I think BB is very nearly the only poster one can take seriously! (with a few notable exceptions ofcourse).
No need to take me seriously as I have a lot of LOLs! about all this. I've really enjoyed much of Morrissey's output over the years. I think there is, possibly, another amazing period if/when he gets rid of the flunkies and salt grindrs and reconnects with the Muse that informed his best work.
Listing Morrissey as a recording artist/performer used to be a sign of taste and discrimination. Now, because of his outbursts and his mediocre radio-friendly unit-shifter faux Green-Day music, it's become a bit of an embarassment to discuss him outside of this "hateful online creche": because people who love cultural innovation are writing him off as just another middle-age Boomer trooper.
Mick Jagger complains that no-one will probably listen to the new record he's planning with Keef and the rest. But people WILL listen if it's a valid expression of his life that connects with other people's lives. Jagger trades on libido and Eros. Morrissey on the opposite, on Thanatos. There's no reason why Morrissey can't endlessly trundle around the world trading on his past glories with The Smiths but I'm not going to put up with any nonsense that it's 'genius' or that he's some kind of Oscar Wilde. He isn't. Neither is Stephen Fry. Just because popular culture is in crisis doesn't mean that the least-bad deserve elevation to historic titans.
All interaction with Morrissey is now staged like it was a papal visit to some one-horse town in Oklahoma or Ayrshire. All he sees is the first 10 rows: I bet he doesn't wear contact lenses so he can't see the calmer reaches beyond The List casualties as they WTF at some of the nonsense. I'll take Morrissey seriously as an artist when he acts like a serious artist. It's not all hopeless in my view, as "Arthounds" was an intriguing one-off snippet. The band is fine, it's the hide-bound 70s/80s/90s arrangements and production to sound ok on corporate rock whore radio that annoys/destroys. . He can sing over other composers whist keeping Boorer and Tobias as the touring band if they can't come up with anything fresh.
Morrissey has made a career out of remaining trapped in teenage dislocation. His 'dance of the seven veils' about his (a)sexuality is beyond tiresome in an age of gay marriage and genderqueer activism. No one cares if he comes out/shags/is celibate. There is no 'mystery' to any of this, just a marketing scam, like the 'tea-drinking Brit' USP he gives out. If he pays taxes in Switzerland or The Caymans, then no-one is going to be surprised by the cognitive dissonance of his UKIP almost-endorsement and other Torygraph ex-pat raving.
He backed down with the NME: they didn't apologise. That interview tape could be on YouTube to justify that 'persecution complex', but it isn't.... So sensible folk will conclude that he was just trolling over immigration and that the NME were quite right to call him out on his clumsy bullshit. Oh, how they must have LOL'd and broke open the champagne when Morrissey trashed his credibility by declaring the Chinese civilisational project "a subspecies" of humanity.....
I happen to agree with him about Speciesism, but I am a Vegan. I am also a father to two teenage children just beginning to consider political issues. To troll the grief of Norway to inexpertly and fatuously create a 'water-cooler' moment around Breivik was nothing more than desperate attention-seeking. Those children in Oslo were also animals and they were slaughtered. Death for no reason, and no doubt some of them were dairy-vegetarian like Morrissey, or vegan like me and Johnny Marr.
Morrissey declares Assad a 'shit'. But most people in Syria eat meat. Do we thus declare them of no more concern than the menu on McDonalds or KFC? Morrissey's silence over the Badger cull is being noted and filed. Given he has a film to promote, he could have made a sane and sensible contribution to the debate alongside Brian May and other 'celebrities'. But he is silent, absent, seemingly sulking.
Morrissey is not just a troll, he is also a talented lyricist, vocalist and stage performer. But he is perilously close to being widely dismissed as a pantomime clown. Banning the proprietor of this site in Copenhagen was the final straw for many people I know who'd ignored his descent into parody before that. He was firm and fair after Thatcher's demise, so is clearly capable of some restraint and self-control.
If he crashes and burns into ridicule again, then I will simply sigh at another chapter in self-destruction. whilst enjoying a few last shows as an excuse to travel this island to explore it's history during the day: I won't be waiting in line with cult casualties on The List.
There is no conspiracy against him. He is a shrewd businessman holding out for a deal, poker-face style. It worked before and YATQ Redux is probably what he imagines and expects. Maybe, but the world has changed and fewer and fewer people are locked into CDs as an entertainment form. They're in the clubs, or on Spotify exchanging playlists that might have the odd Moz track if it's any good.
It's 2013. It will never be 1983, 1993 or 2003 ever again.
Morrissey can either deal with that or remain a heritage touring act that people only come to see to hear 'those Smiths songs' from their memory bank. Either way, it's been a fun time watching him over the decades. And there has been some extraordinary music and lyrics along the way. And with that, I'm done for now. Other than to deal with any insolent back-chat from the anonymous cult trolls who will be unable to resist a GIF, an insult or a denunciation to aoid processing what I have actually written.
regards...
