“The British music press is an art form”
- Morrissey, Sounds, June 1983
"I grew up a chanting believer in the New Musical Express.... deep in the magazine's empirical history, the New Musical Express was a propelling force that answered to no one. It led the way by the quality of its writers - Paul Morley, Julie Burchill, Paul du Noyer, Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent, Ian Penman, Miles - who would write more words than the articles demanded, and whose views saved some of us, and who pulled us all away from the electrifying boredom of everything and anything that represented the industry. As a consequence the chanting believers of the NME could not bear to miss a single issue; the torrential fluency of its writers left almost no space between words, and the NME became a culture in itself, whereas Melody Maker or Sounds just didn't.
"The wit imitated by the 90s understudies of Morley and Burchill assumed nastiness to be greatness, and were thus rewarded. But nastiness isn't wit and no writers from the 90s NME survive. Even with sarcasm, irony and innuendo there is an art, of sorts.
"It is on the backs of writers such as Morley, Burchill, Kent and Shaar Murray that the 'new' NME hitches its mule-cart"
- Morrissey, not so long ago
Morrissey's own music journalism
I had read that he contributed to Record Mirror under the nom de plume Sheridan Whitehead, but here are some reviews under his own name. He also "contributed" by writing to the letters page of NME incessantly, mostly about New York Dolls. (About whom he also penned a fan bio published as a short book).
One oddity I gleaned from an interview with Smiths-era Morrissey was that one of his great delights was going for day trips to provincial British towns (he mentioned a specific affection for Carlisle).
ReplyDeleteWhen the interviewer asked whether he was ever hassled doing this, he answered "Oh no, you wouldn't recognise me."
So I've always been intrigued how Moz disguised himself on his train trips. I like to think that he dressed up as an Iron Maiden fan, or something. May be still does this even now.
Does anyone else find it a shock to the system to remember that Tracey Ullman had a music career? Mind, I still find it astonishing that she found success as a comedian.
ReplyDelete"Romping travesty", "sillified charade", "The Cramps are the most beautiful group I've ever seen", "grossly unmusical", "one would hear more vocal passion from an ape under anesthetic", etc. These reviews might prompt one to remember, when considering some of his public remarks, that Morrissey's standard mode of speech is florid hyperbole. Surely he took to heart that quip of Wilde's, "Only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood" (although he's certainly paying the price now).
ReplyDeleteMorrissey also wrote a longer piece about Sandie Shaw in the Christmas 1983 issue of Sounds, in which he gushed that Shaw had made "a litter of the most vital and inspirational singles ever produced in the history of popular music".
Oh: John Peel said he once met Morrissey at a service station just south of Newcastle and was bemused when the singer told him it was "his favorite motorway services". Maybe he was off on one of his day trips.
Which Smiths tune has the line about “lost my bag at Newport Pagnell”? That is a gloriously specific detail.
DeleteOn that very review page, he chides Lloyd Cole for thinking that Baltimore has more literary merit than Chapel-en-le-Frith.
DeleteChapel-en-le-Frith!
The entire lyric of "Panic" pretty much is a list of provincial regional towns of the U.K.
DeleteThe fact that he would go to these sort of places on a day trip - the sort of town that would be the backdrop of a Alan Bennett play - indicates that he's a connoisseur of the cramped, the peripheral. For whatever reasons he couldn't get enough of that damp melancholy fadedness, almost like he had to stock up on the vibe, imbibe it, refuel his sensibility, in order to come up with the lyrics and the mood for "Everyday Is Like Sunday" or "Late Night Maudlin Street".
DeleteBut then again - contrary to type, in a complete reversal - he moves to Los Angeles, where 90 percent of the year it's like like a perfect rain-less blue skyed summer day in England, not even too hot or humid - and most of the buildings were built from the mid-century onwards. Nothing further from Newport Pagnell or Chapel-en-le-Frith imaginable.
Strongly disagree on that. Small town England is (or was) generally a very nice place. I have often been surprised when visiting somewhere supposedly provincial and "off the map" that it is surprisingly attractive. Usually also very friendly.
DeleteThink there has been a big drop-off since the Global Financial Crash in particular, but recently I was looking at some of the photos my Mum and Dad took on their occasional day trips in the early 2000's, and the England of the time looked absolutely paradisiacal .
Now wondering if my parents ever met Morrissey.
DeleteIt's interesting to say "contrary to type", because that "type" only fit him until the mid-90s. I lived in LA while he was there and friends reported plenty of sightings of a man who, if not quite out on the town imitating Jim Morrison, certainly seemed happy to deviate from his outworn image as a melancholic shut-in.
DeleteEvidently he's changed quite a bit, and a long time ago-- for the better? Well...
Obligatory repost of the BBC talk show where Morrissey talks about Joy Division / New Order and reveals he has nothing interesting to say, while George Michael has a sincere and thoughtful appreciation:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/Vj3HOklzUTo?si=KE_BPpvegp4aKgFU
Funny to see Paul Morley catching strays, too.
That video is astonishing. In that clip, Michael's judgment is so much sounder than Morrissey's. Having said that, Morrissey's critical apparatus may have been fogged by the rivalry between the two groups.
Delete"Is It Really So Strange?" is the Smiths song that namechecks Newport Pagnell.
Yes! To quote the Gospel according to Mark: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
DeleteThanks for locating that reference, too.
DeleteRecently voted one of the worst service stations in the UK: https://www.mkfm.com/news/local-news/newport-pagnell-services-named-one-of-worst-in-the-uk/
George is so much sharper than Moz in that review show, it retrospectively made me warm to him much more than at the time - not having cared for his output then, on the whole, apart from those first fab two Wham! singles.
DeleteI agree, Simon, that one clip made me re-think my anti-George stance. A lot of his complaining about the music industry, late in his career, rings differently. Perhaps he really was a victim of the pop machine in some ways.
DeleteOn the other hand, if the YT clip reveals what kind of person Michael might've been like underneath the MTV imagery, it only reinforces the original criticism, which is that Wham! were closer to a grotesque marketing concoction than a group.
Michael is like Elton John - an omnivorously passionate fan of pop music, first and foremost. Whether and how often that translates to their own work is a matter of personal taste and debate, but you can't doubt their bone-deep sincerity
DeleteMy take is that George Michael's view of his music was remarkably different to the view of his fans. He thought he was the white, English Prince; his fans thought he was the bloke from Wham! who did fun, cheeky, sexy ditties. Take Faith, for instance. George meant it as a declaration of independence, yet his fans never got beyond the opening lyrics about wanting to touch each other's bodies.
DeleteIndeed, the most obvious sign of this disparity was when George had to come out after propositioning an undercover cop; his fanbase was deeply shocked: they had no idea that George was still in the closet.