Marr and Rourke, there is no other member. Vocal melodies work around the music that is Morrissey, but not making the actual music itself
 
Well. The Fall has poured out significant albums for 30 years, with no very distinctive peak or valley period. Their last two albums both made the Quietus top 10 albums of the year. Same with Current 93 - while I personally favor Tibet's mid-nineties output, his recent work is not far behind. I know people who are very serious Current fans who rate some of it as his best ever. To expand the list, Peter Christopherson's (RIP) last work with Coil was as good as anything I've heard from him, which is saying something considering the bands he's been in. Nick Cave's been making great music for nearly 30 years. Tom Waits, not much less, or arguably even longer. And also And Also The Trees (ahaha). Even New Order has managed the occasional great single during the past decade. And I could go on.

Sure, but again, how do we define "significant"? Making the Quietus Top Ten is not my idea of significant. :)

Put it this way. You only need to build Rome one time. Once it's there, it's there. Morrissey and Johnny built theirs before they were 30.

Johnny knew he'd never build another, so he walked away and crisscrossed the countryside like a nomad, meeting people and getting into adventures (like Kane, in "Kung Fu").

Morrissey kept adding suburbs with the help of lesser architects who were still competent enough to make everything in the city limits look all of a piece with the original.

Equally valid approaches but too different to measure against each other to determine which one was "successful" and which one wasn't.

Something as good, say, as the Birthday Party, or Young Americans, or even True Faith.

There are many songs by The The, The Pretenders, Electronic, and even one or two by Modest Mouse and The Cribs which are all excellent. As good as "True Faith"? Okay, maybe not. You can't really knock a guy for not matching one of the three or four best singles ever released in the United Kingdom. But I'll accept "Get The Message" as a pale cousin, thanks.

As for Mark E Smith: As far as I understand, he doesn't do songwriting at all. Apparently, Fall songs somehow come into being at rehearsals. Nor does he play any instrument. Or, technically, sing. He just writes the words and snarl them at the music. Oh, and he has somehow consistently coaxed brilliant music out of often pedestrian musicians for 30 years, and undisputably provided the only common denominator that could account for the unmistakeable musical profile of The Fall despite not writing any music or playing any instrument. A good example of how a creative force can make its imprint on a band's music without actually writing or playing any of it. Not that I'm suggesting that Morrissey dominated the Smiths remotely in the same way that Smith apparently terrorizes The Fall, but given the stupefying brilliance of Marr's work with Morrissey and the utter mediocrity of his work elsewhere, you do have to ask if that is entirely coincidental, in my opinion.

Fair point, but the matter could just as easily be explained as follows: Johnny was only stupefyingly brilliant at one kind of music, the sort of music he got to make with Morrissey, and circumstances forever poisoned that music for him and forced him to reject it in favor of exploring avenues of music-making for which he was, as history seems to suggest, ill-suited to walk down. He wouldn't be the first artist to ruin his career out of stubbornness. But even if that were true, it wouldn't take away from his contributions to The Smiths and in no way implies that it was really Morrissey who all along was the driving creative force behind the band.
 
There are only two Smiths songs who are not good, namely Golden Lights and Work is a Four-letter word. With the rest, it's just a question of being not as good as the rest.

Gospel. :guitar:

But I even like the two you mentioned. I'd take either of them over the The Cure's entire back catalog. :rolleyes:
 
Mark E is a lovely bloke actually, I was fortunate to shake his hand a few months ago, he gave a warm shake and a wink, it's media idiots who skew his persona and give him the lazy journo-tags, he's really down to earth, funny, very well read (probably more than Morrissey) and a superb lyricist.

He's also a lot more hard working and professional than Moz.

I'm sure he is. I like MES a lot. (Anyway, I was just kidding.) But as much as I like him, I'm sorry, it has to be admitted, surely, that MES has turned out a lot of unnecessary music. It has passed over from rock and roll into performance art. The world is much better off with MES releasing music, so I wish him continued...success, if that's an applicable word to use...but I can't help but roll my eyes every time I see 387 Fall albums crowding the "F" bin in the record shop. :rolleyes:
 
Many inept choices being made here... How anyone can dislike Ambitious Outsiders is sick.

My picks:
Death at ones elbow
Golden lights
Mute witness
Fatty
Papa Jack
In the future..
All you need is me

Papa Jack is pretty awful, but I persnally love 'In the Future When All's Well'. I am quite shocked that its on your list, but alas it is your opinion
 
All the Lazy Dykes... Morrissey's tribute to lesbians is lacking. I listen to it on occassion, but it doesn't do much for me lyrically. Sorry lesbians.
 
But there is no other member of The Smiths that can write music except for Marr and Rourke, there is no other member. Vocal melodies work around the music that is Morrissey, but not making the actual music itself

Vocal melodies are a part of the music. A key part of the music, even.

cheers
 
Sure, but again, how do we define "significant"? Making the Quietus Top Ten is not my idea of significant. :)

I don't think Johnny Marr's output would meet any reasonable definition of "significant".

Put it this way. You only need to build Rome one time. Once it's there, it's there. Morrissey and Johnny built theirs before they were 30.

Johnny knew he'd never build another, so he walked away and crisscrossed the countryside like a nomad, meeting people and getting into adventures (like Kane, in "Kung Fu").

