Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Smiths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smiths. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2026
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Monday, July 17, 2023
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Friday, March 20, 2020
Monday, May 27, 2019
Morrissey – California Son – Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2019/05/27/morrissey-california-son-album-review/
Monday, November 5, 2018
My Gateway to The Smiths
Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/11/05/my-gateway-to-the-smiths/
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Morrissey – 3Arena – Live Review – 20-02-18
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/02/21/morrissey-3arena-live-review-20-02-18/
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Morrissey – Low In High School – Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/11/22/morrissey-low-in-high-school-album-review/
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Album Review: Morrissey – Your Arsenal
Some return to form for Morrissey. Previous album Kill Uncle seemed laboured and
he seemed in danger of becoming irrelevant in the 90s. 1992 saw him re-emerge with a new band and
shiny new Mick Ronson-produced album Your Arsenal. It literally roars out of the traps with the
rollicking You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side. Lyrically he’s right back on song with the
sarcastic “here I am... well you don’t have to look so pleased”. GLAMorous Glue is a total glam stomp. Never before had Morrissey strutted his way
so definitely through a song as he crooned “London is DEAD! London is DEAD!” Similarly Certain People I Know echoes T.
Rex’s Ride A White Swan.
A breather then for We’ll Let You Know, moodier territory on
the subject of football hooliganism. It
becomes more defiant towards the end when the band picks up steam, Morrissey
singing “we may seem cold or we may even be the most depressing people you’ll
ever know”. He got a lot of flack for
seeming ambivalence to this and racism in National Front Disco (“England for
the English”).
The classicly-titled We Hate It When Our Friends Become
Successful (“and if they’re northern that makes it even worse”) also contains
wonderful jangly guitar. Downtempo
moments are not forgotten on this album.
Seasick, Yet Still Docked is the latest in a line of moody Morrissey
moments, dating back to Pretty Girls Make Graves, while I Know It’s Gonna
Happen Someday is one of his cleverest moments.
It’s a homage to David Bowie’s Rock n Roll Suicide, with the coda
overtly imitating Bowie’s coda.
Final track Tomorrow sees Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte’s
guitars combine to great effect. It’s a
superb collection of songs, and one of Morrissey’s finest albums.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
The death of a disco walkman
My reaction to Sony’s announcement this week that they are ceasing production of the cassette Walkman was one of surprise. Surprised that they are still making the damn things! Moreover, who, other than ‘retro-geeks’ is buying them in this age of the ipod, mp3 player etc??
I have chequered memories of my own experience of the Walkman. I’m not sure I ever had a Sony Walkman. My first walkman was a cheaper imitation, a sort of ‘no name’ walkman. Or personal stereo, to be strictly accurate. It had large-ish, ‘over-ear’ headphones and took 4 x AA batteries. As you can see above, a designer’s dream. They were quite clunky, generally too big for a pocket. Many’s the jacket pocket I ripped trying to wedge it in.
The headphones were seldom good quality. After a time, usually one headphone would stop working. This sometimes gave a whole new sound to older music, memorably the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar, where I lost the saxophone side, so just had Keith Richard’s dirty guitar riff. I always liked hearing it that way. For other albums, a strategically placed finger resting beside the headphone jack would allow stereo sound to resume for the most part.
The cheap nature of the headphones led to serious leakage, ie on a bus journey the whole bus would hear a tinny version of whatever you were listening to. My brother used to be quite disdainful of whatever nonsense he would inadvertently hear spewing put of my headphones when we got the bus to school. Still it wasn’t as bad as the guy with the crimped hair who used to get the same bus who used to listen to P0rn0gr@phy by The Cure every day, at the same point. Thus you’d hear him coming, announced by the dismal riff of One Hundred Years and Robert Smith groaning out “it doesn’t matter if we all die” (and I like The Cure!).
Batteries were a huge issue. As I said my first walkman took 4 of them. Not to put too fine a point on it, it ate batteries. Particularly fast-forwarding a tape (cassette) used up a lot of batteries. Early versions had no rewind button, so if you wanted to go back, you had to turn over the tape and fast-forward, guessing the point in the tape that you wanted to hit. On the other hand, this difficulty meant that you really listened to an album, with no option to skip tracks, and those lovingly assembled tapes became the soundtrack to growing up.
