For those who've heard it, how do you now rate Years of Refusal?

How do you rate Years of Refusal?


  • Total voters
    169
i like it. and you can tell alain didn't work on it.
 
After about 3 listens, I can say with a reasonable amount of certaintity I am going to like it better than ROTT. Heck I liked the extra disc of the deluxe YATQ better than ROTT.

So far, I can't pick up any songs that I know I'm gonna be skipping--that's a good early sign!
 
I'm hoping this is a grower album. I can't say I'm impressed. No songs stand out as top tracks. Some are better than others, but I didn't have any "wow" songs.

It's still Moz so it's good...just not nearly as good as the last 2.

Interesting to see that some of you didn't like the last 2, and love this one. I guess to each his own.
 
I love it already after one listen.
It must be good because it usually takes a few months for a new cd to make it's way into my good graces....I already have a copy burned to play in my car tomorrow ( which will be replaced with the real copy when it comes out.)
 
this record is incredible.

going as far as saying it's better than the last 2 and definitely up there with the classics.
 
After about 3 listens, I can say with a reasonable amount of certaintity I am going to like it better than ROTT. Heck I liked the extra disc of the deluxe YATQ better than ROTT.

So far, I can't pick up any songs that I know I'm gonna be skipping--that's a good early sign!

I`ll have another go:

You have stolen my thoughts Kewaxe2k2
 
Re: For those who\'ve heard it, how do you now rate Years of Refusal?

He definitely tried something new. And I think it works. Some parts sound classic moz, and other parts sound new territory for Moz...however, similar to a lot of hipster stuff currently out there (It\'s Not Your Birthday Anymore for example).

At least there is depth to a lot of the songs. I think this will rank as one of his best. I like he is sampling from what are probably movies.

I will say 4 out of 5 stars. 5 out of 5 is reserved for his top three albums of all time. You know which ones they are.
 
Middling. Not any better than ROTT in my opinion but not bad.
Except ITMAAP which is hands down his worst single to date. The music is nice enough but lyrically it's diaf***ingbolical and it's clearly been edited down so much along the way in regard to song structure that it simply makes no sense at all, it's just a bunch of words over some music. Big deal.

Apologies for the rant but that song really is a new low.
 
So far so good, but like some of the others here, I will reserve voting in the poll until I've listened to it for about a week. At the moment though, I like the over all sound of the album and agree that All You Need is Me and That's How People Grow Up do fit in quite well (although, IMO, that doesn't excuse the fact that they were included here to begin with). As a fan of Southpaw Grammar, I quite appreciate the "rocked out" sound of this one. However, I do agree that, lyrically, it's not that strong (even though there are some really nice rhymes), but it does hold up higher than I had expected it to in that regard. To be honest, after Ringleader of the Tormentors, and considering how old he is now, I thought that the lyrics on Years of Refusal were going to be rubbish. Take a look at Bob Dylan's new stuff to see what I mean; sounds great, but the lyrics aren't a patch on his old material. As it is, this is still lyrically better than most of the stuff on the shelves.
 
Listening to it now on constant loop as well. What can I say? I love it unreservedly. It's more direct than Ringleaders and his singing is phenomenal. I can live with this record for the rest of the year, easy.:)
 
I like it. Can't say I love it yet. One of the things that has put me off a bit is Jerry Finn has obviously persuaded Morrissey to use autotune on some of the songs. It seems to have been used as an effect rather than as a corrective device though. Even so, it's one of the effects that make it hard for me to listen to modern pop and I think it might date the record. I just find the sound of it really annoying. I think I prefer Visconti's production style.
 
I don't think it's quite as bad as Kill Uncle, but it's certainly as mediocre as Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted. Compared to Ringleader (it is just Ringleader 2), the lows are lower and the highs are less high. "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore", the best song on the album, still isn't even all that good; it's an 8/10.

We can't even blame Jesse this time, either.
 
There is no doubt that Years Of Refusal is a great piece of studiowork.
It is good - the songs have very good rytmn, Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed & One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell is very rough.
It's Not Your Birthday Anymore & I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris is more of direct pop-songs with basic chorus.
And I like the fact that both All You Need Is Me & That's How People Grow Up are included - because they're not bad.
"Jesse Tobias" part of this record is very obvious - but "Alain Whyte" & "Boz Boorer" play a huge influential role here, I think.

Morrisseys lyrics is [as always] the best imagineable. :)

However I can't see this album any better than Vauxhall & I -
 
the kaz, i disagree. Dylan is still lyrically strong. I think lyrically he's outlasting Moz as my problem with the new stuff is it feels lyrically dishonest. It sounds like he's attempting to write 'A Morrissey Song' instead of actually writing a Morrissey song. If you know what I mean.
 
I'm not 'on the ball' when it comes to Morrissey releases. I didn't get the singles, haven't checked out the live tracks, so this is like 12 new tunes to me. I listened to it last night for the first time, in the early hours.
It's a lot better than I expected, but I didn't expect too much because I found Ringleader very disappointing, (though I remember liking it when it came out, strange that). But this was after I found You Are The Quarry very good, but then that was after I'd pretty much lost interest in Morrissey after the 'lean years' . . (Southpaw, I'm afraid, was a last straw, funny though, because I can listen to it today and enjoy it).
What I'm trying to say, in my garbled way, is very often, one's appreciation of these albums is joined at the hip with one's expectations. I bought Quarry on a whim thinking 'I wonder what he's like these days', (I'm an older fan I suppose, one of the first concerts I saw was the Smiths on the Queen Is Dead tour).
I'm on the third listen this morning, I won't vote yet, but it seems to me to be as strong as Your Arsenal, and much of the 'feel' is the same. Rocky but with epic ballads, a bit punky and all the better for it! (sans the T-Rex vibe of course!).
Lyrically it's a bit samey for me. These days you seem to get similar themes, 'no-one will ever love me', 'I'm an emotional outcast', 'judges are evil'. . you know. But there's still enough in there to keep me interested and entertained. If I'm being very picky I'd want him to talk about other people's lives a bit more. And be more specific, I like to hear about leather elbows on a tweed coat, those little details and observations. . but I'm being finicky.
The tunes on Refusal have more 'hooks' than we've been used to of late. I think the general public will like it a lot.
He's still one of our best pop stars in my book. He's got interity, he stands for what he believes in (not that I agree with everything), and he understands his back catalouge so when he does the older songs, they are as close to the originals as possible. I appreciate that, and have every time I've seen him. He wo't be advertising butter anytime soon, and is reasuringly absent from all the charity/royal performance/sub-live aid type package shows. You'll not find a single cover version on any of his regular albums, and this has been true since day one with the Smiths. So we can expect the odd clunker can't we? (I thought the Father Who Must Be Killed was just plain torture! heh heh!)
He's his own world and that's how I like it.
On my fourth listen now. I'm going to enjoy this one a lot, and I'll be buying it on the first day of release. I can imagine he's being quite honest when he says this is his 'strongest'. The tunes are evolving now, yea, it's good.
 
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