It's all acutely personal & subjective, and perhaps tied in to when you were first drawn in by the music, but í feel His Quiff was alway somewhat...
amateur?...during The Smiths. í mean it was lovely and nice and everything, but by the time he went solo it was beginning to go...full pro; in a way that most mortals could never hope to emulate (í have a hundred concert crowds as reference).
The key elevation for me was the introduction of the sideburns, which was an embellishment that seemed to complete the look to perfection. Don't ask me why. Please.
As the sideys elongated across 1989 the Quiff seemed to grow in stature and majesty, so that by the year's end when Anton Corbijn was shooting him for 'The Face', he may have been "
walking backwards into the 90s" but at least he was doing so with damnably exquisite hair...
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For me, 1990~1991 were the twin annus mirabilis of SPM Quiffage. The barnet went from strength to strength, even out in the wilds of KROQ in February, on TOTP in May, and for Juergen Teller on the streets of Battersea the same month...
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And, nearing peak Pomp, captured by Gino Sprio at Hook End in October '90...
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And ending that year with the previously worshipped epileptic splendour of the Jonathan Ross TV outing.
And in 1991 í don't think í ever saw one duff picture of His Quiff. It was an immaculate confection all year long, and whatever one may think of his music that year, recorded or live, in my estimation, his Pompadour was at its zenith. Who knows why? Debbie Dannell, í assume had a hand, or two, in it. Perhaps Th'Lads helped him up his game follically, as well as musically?
You know it could never last, and by 1992 things up top had started to ever so slightly topple. Maybe those twin glory years of
product had started to take their toll. There is always a price to pay for perfection. And the mise-en-scène was headed in a slightly more Greaser direction. The Pomp was tilting where once it had stood erect. It still looked suave, but just not thunderously so. 1994 was smart in an Anthony Steel kind of way, but nothing to make you pester your barber with 8x10s.
Since then it's been swings & roundabouts, while still all perfectly acceptable. Nothing to scare the horses.
Quarry was a definite Quiff comeback {agnostic as to
work done} and í would heartily agree with GirlAfraidWillNeverLearn in that 2006 was even
more of a comeback. í don't know how the
hell that was achieved; La Dolce Vita? Gelato?
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Unlike most others, seemingly, í am oddly fascinated by where the Moz barnet is currently heading. í had always wondered what a long-haired Morrissey would look like, and for a pop star, or indeed anybody, to have had the same basic hairstyle for the last 40 years is quite astounding. So the idea of a hippy Moz in his 60s, like some Gorton Gandalf, is...intriguing? He can always blame it on the plague.
ps ~ í would be most keen to see GirlAfraidWillNeverLearn's degree course work
.