One of the ways of getting around the battery eating problem was to spend a dull class winding the reels of tape with a pen. Or another way was to carry around a ‘fast-forwarding set of batteries’, ie. batteries which were almost used up. This was because when your batteries started running down, the tape would play slooowwwer, with unintentionally hilarious results (everything sounded goth!). Later versions only needed 2 batteries, a major leap forward.
There was a certain art to avoiding having to fast forward on a walkman, you had to make sure that every minute of your C60, C90 or even C120 tape was full of music. The ideal was to have a 45 minute album on each side of a C90. Invariably I ended up carrying around 4-5 tapes with me at all times. Several variants were launched, I seem to remember a Walkman Sports, which was distinguished by having curved edges and being yellow. Very sporty.
It was revolutionary though at the time, being able to hear your music on the go. It brightened up a dull bus-ride and blazed a trail for the mp3 players of today. Other versions had a radio as well as tape player. Some tried to listen to music in class, courtesy of a single headphone up a sleeve! In later years, the CD walkman (of Discman) was launched. I never really took to it, as CDs are not the most portable things and one CD was seldom enough.
So long, walkman, you served me well. After all how many other devices were immortalised in song by Morrissey (“as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her walkman started to melt” – Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths).
I have chequered memories of my own experience of the Walkman. I’m not sure I ever had a Sony Walkman. My first walkman was a cheaper imitation, a sort of ‘no name’ walkman. Or personal stereo, to be strictly accurate. It had large-ish, ‘over-ear’ headphones and took 4 x AA batteries. As you can see above, a designer’s dream. They were quite clunky, generally too big for a pocket. Many’s the jacket pocket I ripped trying to wedge it in.
The headphones were seldom good quality. After a time, usually one headphone would stop working. This sometimes gave a whole new sound to older music, memorably the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar, where I lost the saxophone side, so just had Keith Richard’s dirty guitar riff. I always liked hearing it that way. For other albums, a strategically placed finger resting beside the headphone jack would allow stereo sound to resume for the most part.
The cheap nature of the headphones led to serious leakage, ie on a bus journey the whole bus would hear a tinny version of whatever you were listening to. My brother used to be quite disdainful of whatever nonsense he would inadvertently hear spewing put of my headphones when we got the bus to school. Still it wasn’t as bad as the guy with the crimped hair who used to get the same bus who used to listen to P0rn0gr@phy by The Cure every day, at the same point. Thus you’d hear him coming, announced by the dismal riff of One Hundred Years and Robert Smith groaning out “it doesn’t matter if we all die” (and I like The Cure!).
Batteries were a huge issue. As I said my first walkman took 4 of them. Not to put too fine a point on it, it ate batteries. Particularly fast-forwarding a tape (cassette) used up a lot of batteries. Early versions had no rewind button, so if you wanted to go back, you had to turn over the tape and fast-forward, guessing the point in the tape that you wanted to hit. On the other hand, this difficulty meant that you really listened to an album, with no option to skip tracks, and those lovingly assembled tapes became the soundtrack to growing up.
One of the ways of getting around the battery eating problem was to spend a dull class winding the reels of tape with a pen. Or another way was to carry around a ‘fast-forwarding set of batteries’, ie. batteries which were almost used up. This was because when your batteries started running down, the tape would play slooowwwer, with unintentionally hilarious results (everything sounded goth!). Later versions only needed 2 batteries, a major leap forward.
There was a certain art to avoiding having to fast forward on a walkman, you had to make sure that every minute of your C60, C90 or even C120 tape was full of music. The ideal was to have a 45 minute album on each side of a C90. Invariably I ended up carrying around 4-5 tapes with me at all times. Several variants were launched, I seem to remember a Walkman Sports, which was distinguished by having curved edges and being yellow. Very sporty.
