assuming that the phenomenon that was "the Smiths effect" is still a thing then there's little validity in presenting views on a new Morrissey album with any suggestion of it appealing to someone who(m) is giving consideration to purchasing it. what, exactly, is this Smiths effect? the business perspective on devout fandom, look you see. it didn't take all that long into their career for a pattern to form in which any new Smiths release sold huge in the first week, then fell off to next to nothing. people, or if you like the demographic, interested in The Smiths wished to buy each and every new release immediately, which they did. i am going to take as a given that the same remains true for the Morrissey market.
for fans of facts and provenance i think (or believe) this is his first album "proper" in 6 or so years, with some pretty well documented "challenges" in him finding a record label prepared to release his stuff. just checked and yes, six year ago it was that I Am Not A Dog On A Chain came out. in regards of where i got my copy of the album, in somewhat bizarre if not preposterous circumstances the most modest, and by that i mean cheapest, way to obtain a proper copy was from HMV via that ebay thing. exactly why, including postage, they make it cheaper to procure via a third party website is a curious mystery, yet one that i have no interest in investigating.
certainly it is so that i appreciate, or understand, that present day (2026) Morrissey remains a divisive, indeed "controversial" figure. the latter has been the case for pretty much his whole career, however. many are those that loved The Smiths, indeed (arguably) also the first few years of his solo career, only to tune out when the perception of his (forever "outspoken") views lurched to nationalistic and, unexpectedly for a man who wrote (and was questioned by the police about) Margaret On The Guillotine, somewhat right wing. although by all accounts he does get quite cross if you say to him that he is a "right winger", as he does not see himself as such at all. for me the appeal of The Smiths and then Morrissey was genius, brilliant lyrics, awesome music and his lack of fear in speaking his mind. there has never been a sense of needing to agree with what he uses the third for to appreciate the first to. as an example of this, well, for his most longstanding expressed view no, i am not vegetarian.
so is it any good? well, it's not bad as such. there's a few really good songs, with one in particular being musically excellent yet featuring the most "controversial" set of lyrics. more on that as we go. picking the default (or if you will ostensible) worst track it's very easily the cover of Amazona off of Roxy Music. i am sure he had reason and intention for doing it, alas the end product is kind of plodding, repetitive and, predictably enough from that, dull.
the one i wish to love (and in essence do) but possibly can't due to some "controversy" is Notre Dame. it is the musical sound of it which captivates me so, being a most stylish, 80s style soundtrack landscape. lyrically it appears not to be the outright statement many have claimed it is, believing it states exactly who(m) Morrissey believes was responsible for the Notre Dame fire, but rather questioning just how quickly it was announced "no no this was an accident, no terrorism, nothing to see here". whilst not really a question i would have asked it is not an unfair one, but with perceptions of the person asking being what they are, well here we are.
easily the "safer" song to say is a favourite, then, would be Lester Bangs, which is indeed a homage, an ode or just flat out love letter to the celebrated rock journalist of that name. sure, or in a sense true, is it so that the world wonders if it needs another such tribute with one existing in the form of the film Almost Famous. yes, as it turns out, for the song features Morrissey at his self-depreciating best. musically and lyrically it's brilliant, and if you were wondering is there a present day Morrissey song you can give a spin to "safely", then this is probably it.
reassuringly Morrissey still sounds very much like Morrissey. one may find that a strange thing to celebrate or to clutch to, but it feels like it is coming to be ever important. listen, for instance, to the recent "surprise" return of U2, where one has to be told yes, actually, that is Bono singing, that is what he sounds like now. oddly both singers (and neither would care for being referenced with the other, i know) have had well documented if not fully revealed medical "scares", yet the vocals of Morrissey would appear to have escaped damage.
quite possible (or probably) that i am reading too much into one song, which would be the closing one, The Monsters Of Pig Alley. yet it is so that Morrissey (very much) has used the last (or intended last) song on albums to address anything in particular out there concerning him in a "covertly direct" way, if that makes sense. this was most famously done on Speedway off of Vauxhall & I, and absolutely most infamously on Sorrow Will Come In The End off of (the generally disappointing) Maladjusted, with that song being considered "legally threatening" and thus initially removed from the UK release.
what do i think (note think) Morrissey is responding to here? there's been one or two songs of late about him, oddly, with one being Dear Stephen off of the Manic Street Preachers on their last (for now) album. my suspicion is that The Monsters Of Pig Alley is, at least in part, a reference to that. essentially much of the Manics song is Nicky Wire asking Morrissey to be the Morrissey he remembers or at the least the one not so "divisive". and here we have the lyrics "why don't you give it a rest and come back home? we're drab and we moan but we're all your own and we love you". all i really have to link the two is the further lyric, which cannot be accidental, "we're overweight and dated", which sounds very much to me like a direct reference to the "overweight and out of date" line from Elvis Impersonator Blackpool Pier. could well be reading too much into it.
not a masterpiece, then, but Make Up Is A Lie has been a decent few listens. it shall remain the case that if i fancy playing some Morrissey my choice of tapes (discs) will be, in this order, Vauxhall & I, Your Arsenal or You Are The Quarry. or maybe just any compilation or what have you with Last Of The Famous International Playboys on it.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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