Kill Uncle Depreciation Thread

[Spineless Swine]

'Our Frank,' 'Sing your Life' and 'Mute Witness' are classic Morrissey, while 'Asian Rut' 'Driving your Girfriend home' 'the end of the family line' and 'there is a place...' are intriguing and even beautiful in places.

of course the other three (king leer, found found found and the harsh truth) are drivel but there's still much to appreciate on Kill Uncle

 

[Paulc]

1st post - please be gentle!

While Kill Uncle is not my favourite album its probably the one i have listened to the least - dunno why just guess that when it came out i didnt spend the whole year listening to it and nothing else - as i did with most of His other albums. No idea why that is - cant remember!

But now when Kill Uncle songs turn up on my ipod shuffle they are welcome and comparatively unfamiliar - this morning i heard "the end of the family line" - what a song!

Sing your life is also a great song - i think there are some classics on this album and its wrong to say its shit.

Its not as good as Your Arsenal, Quarry, ROTT, Vauxhall or Viva Hate but then not much is!

 

[Jones]

"Driving your Girfriend home" is a brilliantly poignant lyric. The companion piece to "There is a Light", but much sadder.

 

[nightandday]

Shit, isn't it?

Ah, I always love to see another one of your brilliantly written, intellectually rich, well-argumented posts. Really, how do you do it?

 

[bored]

Most of the blame must go to the producers and musicians, though. The album was too feeble and quirky in its arrangements

This really just doesn't make any sense.

First off, let's take a look at Mark Nevin. He is quoted as saying that when Morrissey said the album was done, he though it was a joke but felt that they had some good basics for songs ready and was surprised that Morrissey was serious.

Second, Morrissey put the record out. He chose to put those songs for sale. If the musicians and producers were inferior, he should have scrapped it. They scrapped the Troy Tate produced version of the first Smiths album and Morrissey cried when Rough Trade told him they were not going to scrap the John Porter produced version. By 1991, Morrissey had complete control over what was going to be released or not and he chose to release this.

Third, take a look at some of the unreleased songs that have surfaced. It's easy to see why Born to Hang and Oh Phoney were not released. They are not good songs and they are not finished yet. The could have become good songs but he let them die.

If you think the songs are weak, blame Morrissey. He stopped recording when the musicians didn't think it was time and he used much lower standards than he had in the past.

 

[whoiseuan]

I'm glad for those who have managed to get some enjoyment out of kill uncle. I'm still in a deep state of denial of its existing contents. I'll admit that when i bought the suedehead best of CD when i was first getting into morrissey-solo i listened to our frank a lot and don't mind it. I'll admit that some of the songs didn't sound half-bad when they were rocking them out on the live in dallas dvd (despite the shocking audio quality).

But on the first of two occasions where I sat and listened to the album all the way through I was offended by the lack of quality. It was actually one of my mates who said it best when i tried a second time to listen to it by sticking it on in the background whilst i had people over for drinks thinking it might sound more listenable if i was paying less attention. My mates are casual smiths fans who don't mind me putting morrissey solo stuff on when they're over. When I put on Kill Uncle I think it was during Harsh Truth one of my mates stopped talking mid sentence, turned around and said "What the f***, thats not Morrissey, that's just... dire."

 

[Stitchell]

Politely termed the 'least listened to' Morrissey album!

I must admit, I love Sing Your Life and Driving Your Girlfriend, even Our Frank is ok but the production on the album as a whole is irritatingly weak. I only appreciated the album a bit more after seeing Live In Dallas. As mentioned elsewhere, with a bit more oomph the album could have been better. What is confusing, to me anyway, is that Morrissey had released singles such as Piccadilly Palare and Sing Your Life around this time that would have bolstered the album. To me, it is the work of someone suffering a crisis of confidence.

 

[Bluebirds]

I remember buying it and having it on cassette on my Sanyo walkman (no sony here mate!) and taking it to school and someone listening to it and saying that, "it sounded like "the Housemartins."

He didn't mean that in a good way either (though I like the Housemartins) as, due to being a fat ugly oaf, the only Housemartins song he had probably ever heard was "Caravan Of Love" and had probably enjoyed the melody to "Happy Hour."

SO there its all his fault that Kill Uncle is shit. Oh yeh an

 

[Worm]

This really just doesn't make any sense.

First off, let's take a look at Mark Nevin. He is quoted as saying that when Morrissey said the album was done, he though it was a joke but felt that they had some good basics for songs ready and was surprised that Morrissey was serious.

Second, Morrissey put the record out. He chose to put those songs for sale. If the musicians and producers were inferior, he should have scrapped it. They scrapped the Troy Tate produced version of the first Smiths album and Morrissey cried when Rough Trade told him they were not going to scrap the John Porter produced version. By 1991, Morrissey had complete control over what was going to be released or not and he chose to release this.

Third, take a look at some of the unreleased songs that have surfaced. It's easy to see why Born to Hang and Oh Phoney were not released. They are not good songs and they are not finished yet. The could have become good songs but he let them die.

If you think the songs are weak, blame Morrissey. He stopped recording when the musicians didn't think it was time and he used much lower standards than he had in the past.

You're right.

 

[Electric]

I think if we replace the album tracks with their live versions it would definitely make it in my top 3 favourite morrissey albums. The songs had great potential; but then again I don't regret it: if Morrissey didn't do the songs justice, bootleggers did.

 

[southpawlord]

kill uncle is a nice album, i have two versions, the european and the american with tony the pony included on this last

i think the real problem it's not the production, whilst clive langer and alan winstanley make a good production team, the problem is that this album is about loneliness and sadness.

even with the madness sound like, this album is very depressive like an old joy division album.

there are too many good songs inside the album, sing your life, mute witness, driving your girlfriend home, i'm the end of the family line, asian rut, found found found, etc, i find them so sad, but beautifully written;

this is not an album about machos men, happiness doesn't live here