It was revolutionary though at the time, being able to hear your music on the go. It brightened up a dull bus-ride and blazed a trail for the mp3 players of today. Other versions had a radio as well as tape player. Some tried to listen to music in class, courtesy of a single headphone up a sleeve! In later years, the CD walkman (of Discman) was launched. I never really took to it, as CDs are not the most portable things and one CD was seldom enough.
So long, walkman, you served me well. After all how many other devices were immortalised in song by Morrissey (“as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her walkman started to melt” – Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths).
Monday, April 19, 2010
Album Review: Morrissey – Viva Hate
This was Morrissey’s first solo album, released in the aftermath of the Smiths’ split. In these pre-internet days of 1988 I was somewhat taken aback that he had regrouped so quickly and was a little worried about the quality of the writing.
I needn’t have bothered worrying, the album is stronger than it has any right to be. He had been working with erstwhile Smiths producer Stephen Street, and guitar genius Vini Reilly (of Durutti Column). The album kicks off with the heavy Alsatian Cousin, which followed on nicely from heavier Smiths tracks like I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish. There is some wonderful imagery here – “leather elbows on a tweed coat, oh is THAT the best you can do?” After the vaguely Spanish sounding ode to a forgotten TV star Little Man, What Now? (Morrissey loves to throw in commas in his song titles!) came one of his most popular and enduring singles, Everyday Is Like Sunday, with soaring strings and an uplifting melody, sort of in the vein of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.
Bengali in Platforms was criticised at the time for some semi-racist overtones but the tune itself is pleasant enough, and following track Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together is a pleasing bit of melodrama that some interpreted as an ode to Johnny Marr. Not that Morrissey would ever admit it.
Album centrepiece Late Night, Maudlin Street is a seven minute epic tale of growing up, late night brushes with the law, and moving house. It features classic self-loathing Morrissey lyrics (“when the world’s ugliest boy became what you see, here I am, the ugliest man”, amongst many others) and some lovely piano (Street) and guitar touches from Reilly. When this was released, I actually was “moving house” and did feel like “a half-life was disappearing.”
After the poppy single Suedehead the album takes a bit of a dip in quality. Break Up the Family is quite pleasing though with some nice guitar over some bongos and a great vocal performance by Morrissey. Here shades of optimism take over in the lyrics – “I’m so glad to grow older, to move away from those darker years.” The next 2 tracks are comparably weak, The Ordinary Boys being a piano-led song without a very good tune basically, while I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me is basically a watered down version of the Smiths’ You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby.
Dial-A-Cliché is great, with some lovely guitar lines and a nice bit of French horn, while closing track Margaret On the Guillotine brings Morrissey’s loathing of Thatcher to its logical conclusion. It’s a simple enough tune and lyrics that leave nothing to the imagination (“when will you die”). The song continues for a bit with some nice guitar touches before ending abruptly with the aforementioned guillotine.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Album Review: The Smiths – The World Won’t Listen
How to review an album I’ve been listening to on and off for 23 years?? This odds and sods collection of songs was most welcome in 1987. A bit like “Hatful of Hollow 2”, it was a collection of non-album singles, B-sides, some album tracks and one new song.
It started off with 2 of the Smiths more commercial singles, Panic and Ask. Panic had become an unlikely hit the summer before, indeed, its Dublin reference in the lyrics had made it one of the first Smiths songs that people didn’t call “depressing”. It’s a kind of stomping, glammy anthem which zips along in less than 2 and a half minutes. Ask, which follows is one of the Smiths’ weaker singles with a fairly bog standard Morrissey tune, though it features nice jangly guitar from Johnny Marr.
London is one of Morrissey’s “leaving home and heading to the big smoke” songs. Lyrically it’s right on the money, with lines like “and you think they’re sad because you’re leaving, but did you see the jealousy in the eyes of the ones who had to stay behind.” Musically it’s a very fast song, which speeds up even more towards the end. Many of the songs are less than 3 minutes long, and quite fast in tempo, so the album flies along.