Morrissey kept adding suburbs with the help of lesser architects who were still competent enough to make everything in the city limits look all of a piece with the original.

Equally valid approaches but too different to measure against each other to determine which one was "successful" and which one wasn't.

Well, that's where we differ. I think that is taking a rather too sanguine view.


There are many songs by The The, The Pretenders, Electronic, and even one or two by Modest Mouse and The Cribs which are all excellent. As good as "True Faith"? Okay, maybe not. You can't really knock a guy for not matching one of the three or four best singles ever released in the United Kingdom. But I'll accept "Get The Message" as a pale cousin, thanks.

I love The The, and could name 30 great The The songs. But they're not by Johnny. He co-wrote one song on "Mind Bomb" and none on "Dusk". Other than that one song (Gravitate to me) and the Smithsy guitar on "The Beaten Generation", he might as well not have been there. They were the essentially the same band with him in the lineup as they were without him. Can't say I have heard much worth paying attention to from the others (except Pretenders of course), but granted I have not heard nearly all he has participated in.

Fair point, but the matter could just as easily be explained as follows: Johnny was only stupefyingly brilliant at one kind of music, the sort of music he got to make with Morrissey, and circumstances forever poisoned that music for him and forced him to reject it in favor of exploring avenues of music-making for which he was, as history seems to suggest, ill-suited to walk down. He wouldn't be the first artist to ruin his career out of stubbornness. But even if that were true, it wouldn't take away from his contributions to The Smiths and in no way implies that it was really Morrissey who all along was the driving creative force behind the band.

Once more, I am not arguing that Morrissey was he driving creative force behind the band. I am arguing that it seems likely that he had some part in it, and that the music might not have been purely down to Johnny's talent.

cheers
 
Once more, I am not arguing that Morrissey was he driving creative force behind the band. I am arguing that it seems likely that he had some part in it, and that the music might not have been purely down to Johnny's talent.

Not to play "gotcha", but you seemed to imply, particularly in your post stating that 9 out of 10 people would say Morrissey was the driving creative force behind the music in The Smiths based on their respective solo careers, that Morrissey had more than merely "some part" in making the music. I based my objections on your apparent denigration of Johnny's role. If I misunderstood, mea culpa.

If the idea here is that there is no strict Words-Morrissey/Music-Marr divide, then I agree. The relationship was much more complicated. I just think in essence the divide is an accurate conception, because you could just as easily say that Johnny's music also helped shape Morrissey's words. You must have read the description of Morrissey coming in to do vocals on "I Know It's Over". Surely you don't think Morrissey would have written and sung those words right out of his notebook had the music been, say, the guitar bits for "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore", right? We'll never know what Morrissey meant for Marr or vice versa. Thus, for all intents and purposes it was 50-50, a point which Morrissey himself seemed to make over and over again on the record sleeves and labels, with which I am inclined to agree, and which no quantity of crap Healers albums is likely to disprove.
 
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I'm sure he is. I like MES a lot. (Anyway, I was just kidding.) But as much as I like him, I'm sorry, it has to be admitted, surely, that MES has turned out a lot of unnecessary music. It has passed over from rock and roll into performance art. The world is much better off with MES releasing music, so I wish him continued...success, if that's an applicable word to use...but I can't help but roll my eyes every time I see 387 Fall albums crowding the "F" bin in the record shop. :rolleyes:

What kind of statement is that? Have you even listened to every Fall song or album? What do you mean unnecessary? A lot of things are unnecessary if you want to take that route. I love The Fall and i'll always stick up for them because even though they have been around for 30 years, fame has never carried their music, the music literally speaks of itself. It doesn't even have a genre.
 
What kind of statement is that? Have you even listened to every Fall song or album? What do you mean unnecessary? A lot of things are unnecessary if you want to take that route. I love The Fall and i'll always stick up for them because even though they have been around for 30 years, fame has never carried their music, the music literally speaks of itself. It doesn't even have a genre.

I like The Fall, okay? Sorry if my joke about MES rubbed you the wrong way. If you own every Fall album and consider them all to be gems, that's your right. I just don't think its possible, given Smith's working style (accurately described by Qvist) and the general rules governing album releases, that the man has put out 28 studio albums of more or less consistent quality. It seems every album is at least 50% filler, meaning rambling noisescapes laced with Smith's obscure spoken-word poetry that prove more interesting than likeable. I agree he's a genius. I just think he releases more music than he needs to have done. If God or John Peel came down and pruned half of The Fall's catalog away, I'm not sure anyone would notice or care. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. :)
 
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I like The Fall, okay? Sorry if my joke about MES rubbed you the wrong way. If you own every Fall album and consider them all to be gems, that's your right. I just don't think its possible, given Smith's working style (accurately described by Qvist) and the general rules governing album releases, that the man has put out 28 studio albums of more or less consistent quality. It seems every album is at least 50% filler, meaning rambling noisescapes laced with Smith's obscure spoken-word poetry that prove more interesting than likeable. I agree he's a genius. I just think he releases more music than he needs to have done. If God or John Peel came down and pruned half of The Fall's catalog away, I'm not sure anyone would notice or care. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. :)

You're name says it all.
 
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