The rest of the first “side” of the album features mainly album and non-album singles, but the heart of the album is after this when we get to the B-sides. The Smiths’ singles were always worth buying, more so than any other band of the era as some of their strongest songs were on the B-side. Asleep is a wintry ballad, which sounds as morbid as Morrissey gets, over a simple piano tune, with some studio trickery creating a howling wind. Unloveable follows, a classic Morrissey self-loathing ballad. Check out these lyrics: “I know I’m unloveable, you don’t have to tell me” or “I wear black on the outside cos black is how I feel on the inside”. Some would base their ideals for living around these throwaway lyrics. The music itself is relatively simple, a descending guitar line with plenty of room for Morrissey to sing the aforementioned lyrics.
The next track, Half a Person is even better. Marr’s guitar playing on this one is quite wonderful, and Morrissey’s vocals sound great, without an ounce of strain on them. The song borrows a little from the Velvet Underground’s “That’s the Story of My Life”, but the Smiths put their own twist on it to create an absolute classic… “if you have 5 seconds to spare.”
Stretch Out and Wait follows, another superb slowish song . Marr chooses a great set of chord changes, which I haven’t heard anywhere else, and the melody is quite unusual also. Lyrically, Morrissey’s very much on ‘home ground’ (“will the world end in the night time I really don’t know”).
The one completely new song here is You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby, which is kind of like the great lost Smiths single. The tune is bright and upbeat, and it sounds like it would have been a hit. Once more Marr excels himself on guitar.
Listening to this album it’s hard to review these songs, as most of them are completely imprinted on my brain. However it would be wrong to ignore this album for that reason. Final track Rubber Ring, says it all: “don’t forget the songs that made you smile, and the songs that saved your life.”
It started off with 2 of the Smiths more commercial singles, Panic and Ask. Panic had become an unlikely hit the summer before, indeed, its Dublin reference in the lyrics had made it one of the first Smiths songs that people didn’t call “depressing”. It’s a kind of stomping, glammy anthem which zips along in less than 2 and a half minutes. Ask, which follows is one of the Smiths’ weaker singles with a fairly bog standard Morrissey tune, though it features nice jangly guitar from Johnny Marr.
London is one of Morrissey’s “leaving home and heading to the big smoke” songs. Lyrically it’s right on the money, with lines like “and you think they’re sad because you’re leaving, but did you see the jealousy in the eyes of the ones who had to stay behind.” Musically it’s a very fast song, which speeds up even more towards the end. Many of the songs are less than 3 minutes long, and quite fast in tempo, so the album flies along.
The rest of the first “side” of the album features mainly album and non-album singles, but the heart of the album is after this when we get to the B-sides. The Smiths’ singles were always worth buying, more so than any other band of the era as some of their strongest songs were on the B-side. Asleep is a wintry ballad, which sounds as morbid as Morrissey gets, over a simple piano tune, with some studio trickery creating a howling wind. Unloveable follows, a classic Morrissey self-loathing ballad. Check out these lyrics: “I know I’m unloveable, you don’t have to tell me” or “I wear black on the outside cos black is how I feel on the inside”. Some would base their ideals for living around these throwaway lyrics. The music itself is relatively simple, a descending guitar line with plenty of room for Morrissey to sing the aforementioned lyrics.
The next track, Half a Person is even better. Marr’s guitar playing on this one is quite wonderful, and Morrissey’s vocals sound great, without an ounce of strain on them. The song borrows a little from the Velvet Underground’s “That’s the Story of My Life”, but the Smiths put their own twist on it to create an absolute classic… “if you have 5 seconds to spare.”
Stretch Out and Wait follows, another superb slowish song . Marr chooses a great set of chord changes, which I haven’t heard anywhere else, and the melody is quite unusual also. Lyrically, Morrissey’s very much on ‘home ground’ (“will the world end in the night time I really don’t know”).
The one completely new song here is You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby, which is kind of like the great lost Smiths single. The tune is bright and upbeat, and it sounds like it would have been a hit. Once more Marr excels himself on guitar.
Listening to this album it’s hard to review these songs, as most of them are completely imprinted on my brain. However it would be wrong to ignore this album for that reason. Final track Rubber Ring, says it all: “don’t forget the songs that made you smile, and the songs that saved your life.”
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